Why are mants and pistol shrimp so bad?
 

Hi can someone please tell me why it is bad to have pistol or mantis shrimp in your tank? What do they do?

Thanks in advance
Mike :fish1:

I have heard of mantis shrimp breaking glass...(rare)

Pistol shrimp are not bad. They burrow in your substrate, and eat pods. They mix up your substrate.

Mantis shrimp are predators. When small, they eat pods, worms. Then, they get larger. When larger, they begin to go after feather duster worms, barnacles, hermits, crabs, other shrimp, snails, etc. When they get quite large (depending on the type of mantis), they may well go after your fish for food.

Mantis shrimp have a nasty reputation they can break glass shatter your tank they can cut the hand that feeds them . THUMB SPLITTERS and they can kill that new fish you just got from mom when its sleeping on the sand or rocks at night . They also make a lot of noise at night Banging on the glass or acrylic . Other than that they are beautiful shrimp that can make a cave that entertains for hours if you want to keep them I would recommend checking out the forum on mantis shrimp . Good luck neighbor :beer:

HDtran,

Not trying to incite a riot, you make good points, however,
some would consider the behaviour pistols exhibit "bad" for sure. Their digging can upset the lower strata of your deep sand bed which can potentially realease toxins into the water and/or cause nitrate spikes. They not only eat pods but microstars, small shrimps, small snails and bristle worms apparently; creatures that are an integral part of a healthy system. All in all, I have mixed feelings about them for reef tanks (I did introduce five of the buggers purposely into my 40 long....looks like that was a mistake!). I do like hearing them "pop" occasionally but seeing them is so uncommon, I have to rely on the sound to tell me that they are still alive.

Spot on with Mantis, they can be a danger to many other tank inhabitants (even your hands) as they grow larger. I think some of the larger species reach at least a foot too!!!! We have all heard the breaking glass/acrylic story however its always "I heard this guy who knows a guy".....not that reliable. It COULD happen though? Who knows the real story and can back it up with pics?

To answer the Question about Mantis shrimp breaking glass I believe the story originated from a laboratory. I saw it on the Discovery Channel that while studying the power of a Mantis's strike through pressure monitors and what not that it had the power to break a pane of glass, not so much that it has broken a pane of glass. Either way there are to many bad issues with mantis's that I don't want one

I enjoy my pistol shrimp! Yes, it will sift through all of your substrate! I get little clouds when he's in an excavating frenzy! Him and the pair of watchman gobies that live with him, have managed to tunnel and stake their claim to about a third of my tank bottom. The shrimp keeps the substrate nice and clean, while the other 2/3 of my tank bottom have all the critters in it. Although, because of this, I really really need a protein skimmer, because he does cause some pretty good snowstorms. For the longest time I couldnt figure out why my light timers were clicking wayyy too often, until I realized it was the pistol shrimp.

fwiw, i saw a post somewhere on RC that had a video of a mantis breaking the glass of a tank... i could not download it though so i do not know if it was real. Anyone interested could do a search, it can't be that hard to find, it was in the last 2 months.

Anyone got pics of a Mantis. And if you are ordering live rock, how can you insure that if you have a mantis you can get it out? They might be hiding in the crevices or something so it might be too late before you put the rock in?

Is it safer to just do a freshwater dip or high salinity (1.30) dip to insure the mantis is gone?

I think most people do the high salinity dip (if not, they should lol). It is somewhat less destructive to the life on the rock you want to save. The freshwater kills almost everything pretty quickly!!!! BTW, 1.030 isnt that high, my tank occasionally taps that during the summer when I cant keep up with evaporation. It normally sits at 1.027. I personally use aged saltwater from the tank the rock is going into. I put it into my mixing bucket and then I add enough salt to get the meter to go off the scale (prolly about 1.035), let it sit with a heater and a pump in it overnight and then its ready for getting mantis out. I have found pistols and mantis this way as well as lots of tiny brittle stars (usually kills the stars however) and an occasional rock urchin or hairy crab.

So do they just come out right away? How long do you leave the rock in the high salinity?

they usually do...they pop right out. I wouldnt leave them in the high salinity more than a couple minutes, that even might be too much. IMHO, you can destroy a lot more life going a few extra minutes than most of these bad critters can destroy in their lifetime!!!!