>>fishiebusiness<<

[ChilDawg]

Can we see some pix of the thumbsplitter, pretty please with (whatever toppings) on top?

[ChilDawg]

I'm also kinda curious as to how to keep one of those things...it seems like it would be neat (and scary as heck in the middle of the night...<SNAP>...what was that???)

[Boogiechillin]

I kept one for a while...easy as can be. Give it a rock with some caves, decent water quality, and some meaty food once a day. Very forgiving for an invertebrate, and some species can get a solid 5-6" with time and care. A LFS in Virginia Beach has a massive 6" peacock mantis that is just beautiful...assuming it didn't take off any fingers when you were feeding it!

[ChilDawg]

Is that the Fish Safari near Lynnhaven Mall? (Yep, used to live in VB...Navy Brat.)

I think that keeping a Mantis Shrimp would be a fun project to be undertaken in the (a little more distant) future...so long as my thumb doesn't get the short end of the food stick. :D

[OrionGirl]

We had one in the overflow on our invert tank, does that count?

Not sure how it got in there from the main tank, but we just left him be for about 6 months. Bright green, very interested in us--it would duck to hide, then sneak back out to watch us watch it. Scary--did have to remove it a few times to clean the sponges. We'd pull the sponge out, and usually dump it into a basin of water. Had to grab it once--used tongs--and man could that thing smack the heck out of those tongs! Would have broken skin, and our little monster was only about 1-2 inches long.

[ChilDawg]

Is there a picture on your site? I wouldn't mind seeing it, nor would I mind taking it off your hands if you ever wanted to send it my way!

[OrionGirl]

Nope--we didn't have the digital camera during the occupation. I tried with my 35mm, but the bugger wouldn't slow down enough for me to take a decent pic. Some time later, he made his way out of the overflow and into the main tank. Since we valued our blood shrimp WAY more than the little monster, we pulled him out and fed him to the lion fish. Sorry! If we get another one, I have a small tank that is probably going to become it's home.

[ChilDawg]

Eh, figured...I'll be looking for those buggers...surprising my roomie next year would be fun!

(How come you keep calling it a lion fish? It's NOT a lion? :))

[ChilDawg]

(I'd just tell the head of Residential Life that he could come remove it bare-handed, if he wanted me to get rid of it! :))

[VoodooChild]

Hey Chil. There's a mantis only forum over at www.Reefcentral.com/ Maybe you could find something there. It seems that mantis folk are like betta people, they're super-hardcore into just mantis and not much else. Oh, and Fish Safari has to be the greatest name ever for a(n?) LFS. I can just picture putting on a Daiktari hat and kahki shorts and running in there.

[OrionGirl]

I personally think "Wetter is Better" is a good LFS name... :D

[ChilDawg]

Originally posted by VoodooChild
Hey Chil. There's a mantis only forum over at www.Reefcentral.com/ Maybe you could find something there. It seems that mantis folk are like betta people, they're super-hardcore into just mantis and not much else. Oh, and Fish Safari has to be the greatest name ever for a(n?) LFS. I can just picture putting on a Daiktari hat and kahki shorts and running in there.

I saw how hardcore they are...:)

I looked in on the forum last night, and found pix of the Mantis in question...big, mean sucker...perfect for keeping against IWU policy (who's gonna try to remove THAT from my room?)

I'd name my LFS after a disease that seems to hit those of us in the hobby--Hole-in-the-Pocket...anyone who didn't quite get that probably wouldn't come in, and I'd end up with people who didn't need to hear that their 10 Oscars and 20 Red Devils need a little bit more than a 2 gallon Eclipse Hex! :)

[VoodooChild]

Lol. Very true. Up here we get alot of the "after church" crowd on Sundays, usually around noon. These are the big families that don't seem to realize that we're a place of business and think that we're a petting zoo. They stop us all the time to hold this or that and really clog up the store. Really drives us nuts. Usually their kids are so loud it would make a howler monkey cringe. After a really bad jam one day in aquatics my manager told me (face red with frustration) that if she ever owned a fish store it'd be called "By Fish or Get the F*** Out!". It's still a running joke today.:)

[ChilDawg]

Been in a store like that, except it was PetSmart on doggie adoption day (that thing that they hold monthly at mine so that the employees can feel better about neglecting the fish...J/K)

Aww, Mommy, I want this one...You can't have it...WAHAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

(Good grief, kid, it's a Pit Bull...you really don't want it!)

The Bettas in cups usually go home in truckloads on that day b/c people want to do their part, and giving the store money ensures a contribution from PetSmart.

I can't navigate the Tropical Fish section b/c all the strange people are there getting fish that their aquaria (cough cough fishbowls cough) could never hold...but this is about Mantis Shrimps, and I wanna see some if anyone on board has them!

(Anyone who's willing to send me a Mantis, give me a PM...I think that I can talk the 'rents and roomie into having one!)

[kreblak]

I wish that you had posted about you wanting a mantis shrimp a week ago! A friend of mine received about 100 LBS of live rock through mail order last month, and after setting it up in his tank (acrylic 125 gallon) he began hearing clicking noises at night. He couldn't figure out what the deal was, so I directed him to the thread that fishiebusiness posted with the creepy pictures of the mantis. Sure enough, after watching the tank for a couple of days, he found a 1.5 inch mantis shrimp rearranging his LR and feasting on inverts within the tank.

He captured it with a QT box loaded with tiger prawn meat, and traded it to the LFS for a cleaner shrimp. I got to see it briefly...it was quite beautiful, but also quite angry!

If you are really interested in mantis shrimp, the Discovery Channel did an hour long feature about them. It airs sometimes on cable, but is also available in the Discovery Channel Store (I'm sure its online as well). I forget the title, but I watched about half of it, and I just remember being awed by the power of the mantis' punch. The feature said that the power of their punch has been measured as equal to the impact of a .22 calibur bullet!

[ChilDawg]

I've been hearing good things about that special...I'll put in an order for it as soon as I get home for the summer and have access to the parents' credit card! (See the halo? I wouldn't do that, I'm an angel! :rolleyes: )

[Boogiechillin]

...belated answer, but yes, it was Fish Safari, I think. Haven't been down that way in a couple of years, but it was a BIG mantis even then...

[ChilDawg]

Originally posted by Boogiechillin
I kept one for a while...easy as can be. Give it a rock with some caves, decent water quality, and some meaty food once a day.

Do their "tanks" need live rock?

What would a water change regimen be?

Did you cycle the tank prior to the introduction of the shrimp?

[Fishiebusiness]

Hey Childawg, sorry I didnt see this post for so long, its finals time and you know how that is. Here's all my pics so far: http://pages.sbcglobal.net/chyu83/mantis/

I keep mine in a 7 gallon minibow with a prizm skimmer. I did cycle my tank before i introduced the shrimp. It was cycled with a hermit crab and a piece of shrimp. I feed mine a small frozen clam or some frozen shrimp every 2 or 3 days. They don't need to be fed everyday from what my professor says. You can give them live ghost shrimp for a show. You want some live rock on top of a sand bed since peacock mantis shrimps escavate their burrows by digging under rocks. For comfortable water quality I would change 20 percent week, or more gallons if skimmerless or feeding a lot. That much water changes will keep nitrates low and avoid the shell disease that O. scyllarus is prone to. Biowheel filters would be good for a mantis tank since they get rid of ammonia quickly. HTH

[ChilDawg]

That is pretty helpful, and I thank you for that.

I know how finals go, so I completely understand, and thank you for responding.

By the by, is your professor the famous Dr. Roy?

I'll be showing this to my roomie, so that he can see what he's in for next year!!!

[Fishiebusiness]

Yep, i was in Dr. Roy's seminar this semester, we only got one class on mantis shrimp, but we did get to see a lot of mantis shrimp in his lab. If you're going to put a mantis shrimp in your dorm room, make sure to put it somewhere dark. If it gets light in the morning around 6 your mantis is going to start digging around and punching rocks and thats not good for your sleep(first hand experience). Mine gets active around 5 am if i dont cover up his aquarium.

[ChilDawg]

Good call...I'll make sure to hide it from the light...otherwise my roomie will be fine (loves early mornings) but I'll be a little miffed at my pet! :)