Tiny Shrimp Terrorizes Aquarium
- Thread starter 125gJoe
- Start date
Thanks. It was dumb luck. When you have a fast moving animal and a slow digital camera, it usually doesn't work very well.
A smasher is too dangerous to keep anywhere in your main system. It can easily, yes easily, smash your sump, thus draining the main tank beyond recovery. I'd move him to his own private, isolated tank, ASAP.
On a side note, I think the Mantis Shrimp is one of the most amazing and beautiful of all inverts and deserves to be displayed as a prize specimen.. If you find you can't keep him, please, send me a PM and I'll make him a home.
On a side note, I think the Mantis Shrimp is one of the most amazing and beautiful of all inverts and deserves to be displayed as a prize specimen.. If you find you can't keep him, please, send me a PM and I'll make him a home.
From what I've read, a little guy like mine isn't dangerous yet. Didn't even attempt a smash when I fed it some squid yesterday. Just grabbed it from the tweezers and ran back into his tube.
I completely agree. Found another one as well. Already have a taker for it. People love these guys.
Corax said:
You're kidding, right? Can a thumb-splitter punch thru an acrylic sump?
Don't get me wrong, I am in awe of shrimp... I own dozens of amanos and cherries, and used to own M. Lahs, the freshwater super-scavenger. I'm just surprised that anything with an exoskeleton can deliver enough force to crack or puncture acrylic.
Depends on the type of tank. I've never heard of one breaking tank acrylic, but know of at least one person who had one in a critter keeper style setup and it broke out. I'm pretty sure they could break acrylic if pushed into repeated assaults on it--afterall, a .22 bullet will go through acrylic easily and it's not an unreasonable comparison.
Here's a great page for more on Mantis: http://blueboard.rimlife.com/mantis/
Here's a great page for more on Mantis: http://blueboard.rimlife.com/mantis/
Is it just me or do people seem all too eager to either discount the mantis or ascribe it super-powers and malevolence?
Can a full-grown smasher break an acrylic tank? Sure, with time and inclination. I'm not sure where it would get the inclination though. These guys have one of the fastest and strongest strikes in the animal kingdom because it's designed to crack open thick calcium carbonate shells and tough exoskeletons. They are also smart enough to get compared to octopi in intelligence so they can tell that the side of a tank isn't food. The only reason I can think of them hitting it is that they want to build a burrow in it. However, since it wouldn't give much at all in the first hit, I'd guess that they'd try some other spot rather than keep banging away to see what happens. A screen, on the other hand, I can see them obliterating just because it's a blockage.
Now, can a baby smasher break a tank? Probably not. An adult can certainly smash glass and could take apart acrylic if the whim especially took it. However, it is pretty unlikely to do so, especially if raised in the tank. If it tried to smash the glass as a baby and couldn't, it seems like it wouldn't bother afterwords. Mantises have been shown to have fairly long term memory, so I suspect it could remember that the side doesn't do anything useful if you hit it.
Can a full-grown smasher break an acrylic tank? Sure, with time and inclination. I'm not sure where it would get the inclination though. These guys have one of the fastest and strongest strikes in the animal kingdom because it's designed to crack open thick calcium carbonate shells and tough exoskeletons. They are also smart enough to get compared to octopi in intelligence so they can tell that the side of a tank isn't food. The only reason I can think of them hitting it is that they want to build a burrow in it. However, since it wouldn't give much at all in the first hit, I'd guess that they'd try some other spot rather than keep banging away to see what happens. A screen, on the other hand, I can see them obliterating just because it's a blockage.
Now, can a baby smasher break a tank? Probably not. An adult can certainly smash glass and could take apart acrylic if the whim especially took it. However, it is pretty unlikely to do so, especially if raised in the tank. If it tried to smash the glass as a baby and couldn't, it seems like it wouldn't bother afterwords. Mantises have been shown to have fairly long term memory, so I suspect it could remember that the side doesn't do anything useful if you hit it.
