[Fcamdog]

I have started to see more people keeping mantis shrimp and wanted to see if there were any people on thsi board that kept mantis shrimp? I am enthralled with their behavior now and find keeping one in it's own aquarium just as fun as my reef tank. I also found that it is an excellent reason to set-up another 20g with smaller stuff and then the mantis being the showcase animal. The smaller variety pose no real threat of a glass breaking and are awesome to watch as they stalk crabs. Being in Hawaii I have no worries about my crab population getting depleted, they only eat the blue-eyed crabs, a very common variety here that they also use as their staple in the wild, and leave my turbo snails and regular shrimps alone. All in all I think they rock as pet, just like keeping any other predator and was curious to see if there were any more like me out here.

[Mikeman]

from what I've seen they look really pretty, but alass no more room for another tank. you might want to check out reefcentral if you haven't already as they have a forum for keeping them.

[ravenmore]

believe it or not I've heard of one or 2 living peacefully in a reef tank. I think Dr. Shimek mentioned one time in his forum (or maybe it was Eric Borneman....) that he suspected a lot of species of stomatopods do a lot of scavenging for food instead of predation. Seems like an awful big chance to take.....the one or 2 instances of this I seem to recall (heard about it on boards somewhere) the shrimp were discovered after they had been there some time and they had not harmed anything.

These are very interesting animals and very INTELLIGENT animals. They also have one of the fastest recorded movements known in the animal kingdom and they perform it in the denser medium of sea water. There eyes are amazing also - they have 16 receptors for percieving color (we have 3 cones - by comparison). They can see colors and wavelengths way beyound our visual range.

Here is a GREAT link for 'em (I got a lot of the above info from reading this site)

http://www.blueboard.com/mantis/

Some of them have beautiful colors/patterns and have been know to fetch prices in the hundreds of dollars. And hey, they aren't picky about what they eat and can tolerate a broad range of water quality.

hth,
-Mike

[Jimmy00]

I have had a mantis living in my reef since Feb of this year (Not by choice though). So far, no problems. I tried on several occasions to try to trap/catch him with no luck. Once I chased him from rock to rock, trying to pull the LR he was in out of the tank, and every time he would exit the LR before I got it out of the tank. But over time, I found he was not hunting any of my fish or inverts, so now he is part of the tank. My wife and kids see him on a daily basis, running accross the sand and rocks. He is over 2" now.

Though I would never recommend keeping one in a reef, in my case I'm letting him go and I count my fish every day

And it was Dr. Shimek that kept one for I think 2 yrs before finally removing him from one of his tanks.

Jimmmy

[Bashiba]

I just caught what I think is probably a mantis shrimp that came on a peace of live rock I just purchased. I'm not positive thats what it is but will post a picture tomorrow. I am quickly setting up a ten gallon to put him in. What should I feed him? Will he eat frozen food, or should I put some small blue leg hermits for him, I don't want to get rid of him until I am sure what he is, and am considering keeping him in the small tank if I am right.
Thanks
Bashiba