[BlueWater]

Early stages of my tank, my snails and crabs were ripped to shreds.
Couldn't figure out what was picking them apart and eating them. So
someone said it might be a hitchhiker Mantis Shrimp.

Anyway, So I dunked all my live rock into fresh water for about a min
each to see what comes off of it. (someone recommended its a good
way to flush out Mantis)

So... didn't find a Mantis, but I found this.


Now, as I looked at my tank tonight, I saw another one of these
crawling around the rock. The Antennae are REALLY long.

Any ideas?

thnx

[Biomanjcs72]

Dude, I think that's one of tose alien larvae from the movie, be careful, it might jump at your face Seriously, I have no idea, if it's small, its a cope, or other similar critter, but if it's big, I have no clue other than "bug"

[icemark]

its hard to tell, but i don't think that it is a mantis either, here is a pic of mantis larva:




There is a little resemblance... so maybe some creature.

BTW: Hypersalinity (1.03+sg) usually works better for getting a mantis out.

[hcp28]

It doesn't look like a mantis larvae to me either looks like a coepod. Anyways for future reference you should not do freshwater dips to drive critters out of your LR, unless you want to kill everything on your LR which in that case a freshwater dip is okay, but you will want to do a high salinity dip next time around. If you ever decided to do it again that is, use a salinity of about 1.031 or higher that should drive most inverts from your rocks and still keep the beneficial bacteria and other things living on your rock alive. HTH

Henry