tips needed on caring for a clown mantis

[djmc7300]

hi! i MAY be interested in having a clown mantis in a 12g jbj nano cube, but i have no idea how to do this. any suggestions? like size of tank, hardiness, cleaning crew possible w/o it eating them, will it bite ur finger if u move rocks around or something? :lol thnx!

[Alamo]

www.reefcentral.com has a forum on keeping mantis, lots of good stuff in there, also Donny has one as well ....?

[brewercm]

I had one for a while. You don't want to stick your finger in there moving rock around unless you want a really nice puncture or gash. I used to put a long plastic rod (the thing that come with miniblinds to open and close them) by the hole it stayed in so it would attack it. It was pretty interesting to watch it eat, which is whatever it can get.

[brewercm]

BTW, I believe that Donnie feeds his live food like crabs and such. Like Alamo said check out the RC site and see if Donnie jumps in here with some valuable info.

[djmc7300]

u feed it live ghost shrimps? the small or big ones? and how many times a day? they live for a long time?

[blueboy]

a 12 gallon nanocube would be too small for a peacock mantis(the one in the picture) they need something more in the range of a 20L. they also don't like bright light, so no reef lighting. a cleanup crew is going to be a problem, unless you don't mind replacing them often. use a few large hermits with thick shells, they'll last awhile. the mantis only needs to be fed a couple times a week, otherwise you are likely to have water quality problems, which leads to a shell disease in peacocks. small hermits are a good foodsource, i think they have a little more substance than ghost shrimp. i definately would not suggest reaching into the tank, even if you know were the mantis is, they can move very fast(wait till you see it feed). what i used to do was place a rock over his hole, then reach in and quickly do whatever i need to do, then remove the rock, worked for me. you will need a deep sand bed for a peacock, as they are burrowers, and if they burrow to the bottom of the tank, they might just keep going! check out www.grimreefers.com, it's the best online resource i found for mantis info. also i might suggest looking into another species, many are not as colorfull, but much better suited to a small aquarium.

[hammondegge]

where do you plan on getting it?

[djmc7300]

maybe in a couple of weeks or so. what species do u recommend for a 12g nano cube that still is colorful? i tried to look up "donny" in the reef central, but no success. i think i'm not looking rt or something. but they do have a mantis forum i noticed that was interesting.

[brewercm]

Look up don-n-sa, you can PM him and get some info if he's lurking around today.

[djmc7300]

k. that sn sounds more familiar. i'll try to check out his posts. what about the lime grn mantis?

[brewercm]

That was the one that I had, mine was what I believe they called a smasher. There are two types, the smasher and the spearer. Mine would burrow under a rock and would only come out when it was feeding time or on rare occasions you'd see them out and about. I think the nicest one out there is the peackock mantis which looks like from your picture someone has also called it a clown mantis. Pretty much any of them will be in a species only tank because they will most likely try to kill anything they are in with unless they themselves are the prey for the tankmate which means they'll become lunch eventually.