Yeah..... From my main build thread.

Lets be careful about talking up my patience too much just yet --It's a lot easier to say I won't easier to be patenient now than it is on month 4 or 5 without adding anything. And then at least a year for the sand bed to mature before adding the sea grass.

All i'm saying is don't be surprised if i'm starting a nano in a few months.
So I didn't quite make it to the "few months" mark before starting a new tank --I didn't even make it a week.

This is going to be a low budget tank, mainly built out of spare parts I had lying around the house.

The tank is going to be a standard 10 gallon aquarium with about a 2 inch deep sand bed capped with live rock rubble. (For the mantis to construct it's burrow with.)

LIghting is going to be a minimal as possible --Has anyone here tried to grow macro algae with just two compact fluorescents?

The aquascape as a whole is going to be pretty minimal, I'm probably going to have a total of two or three small-ish pieces of liverock and a few different strains of macro algae for nutrient up take and thats it.

Since nitrates aren't really an issue for the tank the primary filtration will be from a Marine land canister filter. As long as I stay below 50ppm nitrate it should be fine.



I'm going to try to get one of these three mantis shrimp, unfortantly finding a specific mantis other than N. wennerae or a Peacock can be fairly difficult.

My number 1 choice is Odontodactylus havanensis. This one's a smasher.




[All of these pictures were taken by Dr. Roy Caldwell]

Choice Number 2 is Pseudosquilla ciliata. This one is a spearer.





Choice number 3 is Neogonodactylus wennerae