Stepho's dual 10g mantis tank. (Mr. Fister)

Hello everyone. In this thread I will be posting pictures/info about my mantis tank system. It is a work in progress and I am constantly changing things so I will keep this updated.

First things first... pictures!



This is the mantis shrimp that resides in the top half of my system... Actually I should call it his system as everything is built around him. His full name is Mr. Kane Fister, but I almost always drop the Kane leaving Mr. Fister (sometimes just "fists"). I swear he actually responds to his name better than my dogs do, sometimes.



The full tank system shot. you can see Mr. Fister in the back left about to climb up the silicone. He goes up there to hide behind the filter. Which scares me because he has gone down the overflow once into the bottom tank where my girlfriends emerald crab lives. It was very scary when I discovered him down there because the stupid emerald crab was going straight at him. This was a very stupid move by the crab... he wouldn't have been the first crab of that size Fister killed easily... I have since fixed it so he can no longer get into the overflow.



Top half! This is where the mantis lives.

I know you dig my dinosaur "blinds" too...




bottom half. This is where the emerald crab lives and most of the live rock. That weird looking PVC thing on the end of the down spout was supposed to trap bubbles. When I first rigged it up I had a lot of bubbles that were splashing water and spraying salt out of the tank. So I built the bubble trap to stop that. After it ran over night I noticed a small amount of foam/skimmate coming out of the top. This got the cogs turning and I think it will become a homemade skimmer soon.


More pictures of the mantis:

 

Very cool idea. Looks good

 

Thanks. It was kind of spawned out of necessity though. I needed to increase flow and improve water quality. You can see in areas I still have some cyano hanging around. My mantis seems to like it a lot more too. I am not sure whether it is the light (he used to have the sump light) or the extra flow. My mantis has been 10000x more active since the tank upgrade. Before I was lucky if I saw him outside of his den once a week, now I see him swimming around all the time.

 

You have a very pretty mantis. Me jeolous The green must have been inspired by the dino blinds...no doubt. Princess is a rusty reddish ish brown "rust" color, and is therefore, not inspired by any dino blinds. Sad day.

 

Very nice system!!!!

 

My girlfriend got it for me last christmas because she complained I don't have any small blankets for watching movies under and such... naturally I tacked it to the window to keep the sunlight away from the tank. ;D

Actually the green fister predates the dino blinds being there. It used to be a open window which is likely responsible for the color change (or the green paint on the walls). Although if you prefer to think he took inspiration from the dinos by all means go ahead.

I think Fister has now been every color N. Wennerae come in.

He started out rusty reddish brown like princess, than I had to relocate his tank and he turned fire truck red, than I brought his tank back into my room with different wall colors/an open window/new tank stand and he turned green.

According to Roy's Stomatopod List I still need to see cream... not looking forward to that!

"Color: Variable, often solid green but brown, brick red or cream, sometimes mottled; like many gonodactyloids, this species changes color depending on habitat color and depth. Animals from below 10 m are often red; shallow animals green or cream. In the aquarium under bright, broad spectrum light, red animals usually turn green after one or two molts; meral spot white."

Thanks!

 

Need some close ups please Stepho - to appreciate the pattern/ coloration

forgive the ignorant question - could they climb out of tanks?

Steve

 

It looks great, Stepho! I hope my son doesn't decide to dig the emerald crab out of the refugium to "play" with Princess....

 

Close ups of the mantis?

Nothing to forgive. I don't believe they can climb out. I have had him for a year now in an open topped tank and he hasn't climbed out. Knock on wood.

 

Nice looking mantis tank.. I would like to have one some day.