The Mantis is back!

I will take every method that you know of- traps, bait to use, time of day, anything.

 

Ok, lol here we go....

First if you can chase him into a rock small enough to romove from the tank it will make things easier, if this is possible, remove the rock to a bowl or tupperware ( I always use tupperware) with some tank water in it.... if there are no corals on the rock you can try dipping it into fresh water, they will "usually" come scurrying out and can then be easily caught and placed back into salt water..... if this doesn't work you can try and locate exactly where he is in the rock and place exit into the tupper ware with the salt water in it, hold the rock so he can "escape" into the tupper ware, now use a small stick/rod to gently poke towards him, he should move down the rock into the water and eventually out of the rock all together, you may have to slowly pull the rock farther out of the water as you do this, it will also help "coax" him down the burrow in the rock towards the tupper ware.

There are also trap methods if you can't remove the rock he is in or chase him into one you can romove.... more than happy to help errr try an help lol

Let me know if you want/need more ideas or info I'm always willing to help

 

Ugh this thread makes me sick. I had no idea so many 3reef members believed in all those myths about mantis shrimp and think of them as pests and something to kill or get rid of.

For starters, I don't believe you when you say a mantis destroyed your base rock. I've owned 3 mantis in my life, and none have destroyed base rock in their tanks.

Secondly, mantis are NOT tank destroyers. I don't even know how so many people believe that. There's only one mantis (that would be in an aquarium) that could harm the glass on a tank, and that's the Peacock mantis, who grows up to about 6-8" long (some growing more). Only a FULLY GROWN PEACOCK can break aquarium glass, and even then you really have to tick it off, or the glass is chipped or cracked already. And even then, I'd feel comfortable with a fully grown peacock in 3/8" thick glass. My two mantis (one's 2" and the other is about 3.5" long, typical mantis size) couldn't even break my finger, let alone break the glass they're in. And believe me, they've gone after the finger before.

3rd, the mantis is not going to destroy your tank or whatever the heck you guys are blithering about. Mantis only "destroy" one thing, inverts. Your SMALL snails and maybe crabs are the only things in danger. Larger crabs and shrimp will be fine. But, all you have to do to prevent the mantis from eating stuff is to keep him or her well fed. Sure, he may still take a snail every now and then. But that's just a stupid snail.
One of my mantis shrimp lives with a damsel (this damsel has lived with 2 manti so far), an urchin, some nassarius snails, and a birdsnest. He only eats what I put in there for food. My other mantis has turbo snails up to his ears, as well as a brain coral, bubble coral, and torch coral. He doesn't harm anything.

In fact, my LFS has not one, but THREE mantis in their back 300+ gallon display tank. That tank has any coral and fish you could imagine. The mantis only take a few snails every now and then. That LFS actually has at least one mantis in every tank in the store because they hitchhike in so much, and then when customers hear about them having so many mantis, the customers freak out for no reason at all.

Mantis are not harmful like so many people think. I would love to find one in my reef tank, actually. I haven't put one in there because I'm afraid of what our fish and pistol shrimp would do to him, rather than what he'd do to them. I say keep your mantis. Don't waste your time trying to kill him or catch him, because they're alot smarter than anyone would guess. Just feed him and leave him be. He was there first anyways.

Sorry if I come across as rude. I'm just sick and tired of people repeating rumors about mantis that aren't even true. Mantis have a bad reputation that they absolutely don't deserve. I'm sure there will be some more mantis guys like me replying to this thread soon.

 

Hey! I'm with you Jwin, I'm a mantis fan as well..... read back if you would

 

i might as well chime in too. when i finally noticed after a year that i had a mantis. 1st thoughts, this guy needs his own tank. not because he was being destructive, but because i wanted to be abe to enjoy him by himself. i setupo a quick , easy and plain 10 gal tank. nothing special. i also stole jwins, and his moms idea. put a damsel and urchin in there. and his own snack cupboard of snails. IMO, too cool to own a mantis. hope you do the same.

guy

 

Mantis don't destroy tanks. The youtube videos you see are 30 cm peacocks. The hitchhicking mantises are usually much smaller and are probably eating the pods in your tank.

 

Yep. Hitch hiking mantis will only grow to about 3 or 4" long, tops. And it takes them a while to get that long. My first mantis was a hitch hiker, but she died at only about 2". The biggest thing they'd take down would be small hermits or cerith snails, or smaller than that depending on how big or small they are.

I highly urge you to keep the mantis. If you have a refugium, stick him in there if you don't want him in your display tank. If you don't want to keep him, at least be humane to him when you catch him (although it sounds like your first try was dead set on killing him)

I hate to break it to you, but hitch hiking mantis are built to live in alot of places, including tide pools. In tide pools, as the sun comes out, water heats up and evaporates alarmingly quickly, and due to evaporation the mantis lives in very hot water with very high salinity. Then, when the tide comes back in, the water rushes into the pool and is rapidly cooled and the salinity drops drastically. Not only do mantis survive things like this on a daily basis, they frankly don't care. So you can dip rocks in intensely hot water, high salinty water, low salinity water, whatever, and your mantis will probably survive it. That's why your first attempt at getting him out of the rocks didn't work. So basically all you're really doing is killing the good life on and in your rocks, while the thing you're trying to kill is still alive in there.

SO, as a reminder. Be nice to the thing. There are too many mantis lovers on this website for us to sit back and let you kill it.

 

Well, after a long fought battle after work the mantis was removed unharmed and was donated to my LFS so now my watchman and his little friend are in my tank.

And as a point, just because your mantis never destroyed your rocks doesn't mean that it isn't possible. I pulled out a cup of fine rubble dust from my tank after he decided there wasn't enough tunnels for his likings. Because of this experience I will not have a mantis in a reef tank, or a soon-to-be in my case.

 

Congrats!! I'm glad you won the battle!! ( and the mantis is ok lol)

Did they give you a little bit of store cred at least?

 

I wasn't interested in store credit, I just felt safer bringing home my goby and pistol shrimp with him gone. I just gave the mantis to the cashier. He was a tough little bugger to catch, luckly he ran into a rock that was on top of my tank so I didn't have to move much rock. He did grow from >1/2" to about 2" in about 3 weeks or so.