What The ...what is this thing

Be careful, they have been known to gash fingers open and make people go to the hospital for stitches.

 

Ill take it off your hands

 

So, any luck with the mantis? Jwin has one in a 10 gallon that was a rescue from the LFS - it was tiny when he got it - maybe an inch long, wrapped around a hermit crab. They went into the 10 gallon together. They hermit crab was in there for several months before we found pieces of its shell. It finally got big enough to take out its own tank-mate! Jwin also tried to put a peppermint shrimp in there a few weeks ago to clean up some aiptasia - that lasted about 2 seconds before the mantis took a swipe at it. We rescued the peppermint shrimp and it's happy in my tank now. The mantis ("Princess") still has a damsel tankmate - I guess they're both too mean to take each other out.

Anyway, rambling on here - if you are going to have ANY kind of shrimp, snails, hermit crabs, etc., they won't be around long if the mantis stays. If you do anything with it other than putting it in a 10 gallon to keep, don't tell me!

 

I love mantis shrimp rumors....they get better with every telling

A small mantis shrimp will not break your glass. The "experiment" that showed a mantis breaking glass was done with a huge peacock mantis shrimp in an aquarium with very thin glass. A smashing mantis will not gash your fingers open. It may give your fingers a good smack but gashing you open won't happen. A smashing mantis will not hunt down and eat your fish. Many of us have kept fish in mantis tanks for years with no problems. A spearing mantis might cut you open or eat your fish but they don't live in live rock so they don't come into our tank as hitchhikers. As has been mentioned, the most damage you can expect from this little mantis if you leave it in your tank is that you will lose a few inverts, including your cleaner shrimp. So, trap it and give it away if you want to but if you don't, don't expect Armageddon a-la mantis shrimp. The best advice given about mantis shrimp is by those who have kept them. If a person is not speaking from experience, you can take their advice with a grain of salt.

 

Good info!

 

I love posts like this.

Nowhere did I delineate which of the 2 types of mantis shrimps this could be. Of course a smasher usually won't hurt your hand, but without being able to tell what kind of mantis it is, I figured a bit of warning would be a good idea. I think it was pretty clear that the OP had no idea what he had, and is a fairly new reef keeper. Smashers may not typically do much more than whack your finger, but this is a wild animal, so I would never imperatively say that it won't hurt you.

Also, just because spearing mantis' do not typically live in LR, or come in LR as hitchhikers does not mean that one would not ever do that.

Erring on the side of caution never is a bad idea, grain of salt or not.;D

 

Nice looking tank!