jb61264

After being out of the hobby for a few years, I started back a couple years ago with a 40 breeder that had a 20L for a sump. After going through all the normal steps of cycling my new reef, I placed an order for live rock from Tampa Bay Saltwater. When I received the rock, I was stunned at the amount of life that was on and in the rock. Not only did I have a couple porcelain crabs, but also some brittle stars, feather dusters, and a variety of of life. After marveling at the life in the rock for a few days I began to notice a popping noise coming from the tank and at first I thought something was going wrong with my brand new light...a couple days later to discover that I had a mantis shrimp hitchhiker. I had no idea what these creatures were and posting to some local and other non-local forums I received a barage of apocolyptic messages that my tank was doomed and I needed to get this thing out of my tank as soon as possible. I took the advice of some others and fashioned a trap and was sucessful in removing the mantis shrimp thing (also referred to as a stomatopod) from my tank and put it down in the refugium of my sump.

Naturally I was fascinated and began to do some research. I stumbled upon a website of one of the foremost authorities on stomatopods, Dr. Roy Caldwell of the University of California - Berkeley and learned that there was a stunning variety of different species of stomatopods including mine (Neogonodactylus wennerae) which was about 1 1/2" long all the way up to the Lysiosquillina maculata which can get up to 40cm long!

I also discovered that the mantis shrimp has the most complex eyesight in the animal kingdom and that the movement of the raptorial appendage on the mantis shrimp is the fastest measured movement of any appendage on any animal in the animal kindgdom....amazing....who wouldn't want one of these fascinating creatures in their own living room? I did...so I set out to build a mini-mantis tank that would house my mantis using a 10 gallon tank I had laying around. I cut a piece of acrylic similar to how one might cut one for a baffle in their sump, only I also cut a rectangular "weir" out of it about 1/4 the width of the baffle. I also cut a hole that fit the diameter of a pump I had laying around...added some water I was changing out from my tank....stole a little bit of sand and a couple smaller rocks and there I had it, a mini-mantis tank. I now can enjoy one of the most fascinating creatures in the ocean and what many tried to convince me was a foe, I consider a friend, right in my own living room

Here are a couple pictures of my mini-mantis tank

Side view of tank:


View of the mantis "lair"


Hard to see, but he is in there peeking out