I might have a mantis… how do I find/confirm?

[SaltyArms]

So sitting here tonight, we’re watching a movie and suddenly hear a loud crack from the tank. This is the second time it’s happened in the last month or so. I’ve not seen evidence of one but I did add live rock rubble from TBS in spring. Could it have been really small and grown up now?

I have ZERO experience with this to draw on here. The “crack” sounds like someone snapping a hard piece of plastic or someone throwing a big snap-pop firework.

It freaked me out because I was worried it might have been an electrical short or something. But nothing kicked a breaker or smelled like it let the magic smoke out

How would I attempt to find it to at least verify I don’t have a different/bigger problem, let alone get it out of there.

 

[ti_lavender]

Could be a pistol shrimp as well. I got quite a few of those on my KP Aquatics aquacultured rock.

 

[steveschuerger]

In my experience it’s more likely mantis than pistol as I’ve gotten rock from both places and while I had pistols from KP the TBS rock had a mantis or two but no pistols.

 

[littlefoxx]

Probably a mantis. My mantis is loud when she punches things. My pistol shrimp I used to have was more of a popping sound like the popper fireworks. Leave a big chunk of a meaty food out near the rockwork. Mine comes out and takes it when she thinks Im not watching!

 

[SaltyArms]

Probably a mantis. My mantis is loud when she punches things. My pistol shrimp I used to have was more of a popping sound like the popper fireworks. Leave a big chunk of a meaty food out near the rockwork. Mine comes out and takes it when she thinks Im not watching!

Heh, that's going to be difficult because the chromis and tangs will want to run off with it. Now that I've started looking around, I seem to be missing some decent-sized hermits, too. So I'm guessing it's probably a mantis, and I just need to root it out somehow.

 

[BubblesandSqueak]

Heh, that's going to be difficult because the chromis and tangs will want to run off with it. Now that I've started looking around, I seem to be missing some decent-sized hermits, too. So I'm guessing it's probably a mantis, and I just need to root it out somehow.

I haven't seen mine in a really long time but I hear him still. Once I was able to get a photo but it is really fast.