Safe to Add Small Fishes

[Brisk]

The past week, I found a small mantis in one of the live rocks I got. It is about 1.5" long and green. I placed a bottle trap with frozen shrimp but no luck catching it. About 4 days later, I received an order of CUC and dumped it into the tank on the opposite side of the mantis shrimp. A few moments later, I see another mantis come out scouting the snails. This time it was brown and also 1". I'm not sure if it is the same mantis. It's been 3 days now trying to catch that one too but I haven't seen either of them come out since the initial sighting. Any tips and suggestions on this?

My main question is that I am planning to add a pair of 1.25" clownfishes, will I be fine adding them? Will they be safe with the small mantis? Thank you!

 

[dedragon]

do not add small especially if you arent sure how many mantis shrimp are in there. Just keep using a bottle trap and checking at night to see if they went in

 

[Euphyllia97]

Sorry to say this but If I were you, take out your rocks and treat them. In short… start over. You don’t want to diwcover mantis shrimp in your tank when everything is being set up. This will kill your motivation. Would find another source of live rock if you are planning to put some additional rocks in the future… They might not harm your clownfish straight away but pretty sure as they grow, fish will start to disappear.

 

[Brisk]

Sorry to say this but If I were you, take out your rocks and treat them. In short… start over. You don’t want to diwcover mantis shrimp in your tank when everything is being set up. This will kill your motivation. Would find another source of live rock if you are planning to put some additional rocks in the future… They might not harm your clownfish straight away but pretty sure as they grow, fish will start to disappear.

I was hoping not go that route to remove the rocks because they are glued down.

 

[Fish Fan]

Where did your rocks come from? Did you get maricultured live rock from, for example, Tampa Bay Saltwater or KP Aquatics?

If so, please DO NOT remove and "treat" the rocks. Mantids can be trapped and removed, and you wouldn't want to kill everything else that came in on your expensive rocks ;-) I started two small tanks using rock and sand from TBS, it's awesome stuff, though it can come with some problematic hitchhikers.

I have intentionally kept an N. wennerae mantis (also from TBS) in it's own tank. I don't know where in New York you are, but if we are close and you can trap one of the little spuds, I will gladly take it off your hands.

They are indeed excellent predators, and can and will kill snails, crabs, even fish and other livestock. It might not happen immediately, but it will be just a matter of time. I would not add the Clownfish until you get all the Mantids out.

Best of luck!

 

[Brisk]

Where did your rocks come from? Did you get maricultured live rock from, for example, Tampa Bay Saltwater or KP Aquatics?

If so, please DO NOT remove and "treat" the rocks. Mantids can be trapped and removed, and you wouldn't want to kill everything else that came in on your expensive rocks ;-) I started two small tanks using rock and sand from TBS, it's awesome stuff, though it can come with some problematic hitchhikers.

I have intentionally kept an N. wennerae mantis (also from TBS) in it's own tank. I don't know where in New York you are, but if we are close and you can trap one of the little spuds, I will gladly take it off your hands.

They are indeed excellent predators, and can and will kill snails, crabs, even fish and other livestock. It might not happen immediately, but it will be just a matter of time. I would not add the Clownfish until you get all the Mantids out.

Best of luck!

I got my sand from TBS and live rocks from KPA. I agree they are awesome stuffs. I'm in NYC. You're definitely welcome to them if I can ever catch it (them).

 

[BristleWormHater]

Add a larger mantis shrimp and create a fight club...

 

[Brisk]

Add a larger mantis shrimp and create a fight club...

Will they actually kill each others?

 

[Fish Fan]

I got my sand from TBS and live rocks from KPA. I agree they are awesome stuffs. I'm in NYC. You're definitely welcome to them if I can ever catch it (them).

I thought so about your rocks. Don't do anything drastic, just wait until you can trap the Mantids before adding fish or other livestock.

Will they actually kill each others?

Yes, you will end up with one large Mantis lol!

 

[BristleWormHater]

Will they actually kill each others?

They might fight, but most of the time they won't actually kill each other. Their behavior is really interesting.

 

[Fish Fan]

They might fight, but most of the time they won't actually kill each other. Their behavior is really interesting.

I don't know about this, I believe the largest would win in time, but of course your milage may vary.

 

[Tamberav]

I kept fish with a peacock but it’s always some risk. She had plenty of inverts to hunt and I kept her target fed.

Those little mantis can change colors when molting so possible it’s one but can’t be sure.

 

[BristleWormHater]

I don't know about this, I believe the largest would win in time, but of course your milage may vary.

Their fighting behavior is definitely dependent on the size of the tank I would guess.

 

[Fish Fan]

Their fighting behavior is definitely dependent on the size of the tank I would guess.

I am far from an expert, I'm just taking a guess

 

[BristleWormHater]

I am far from an expert, I'm just taking a guess

Me too

 

[Stomatopods17]

Their tails are designed to literally block hits from other mantis. That's why their armor has been researched at some point for military armor (or was it vehicles? been awhile since that was brought up but cool stuff either way.)

That being said they will fight over cavities. Like a good neighbor they can smell pain in the ### and try to get rid of them.


A large one would probably just crtl-alt-delete a small one and destroy a rock in the process of getting it out of the cavity. If we're specifically looking for a mantis killer, pufferfish are the most efficient but they come with their own risk. 3 Predators come to mind, puffers; cephalopods (cointoss, mantis also hunt them, Peacocks can actually kill blue rings and their abilities to handle the toxins was a mystery for awhile, it was more dangerous for the lab researches to put their hands in the tank after the octo died in the water than it was for the peacock to just eat it), and some large dottybacks. There's obviously more than that like, a grouper or trigger probably, but thinking what has explicitly been known to do it. There's always risk of a mantis injurying a fish trying to and that domino effecting into infection/death later, hence probably not lions or anglers.

I personally remove them via tong feeding them for awhile, and eventually they're very food reception when they smell the food in the water, and can be lured out enough to block their cavity and catch in the open. Best way I'd get mine out in the open just to show off their colors was to just drop a bit of reef roids in the water, they'd crawl around searching for food. This doesn't work usually for the first 2 or so weeks of feeding them frozen. I broke all my turkey basters cause I would just fill it up with some mixed reef roid water so they'd come out, grab on, and wack it for guest.

For keeping fish, its a risk just don't do anything expensive/heart breaking until you get things under control. Fast water column fish are commonly kept with mantis since nowadays there's a lot of experience with more and more owners successfully keeping damsels long term. TBS claims some blennies do well with their N. wenneraes, personally I'd be very reluctant to try that as that sounds like a terrible match on paper but if they're having decently long success periods with that its a bit of a testament how capable they are with getting along with other animals. The main concern would be just keeping them fed cause a hungry mantis is a desperate mantis.

 

[steveschuerger]

I have a mantis in my main 90 gallon display cosmetic some live rock when setting up the upgrade. Has never attacked any fish even my Hectors goby has been fine since I put the tank together last November. Maybe I’m just dumb lucky but aside from partaking of the frozen food I feed the fish/corals it attacks and eats the occasional snail. So yeah it’s plenty well fed. Here’s a quick vid I got of it

 

[Brisk]

Woke up this morning looking at the tank and I see this green thing floating out of the rock. I'm pretty sure this is the green mantis I saw. Does this look like it was chewed up? Is it possible for a bristle worm or something else to have done this? I'm also wondering if the brown mantis moved to its rock and started the fight club.

 

[BristleWormHater]

Woke up this morning looking at the tank and I see this green thing floating out of the rock. I'm pretty sure this is the green mantis I saw. Does this look like it was chewed up? Is it possible for a bristle worm or something else to have done this? I'm also wondering if the brown mantis moved to its rock and started the fight club.

Probably a molt

 

[Brisk]

Probably a molt

Oh