Mantis Molt?

Even as I am typing this I am afraid of the answers I am most likely to recieve. Do mantis shrimp molt? The reason I ask is because maybe about once a week without being too precise I see what appears to be a mantis shell floating around my DT. Im not sure but I have had several hermit and snail deaths I always blame the Fire Shrimp because the remains are usually close to his cave but he could just be cleaning up after they are already dead. The shell is maybe a quarter inch in length right now. If it is a mantis Im screwed I have never seen it just the shell and my tank is almost 10 months old I would never catch it. Somebody tell me its not a mantis

 

Yes, mantis shrimp do molt. Once a week is way too often though. Are you seeing entire molts that often or just bits and pieces? If you're seeing entire molts that often, you most likely have several mantis in the tank because I don't think one mantis could survive weekly molts.

 

Yes all Arthropods molt. If you're wondering who's killing the snails, it's probably the mantis. But, always try to remove the any molts because they break down and release phosphates.

 

A molt once a week that's only 1/4" long? Sounds like an amphipod to me.

Mantis molt, but it's very infrequent, even when they're young. Time between mantis molts would be measured in weeks or months, not days. And a 1/4" mantis stands very little chance against snails and hermits, unless they're small cerith snails. Our smaller mantis wasn't able to take down her hermit buddy until she was about 1" long.

The snail remains outside of a hole sounds like a mantis. But the molts you're seeing sound like an amphipod, a harmless little pod bugger similar to a land pill bug ("rollie pollie") that won't harm anything in the tank. We have amphipods everywhere, as well as smaller copepods. We see amphipod molts floating around quite often and they are only about 1/4" long. So the molts sound like amphipods to me.

Amphipod

 

This is very similar to what I see. Ok Ill just keep my fingers crossed and hope this is what it is. So do you think the Fire Shrimp could be the culprit?

 

Probably mantis molts are a every coupla month afair plus they generally eat thier molt

 

I'm not very familiar with fire shrimp, so I can't really answer that. But I can help you narrow it down to if it's a mantis or not. Do you hear "clicking" or see tons of broken shell pieces outside of a location? You said you saw snail/hermit remains outside of your fireshrimp's spot. Are the shells of the remains whole or broken into chunks? Do you just see shell, or do you see actual bits of the snail/hermit as well?

 

Generally just shell with minimal carcass remains sometimes the hermits claws. The only part of the snails that are left is what I assume is the skull its round and hard. The shells are always intact and no I haven't heard any clicking I guess Im just worrysome because Im still pretty new to this. (I thought my featherduster outbreak was aiptasia lol)

 

Definitely not a mantis then, so that's ruled out. Not sure what else it might be though.