a couple questions about this mantis shrimp

one of our online sponsors (idk if they want me to say who) said they can get me a lysosquilla scabricauda. a cousin of the zebra mantis shrimp.

so far i havent been able to find any info on care or anything else.

all i know: spearer, gets around 6-8 inches.

im hoping someone else on here will be able to help me.

my sandbed is about 2 inches deep, so it probobaly needs to be a bit deeper. i have about 40 lbs of play sand (silicate based) out in my garage. should i use this, or go get some unscented cat litter made out of clay just to be safe?

even if the dealer doesnt get the shrimp for a while, i would still like to make my sandbed deeper. i just think its too shallow.

thanks,
Gexx

 

i have never had a mantis shrimp. however, one thing i have been told about them is that the bigger ones should be kept in an acrylic tank because they can break the glass. hopefully this is of some help.

 

that is try for the smashers. this one is a spearer so there is no danger of it breaking glass. just it cutting hte crap out of my hand

 

noone knows? thats what i figured. as far as i know they arent kept much. so just any information would be very helpful!

 

Not much I can say since I haven't owned one, but I would recommend a sand bed of maybe 5-7 inches? Just IMO I think that would make sense. Also, I don't really think that cat litter or play sand would work, but This is still IMO. You might want to ask Corailline or 2in10

 

Zebras are AWESOME and get so big and beautiful. They really are cave dwellers though, and are more cryptic than some of the more out-and-about varieties. When we were setting up a final tank for the one we had, we killed him on accident. We were going to cut a half pipe of PVC lengthwise and put it against the edge of the tank. Then, when he went into his burrow, we could see him underneath the sand. Does that make sense?

Your sand bed definitely needs to be deeper with this variety.

 

Sand bed needs to be a lot deeper than 2". It needs to be 1.5-2x the animals length. So for a full grown mantis you are looking at a 16" sand bed for an 8" mantis.

This much sand creates a problem though. A spearer can't break the glass, but the weight of sand required certainly would.

Also some species of spearers can get up to 15".

EDIT: Also forgot to mention they need fine grade sand to stick to the mucus the secrete to form their den.

 

from what my LFS told me between speares and smashers, speares are mroe seclusive, need a much deeper sandbed then smashers, have like 100000000X the chance of killing fish then a smasher so must be kept alone. they DONT need as much rock work as a smasher though. hope it helped

 

Here's the sand bed I used for both a smasher and a spearer... it was a duel tank so it had both at the one time.

 

so a pvc tunnel spanning the length fo the tank and around the sides will be my best bet?

also the unscented cat litter, being 100% clay, would it be enough for him/her or would it be too firm and not good for it? also, i havent been able to see a maximum length for this particular species. but, seing as its a cousin of the zebra mantis shrimp, im guessing it being around the 6-8 inch range?