Help me pick a mantis!

Hey there, Ivan, and War Eagle - we won the bowl game (it took 3 times, but we finally won)! I just happened to catch a good picture of Bo (does Bo Jackson ring a bell?), our smithii today. He's been really active here lately. I was really pleased with stomatopod.com.

 

I plan on keeping a few corals in there (nothing too elaborate) so keeping water quality stable will be no problem. I talked to the guy at stomatopod.com and gave him my phone number. He said that he was pretty sure there was a Smithii and/or Ternatensis in the shipment he just received, and that he will call me back in a few days. So I'll just wait and see what is available. My tank still has a while before it is cycled so I have nothing but time. Thanks Stepho.

 

Wow! He looks awesome! And yes, I seem to recall the name Bo! I think I will be satisfied with either a smithii or a ternatensis. Whichever comes first! War Eagle!

 

Yep you'll be happy I don't think anyone on 3reef owns a Ternatensis, so you can expand our mantis species collection

I plan on filling my empty mantis tank with a N. Wennerae, because they are great all around mantis, and dirt cheap The first one I had was sold to me as an "assorted hermit crab" and this next one I know for a fact will be free

 

They really thought it was a hermit crab? lol wow..well I better go ahead and get the ternatensis so I can help 3reef out! I can't see my cycle taking very long seeing as everything was taken out of another tank..so hopefully I will be making the purchase pretty soon

 

They knew it was a mantis but they probably didn't have a mantis button on the register.

I know you said you were planning on keeping corals with it? What were you planning on keeping? Ternatensis will make its den in SPS corals and may harm them by bashing, softies should be ok though.

 

It wouldn't be anything more than softies..if they get whacked and die it's not a real big loss lol just somethin to look at while the mantis is in his/her den.

 

Well I found some random PVC pieces in my closet today and thought I would go ahead and make my future mantis a den. I made it out of 1.25" PVC..which should be large enough for now..

Misplaced my camera charger and have yet to find it so my phone camera is the best I could do! The water is still somewhat cloudy from all the commotion.



Here you can see how it goes down behind the rocks

 

just a thought... do you think water would get stagnant in the pvc pipe? and what effects would stagnant water have in your system?

i have never set up a mantis tank. so i really have no experience. but for some reason my insticts would want to drill small holes in the pvc.

 

I have seen quite a few articles/threads that mention drilling, and they all seem to end in "no". However, mine is fairly long so I may drill one or two small holes at the top in the middle of the longer section just to be safe. They say not to drill because it will lower the mantis' sense of security I guess you could say. They like it being closed off. I am pretty confident though that there is enough flow in the tank, in addition to the mantis moving in/out, that the same water wouldn't be sitting in the pipe for days on end. If I see it as an issue in the future I may drill a few more or just make the den shorter.