=Jwin's 9 GALLON MANTIS CUBE - Nano Wave 9

That's a cool little tank you got going on. They still have them on sale for $80? All nano's around here are around $180 or so. Wouldn't mind setting one of these up in my office

 

cool set up!

Smashers will need to have some type of hard substance to crack or else their smashers can atrophy! I feed Bob 98% krill with vitamins and HUFA's. But everyonce in a while I toss in snails for him...I usually justs give hiim a turbo or two every couple weeks

 

There seems to be some debate about whether mantis smashers will atrophy their raptorial appendages. According to Roy Caldwell who has been studying Mantis shrimp for 30 years, they do not need to exercise their limbs in order to keep them.

 

Anyone got any pros or cons about trying freshwater snails to feed? They're a heck of alot cheaper than salt...i'm just not sure of the nutritional value.

 

thats a good idea
i have no idea on your question
but you can get breeder snails for free just ask petco or petsmart
if they have any unwanted breeder snails they will give them to you for free
(well they did for me when i had a loach in the fresh)

 

sweet! make sure you update us!

 

I'll be sure to throw in tons of updates. That's what I do

The next update will come when stomatopod.com updates their site The smithiis, new scyllarus, ciliata, and whatever other species are supposed to get messured and updated onto the site this weekend. Except this weekend is almost over. Oh well, maybe I'll have a nice surprise when I wake up.

EDIT: Ok, there are only 7 actual specimens listed on the website for sale at the moment. They had 4 peacocks (scyllarus) on there yesterday, only 2 on there today. Only one wennerae left. I feel an update coming soooon!

 

Well here's an update. Kind of some bad news. Gregory the damsel died. I didn't really care too much for him...he did do his job of cycling the tank and ate like a pig. I noticed yesterday he was breathing pretty dang rapidly, this morning my mom said he was "sluggish", then this afternoon he had kicked the bucket.

I can think of two reasons as to what may have caused it.
A) The LFS he came from, well, quite frankly their saltwater section sucks. But I wanted something in the tank to keep it going, and to keep me occupied until a mantis arrived. So I bought him from there, and he had been "shipped in recently". I'm not sure if it was disease, or stress, or what, but it could have been the fact that he just came from that LFS. I hope it wasn't a disease, would it infect my shrimp if it's still in the water? I'm naive on that aspect of aquariums.

B) The temperature swings I still encountered could have been too much for him. The temp swung from 80 or 81, down to 77. I still have to figure out something to vent off that heat, because adding the snazzy heater didn't help with cooling. My mom simply suggested having the lights on for a shorter period of time. It gets pretty bright in this room in the mornings, so turning the lights on at noon or so wouldn't hurt anything. The shrimp will see just fine.

I'm going to grab another damsel (hopefully a yellow tail like what I wanted in the first place) from a better LFS hopefully tomorrow. If he kicks the bucket, well I'll have to investigate further.

All params check out just fine. The rock was precycled and the water was all from my LFS, and surprisingly the sand didn't have hardly any die off from what I could see. So the tank is pretty much cycled, just not established.

 

My nano-wave just showed up today, and I'll be taking into work tomorrow with me

What did you do about the skimmer? It's SUPER loud. I put a longer piece of tube after the filter along w/ an air valve, that seemed to help some.

 

I've heard putting a wooden airstone over the inlet helps a ton with the noise. I didn't think it was loud...maybe I'm just used to noisy skimmers.

This thing seems to have a problem with overheating. I'm going to try and find the right lighting cycle to put it on to help with that...but some people are reporting 82 degrees after a 12 hour period. I've normally done 10 hours and hit 80...ugh. Maybe 8 hour lighting? Let nature light it up in the room until noon, then turn the lights off at 8. early bed time I suppose. I wish the lights were just cooler though.