loud clicking noise when lights out!!!

i think i have a mantis. every night after the lights go out, i hear a loud clicking noise every once in a while. it started after i bought a rock with some green striped shrooms on it several months ago. i figured it was a mantis and was never bothered by it until recently because my fish are seeming to be disappearing. only thing in tank are 1 scarlet hermit, 1 very small emerald crab, 4 turbo snails, a few stomatella snails, pods and bristle worms. oh yeah, i have noticed a fairly big green centipede looking worm with white whiskers(maybe some kind of polychete worm?) about a month and a half ago i bought 5 small chromis fish. the first one died about a week later, i got it out and noticed a bruised spot on its gill (i thought maybe they got into a fight) but about once a week one goes missing. i did find a few bones of one but other than that, nothing. i am now down to just one fish. is there a way to make a trap to get the mantis out of my tank?

 

Take the rock out and rinse in under fresh water. That will flush the mantis out real quick. Or you could mix up some salt water with a really high gravity, then put the rock in it. Either way, that mantis (which is probably a small smasher) will come running out.

 

My clicking noise turned out to be a pistol shrimp.

 

I dont know of any traps but thats really weird...Try leaving the moon lights on and tie a piece of meaty substance to a rock and watch maybe this badboy will come out to check it out....no 100% sure though

 

Becarefull pulling out the rock, if it is a mantis you DONT want him to get a hold of your hand!

 

I hear a sort of clicking when my second set of lights go off, it is the aluminum and metal cooling down. May be co-incidental with the purchase of the rock. Did you change bulbs around that time?

 

I hear clicking sometimes when the lights are on, not off. It's my mandarin popping the spirorbid worm shells. It's really freakin strange that he does that...... Who knows, he's just crazy.

 

I would have to say pistol shrimp. I have one living in my sump that hates the light. As soon as the sump light goes on (around 8:30pm when daylights turn off) he starts snapping. He'll snap every couple minutes for about an hour then settle down. He will attack raw shrimp when I put it in the sump, place it in as soon as your daylights go off. and you should be able to get a peep at him. Listen for the popping noise and place the piece of shrimp near him and near the glass so you can see. You can take a small piece of rock and put it ontop of the shrimp to prevent it from blowing away.

 

Matt, reefdude said this; "i think i have a mantis. every night after the lights go out, i hear a loud clicking noise."

 

Did I miss something? It seems to me from mattheuw1's response, that he read the thread, understood what he read, and is responding appropriately to the OP. He's explaining his experience with noises he's heard after the lights go out; and relating them to a pistol shrimp.