mantis owners and inspired mantis owners!

There are two ways to handle this....easiest is a 3/4 layer of new sand added on top of the old sandbed. A little harder and a little more expensive option. Put the mantis in a rubbermaid, replace the sandbed, let dust-storm settle, then put the mantis back in.

 

My solution was to win reef cleaners ugly tank contest and have John give me tons of snails. ;D

I am debating doing a whole tank change so if I do I will change out the sand then.

 

haha yeah thats true. but i use phosphate removing pads to clean the tank and i dont feed her all the time so she eats it all. im only gonna get like 2x39 watt t5's for the tank cause im gonna put some softies in there.

 

Well aren't you guys just lucky little boogers Because our reef tank is far cleaner than our mantis tanks Although our smaller one has gotten much cleaner since I stuck some type of macro in it where that grew to the size of a softball in a matter of days, then died off squeaky clean now. we still have to clean the glass though. Our sand bed and surface of the water have always been dirtier in that tank. I'm working on it though.

Meanwhile Bo's tank has super super super clean sand. And no algae on the glass or back (we still have to magfloat the glass), but the hitch hiker algae on his rocks is driving my mom nuts. I don't mind it, it's better than other bad algaes. But my mom's picky.

 

Your mantis is probably storing food without you knowing and if not food it will definitely store its molts. You should add a clean up crew so your mantis has something to exercise its molts on as well.

 

i will when i notice her molting. i will take a hermit or two out of my reef tank. im pretty sure im gonna put her in my reef tank and have her as my only live stock and then put a wennerea in my 15 gallon

 

Sorry when I said exercise its molts what I meant to say is its raptorial claws. If not exercised it could lose them during the next molt.

 

Yep if they don't use them eventually they will simply rip them off
If ya don't use it ya lose it

 

mine uses them every other day when she hits a gold fish and i am gonna put a hermit in there soon for a snack and some fun and cool shell for her to add to her home.

 

thats what i figured you were saying.