RM's HalfMoon Mantis Palace R.I.P CARNICERA

Thanks Blaz! And I'm real glad to hear yours is still alive and well. Carniceria is pretty freaked out by her own reflection on the back glass. It's to the point that she won't even leave her den now. She starts to but then see's herself and goes back down. I hope she gets over it soon. Earlier today there were two hermits back in the dish part of her den and I could tell she wasn't happy about it but each time she started out she'd tweak at her reflection. She isn't living up to her name...translated it is Butcher. LOL

 

I'm sure she will get braver the more she sees that other "shrimp" lol... maybe that's why mines beeen so shy as well? I have a peppermint shrimp in with him and the peppermint is MUCH larger than my Mantis... what do you think? I just never would have thought he'd be scared of a peppermint? I watched him try an kill the peppermint when I put him in the tank, but wasn't successful.... I just figured id leave the peppermint in there till he saw his day... but now IDK

 

IDK. Peppermints are mean LOL! One of mine was sitting on top of my spray bar so I tried to touch it. Instead of swimming away it jumped on my finger and bit me! And it hurt!
But seriously you wouldn't think a mantis would be afraid of a peppermint. Maybe the size difference does matter.??

 

Yeah... "The size does matter" in my opinion. I have smaller fish that are very scared of my bigger fish. Specially the Coral beauty. My firefish and oblique lined goby seem to really be scared of him. The rainsford goby, on the other hand, even though the smaller fish in the tank, is cruising like nobody's business.

EDIT: Wow... I'm contradicting myself, am I not?

 

Maybe it has never seen a peppermint before and is unsure of how to take it? There is definitely a variance in confidence among stomatopods as well. Some will attack other animals twice their size or larger and others will run from anything that isn't a prey item.

 

Well Carni cant whip the mantis in the glass so she hides from her own reflection. She's getting over it though and was out for a bit this morning then a busy day of excavation. She now has almost the entire area under the rock mined out. She also built another entrance away from the back glass. After she was done working that is where she relaxed and observed me feeding the fish in the reef tank.

 

New hallways, better pics

I don't see how she does it. Works all day and all night and barely any rest lol.
Carnicera has excavated the entire area under the the rock and created a pretty huge den. I'm pretty excited because she has dug out two new passages. Both of which are pretty much front facing so I no longer need to bend and peer behind the rocks to see her. Here's a couple pics from today. She's actually pretty photogenic and doesn't seem to mind the camera all that much.
Extreme left side of the tank entrance/exit

Hallway under the arch and her observation point overlooking the courtyard.

 

Nice! You got pics!

I seem to be slow on replying lately... sorry about that, but thanks for your impiut on the peppermint mantis thing everyone. It isn't even a true peppermint but a camelback shrimp and it is rather big in comparison to the mantis... I might remove him, I think it should be fairly easy to trap it somehow.

Great update Monkey! Thaqnks again!

 

LOL don't worry about it! She's finally getting over her issues with her reflection but she did close up the rear entrance to her den. Trapping your camelback should be pretty easy. I was thinking the leaning glass trap but the shrimp would just swim out lol.

 

Trapping a camel back should be easy if they are anything like peppermints. I had a stone crab I was trying to catch and with a bottle trap and a piece of krill I managed to catch my peppermints every time... Suckers would go into the trap as soon as it hit the water.

Looks like her den is pretty form fitting. Mallory (pretty sure its a girl, but haven't gotten a good look yet) seems to like a LOT of space in her dens. She created a new one under a different rock and it is very large even compared to her. She has enough room she can do "yoga." She will have her legs sticking out the side holding the walls and her tail curled under her not touching the ground.