So it's been 9 months and I have been living with quite a dilemma. I inherited a Mantis when I got my live rock from TBS. I don't blame them a bit. They couldn't help it. In fact when I first found him I was excited. I think they're quite an interesting animal. Mother nature has a sense of humor! I wanted to keep him, really I did.
Well, after 9 months, the Mantis has been able to kill off almost all of my animals! :frustrat: I mean EVERYTHING; shrimp, snails, hermits, crabs, even small fish. As you can imagine my tank has suffered quite a bit. :grumble:
So much for tolerance! The only way I could get the little (1.5 - 2 " long) bastard out of my tank was to remove everything else. Here is what he looked like (pics below). I didn't have the heart to "flush" him so I took him to my LFS where he is in solitary pending his parole hearing or death sentence. :bye2:
So out came everything, what was left anyway. All of the rock was dipped and scrubbed to rid it of any and all pests. What remained of my other items was placed in buckets and containers for safe keeping. I then cleaned out the tank and all of the equipment and started over yet AGAIN!
My sponges have survived well, as have my urchins. My baby urchins have fully grown now (in my earlier posts I have pics of them when they were young. They came as black fuzzy dots on one of my live rocks from TBS). I still have a couple of snails and only 2 hermits. I also have a great Red Mithrax Crab. He is about 1/2" across his shell!!
The rebuild afforded me the opportunity to re-aqua scape my tank. I now have more tunnels, caves and pathways for my new future fish. I have begun re-stocking and things are going great.
I have added a 2 headed Feather Duster, multi cultural polyp rock and a Colt Coral. I now have 3 blue/green Chromis and a great Hawk fish. He follows me around the tank all of the time. Funny guy. Pics to follow.
All in all it's not been too bad except for the loss. I am going to get a refresher CUC from TBS after the first of the year. Not much to clean up now. :shock: