Zebra Mantis

[davelin315]

Anyone had one of these before?  I have one on order and have kept many of the smasher variety mantis shrimp but have not kept a spearer before.  This will be an educational piece as I have always loved the structural adaptations they have but must confess that I don't know as much about them as I do about smashers.  From what I understand, they inhabit sand flats for the most part and seem to build their burrows in pure sand, perhaps excreting some mucus to hold their tunnels together.  That said, that's mostly conjecture based on videos I have seen of them and not based on actual fact.  If you know much about them, please feel free to advise.

[YHSublime]

Dave, I don't know a lot about them, but in reading about them from people who had them, they need a pretty deep sand bed. I think WildCrazyJoker had one as a hitchhiker and ended up keeping it a few years ago.

[davelin315]

FYI, one of the ideas I have been playing around with is filling a clear container with sand and dropping that into a tall tank to allow it to burrow.

[davelin315]

Dave, I don't know a lot about them, but in reading about them from people who had them, they need a pretty deep sand bed. I think WildCrazyJoker had one as a hitchhiker and ended up keeping it a few years ago.

Yeah, that's my understanding as well but unclear on how deep to make it and whether people who keep them tend to send water through the sand itself to keep it from becoming anoxic.

[Valeria]

Send a PM to extreme_tooth_decay's, he tends to lurk in the forum.

[davelin315]

Tim didn't keep any of the spearers, only the smashers.  He posted in my build thread recently but will see if he has any input on them.  The zebra mantis I am getting is only 3" long so keeping a 6" sandbed for the short term won't pose any issues but keeping it suitable in the long term might cause some problems.  In the oceans I know that the sandbed shifts around anywhere from 2-3' in some places and the anaerobic zone is not reached until pretty far down but in our systems I would say that an undisturbed sand bed will get anoxic at around 5-6" so trying to avoid anything like that.

[YHSublime]

Tim didn't keep any of the spearers, only the smashers.  He posted in my build thread recently but will see if he has any input on them.  The zebra mantis I am getting is only 3" long so keeping a 6" sandbed for the short term won't pose any issues but keeping it suitable in the long term might cause some problems.  In the oceans I know that the sandbed shifts around anywhere from 2-3' in some places and the anaerobic zone is not reached until pretty far down but in our systems I would say that an undisturbed sand bed will get anoxic at around 5-6" so trying to avoid anything like that.

 

Here it suggests that the Zebra Mantis should have a sand bed 1.5" times the length of the shrimp. It is also suggested in this article here. I imagine you could easily hit 6" with one, which would mean a 7.5" sand bed depth.

[zygote2k]

I had a 6" spearer but it shipped poorly and died a week after it arrived. It was about 6" long and had a nasty set of spears on it. I would hate to have those stuck in my hand.

[davelin315]

Yeah, I always look at those videos where they grab them out of the sand and think what idiots those guys are.  And then here's me, buying one.  

[Hilary]

Dave, if you haven't already checked it out the Mantis Shrimp forum on Reef Central is full of great info.  Unfortunately Dr. Caldwell no longer posts, but there's a huge amount of info to dig around in.  Looking forward to hearing how the spearer does - I've only tried smashers so far.

[davelin315]

I did dig through there and I believe I have an email for Roy (used to interact with him on TONMO as well, guessing that by the nature of his farewell post that he just got sick and tired of the RC BS and is still posting on other forums).  Looks like this will be a fun project to document as not many seem to have that much experience with the spearers.