new 22cm Lysiosquillina Maculata

[Scarab138]

Hello Everyone, Firstly, I want to apologize for my long and drawn out posting, but since this is my first post I wanted to introduce myself to you all.

My name is Jay, I am from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I have 20 years of experience working with animals, mainly reptiles (as a teen) and land inverts ( I currently run The Bug Room, a live "bug" gallery here, at The Royal Alberta Museum). Even though I work at a museum I have no scientific background, I am really just the museum's zookeeper. I have limited experience with aquariums, even though I worked at pet shops for about eight years. That was back in the days when most people thought salt water could be done in nothing smaller than a 50gal. tank (my, how the world has changed). The closest I have come to keeping salt water critters was a brackish 90gal. Mudskipper tank. For a number of years I have wanted to add a couple of marine tanks to The Bug Room. With all the truly spectacular inverts found in the worlds oceans, how could I not?

A month ago, I set up a 15gal. tank, here at work, with 25 pounds of live rock and 25 pounds of live sand. We have a Peacock Mantis Shrimp in this tank ( he is about three inches now), and we will be getting a custom made tank, with half inch glass, once we are ready to put him on display. He seems to be doing very well. He is eating EVERYTHING I give him in the way of live food, but when it comes to frozen food he seems to just bury it in the sand.

Okay, I am getting closer to asking some questions, please bare with me.

At home, I recently set up a 60gal., with 85 pounds of live rock and sand. I am hoping to run this tank without a filter, but with two powerheads (800gal./hour each) so I have great water movement. This tank cycled very quickly, and after two and a half weeks all my chemistry was perfect. After sitting and staring at all the life on my live rock, most of which I am slowly trying to identify, for more than a two weeks, it was time to add my featured creature. A 22cm long male Lysiosquillina Maculata. He seems to be doing well. He ate a big sailfin molly second night in the tank. This brings me to my first question. How much should this guy be eating? He will take frozen prawns and squid, but he eats just the tiniest bit and then throws the rest out of his burrow. I would really prefer to feed him live food, but if he is only catching one fish a week I am concerned that might not be enough. My second question is about molting. I certainly don't have a sand bed that is 36 inches deep. He has made a relatively small burrow in a cavern in the live rock, it is big enough that he fits completely inside and he has room to turn around easily, but I am not sure if he would be able to molt in such a burrow. I have a good size PVC pipe that I am thinking about shuffling some of the live rock and putting it in for him. Would you folks suggest I do that? If so, is there a particular angle that it should be place at? He seems to come straight up and halfway out of his current burrow when he strikes.

Thank-you in advance,
Jay

[Gonodactylus]

Males eat less than females and if not feed enough, will actually shrink the next molt. A typical meal for a 22 cm L. m would be a fish about 8-10 cm long every other day or so. If you feed more than they can handle, they through it out or don't strike; less and they will start taking the frozen stuff. I would suggest offering a frozen shrimp every 3 or 4 days until the animal starts to take it readily - then up the frequency to every other day.

While L.m will stay in a LR aquarium, they typically do not thrive in them. Living in a cave of LR causes cuticle abrasion and will eventually lead to shell disease. If you can't put in a a deep enough sand bed (I partially partition a tank and create a sand bed about 4 inches wide and 12 to 14 inches deep), use a piece of 2 or 2.5 inch black pvc. Place it on the bottom and cover it with sand. Once the animal starts to live in the tube, begin adding sand to cover the tube and and the entrances. The animal will mix the sand with mucus and start to form a vertical extension to the burrow. Usually they will be happy with a vertical leg of the burrow that is their own length or a little less. If you want to get really fancy, you can grind off part of the tube wall and seal it to the glass. Cover the opening with black plastic or tapel then begin adding sand. This way you can check up on the animal from time to time.

Roy

[Mr Stomato]

Hello and welcome to the great side of RC! Unfortunately this is one of the drawbacks of the LM. It is recommended that his sandbed be 1 1/2 times his length. They are vertical burrow builders and "form" their sand burrow walls with their mucus which makes pvc and rough grained sand a no go for them. Fine grain sand has been recommended to prevent cuticle damage as well.

So with that information, a 22cm (8.5") LM would need 33cm (13")of sand. Having a 13" sandbed equally across the tank will allow him/her to build both entrances in locations of it's choosing as well.

[Scarab138]

Thanks Roy and Mr Stomato for you quick replies. You both offer some great advice.

Thirteen inches of sand would be doable. It would be much easier for me to do if I could partition the tank. I have a great big flat piece of live rock, rectangular in shape, that could use as a partition and create a two level tank-scape. Would you see a problem with That? Would I have problems with dead spaces in the sand? If I go this route should I get some other critters that would sift through the sand? If so, do you have any suggestions? In a perfect partitioned world how much in the way of floorspace should I devote to a deep bed? I want to do my best to provide this guy with a home he will thrive in. I now have to weigh the pros and cons as to providing if I should use PVC. Roy, I love the idea of being able to check on him, but I also like Mr Stomato's thinking when it comes to allowing him to decide where his burrow should be. Just for curiosities sake, would acrylic tubing be better than PVC? I will have to wait on this decision, and hopefully a few more people will give me their ideas.

Thanks again,
Jay

[Gonodactylus]

Acrylic tubing is fine. I use black because it doesn't transmit light around the edges, but there are other ways around that. If you want to create a "natural" looking cut-away burrow, you can smear the inside of the tube with silicon cement and pack the tube with fine, dry sand. After the cement cures (a day or two), shake out the sand and you have a burrow that looks very much like the inside of a real one.

Don't worry about the Lysio choosing where to dig. Mine dig where I tell them to. Seriously, in the wild, Lysios really do not select a burrow site. When they settle from the plankton and hit an appropriate soft substrate, they start to dig. If successful that is where their burrow will be for the rest of their life. When I start a Lysio burrowing, I confine it to the location with plexiglass plates. Once the burrow is well underway, I remove the plexi and almost always the animal continues to dig in that location.

A typical burrow for a 22cm Lysio in the field will vary to some extent depending on the texture and amount of rubble in the sand, but an average burrow would be 6-7 cm in diameter, about 2 meters long and 30-40 cm deep. In the lab, our animal do fine in a burrow about 25 cm deep and 80 cm long.

ROy

[Scarab138]

Thanks again Roy.

I think that I will partition off the the length of the back wall of my tank, with a plexi, creating a sand bed about 30cm deep once filled. If a Lysio likes a burrow at least 80cm long, should that be the length of of the PVC/acrylic tube? I certainly could get on of the museums exhibit builders to cut a side off of the tubing, and I love the idea of cementing fine sand to the inside of the tube. I am not sure that I will do that though. If the tube in up against the back wall of the tank I would only be able to look in with a mirror. Would these guys prefer one over the other (plain tube or sand-walled tubing)? If I put a wall in, to contain the sand bed, that is 35cm high, it would leave a water depth above that area about 25cm. Would that be enough water for him to hunt in? Speaking of hunting, if he had a constant supply of 4-5cm mollys (say 10 in the tank at all times) would it be safe to assume that he should be able to keep him well fed? Or would you recommend getting him on frozen food?

Once again, I appreciate your input greatly. I wish I had found this forum before I set up his tank (I was referred to this sight by the staff where I bought him, on the same day that I got him). It appears I have some work to do to give this guy a good home.

Really, as a bug guy, I was attracted to this species because of the insect mantids close appearance to them. I have reared more than 100 species of the insects (including some of the rarest and largest) and not one of the are nearly as interesting as this monster! (and I mean monster in the most loving way)

I will post some photos of him once I can get them small enough to upload (I have only been able to shrink them to 57k and they can only be 50k). I will also post pics of his home once I have made they appropriate changes.

Thanks,
Jay

[Gonodactylus]

I would make the tube about three times the animals length.

They will hunt effectively when the water is 10 cm deep.

From my experience, they will take whatever tube they can get.

You will probably have to supplement feeding since these animals can really pack it away. And, of course, once you have the male installed, you will want a female to pair with him. The male will catch and feed the female as much as she can eat. I have a 30cm pair right now and the male will take three, 5 inch smelt a day. Two he gives to the female and one he eats.

Roy

[Scarab138]

In the week and a half that I have had him, he has only eaten one 5cm Molly, about a centimeter of a prawn and of squid. Should I be worried that he isn't taking more? He was at the pet shop for at least two months before I got him, I was told that he had been taking "small" pieces of frozen while there, but it doesn't sound like he was eating nearly enough. If he is underfed, but still refusing could that mean he is wanting to molt?

I will be partitioning the tank on Wednesday. Once he moves into his new home, how long should I let him settle in before I cover the tube with the sand? Would an impending molt, or the fact that he is not feeding well effect this time line?

I might have a hard time trying to get a female. I think this is the only L. maculata to have ever been brought in to a pet shop here, in Edmonton. Once this guy is thriving, I will certainly try to find a female. I will look to you, at that time, for advice on how to introducethe female.

thanks,
Jay