New to Mantis - Questions!

[SMaxwell]

I decided a few weeks ago to setup my 12 gall reef tank again after it got nuked by a power outage about 4 years ago. I want to primarily keep a sm mantis, I'm thinking either an N. wennerae or an O. havanensis. I'll probably add a few mushrooms, polyps & softs later. Tank for now is a 12 gall cube, hopefully within a few months to upgrade to a 20 long acrylic. I've been studying Mantis the past few weeks and want to make sure I get this right.

What I gather is-
-Not a lot of super bright light, maybe just use blue actinic
-Not a ton of live rock, keep some open sand
-Keep water parameters steady
-Good circulation


-What depth of sand should I have?
-Should I provide a pvc pipe burrow or use rock?
-If I use rock do I need to worry abou the rock collapsing on the Mantis?
-Can I use freeze dried krill or should it be frozen, I assume soaked in Selcon. I don't have a LFS to get fresh, but plan on occaisionally picking up some sm crabs, snails or ghost shrimp for live food when I can.
-Can they eat freshwater snails, goldfish or other easily obtainable FW live food?

Are N. wennerae a whole lot more hardy than O. havanensis ? Seems like the N. wennerae's are not quite as coolorful as the O Havanensis.

I'm going to order my LD from Sea Life Inc and hopefuly order the Mantis from him also once the rock cycles.

[justinl]

lighting requirements depend on the species. If you go with a shallow species like N. wennerae, you can blast it with halides or keep it in ambient light only; it won't care as long as it's fed. If you go with a deeper species like an O. hav, then yes, the lower the light the better.

amount of LR is a matter of taste. I like having as area of open sand at the front of the tank with the rockwork suspending itself to create a network of tunnels for the mantis to play in.

sand depends if you go smasher or spearer generally. you seem to lean more towards smashers, so for them I generally recommend 2-3 inches oolitic sand. an SSB.

I personally prefer to make my mantis work to make a home. no PVC for me; plus I like the lok better. But there' certainly nothing wrong with pvc burrows as long as you get the right diameter (at most, 1.5X the mantis' width i think). again it's a matter of taste. make sure you provide LR rubble in either case.

collapses can be deadly. definitely make a very secure rockwork. Use zipties/pvc skeleton if you want fancy rockwork. Mantids like to dig in the sand and smash at rocks; you can imagine how easily this could topple an unstable rockscape.

on the subject of diet, variety is key. pick three or more different frozen foods; krill, silverside, squid, cuttlefish, table shrimp, etc... they aren't picky. soak in selcon occasianally; if you are trying to encourage a molt for whatever reason you can soak all frozen feedings in selcon. Tip: don't buy the frozens at the LFS. go to the grocery store's frozen aisle for much better selection at much cheaper prices. Frozen is better than freeze dried imo; plus food that never sinks isn't very useful either.

the point of live feed for smashers is to make them use their rapts to crack something open. live also has better nutrition than frozens too but the excercise is the important thing. ghost shrimp and other soft bodied things will not be very useful for this... I stick to snails and hermits.

they probably could eat FW stuff, but please avoid it. it's not necessary or healthy.

N. wennerae are hardier and less demanding than O. havs. I can't recall anyone who has ever regretted buying an N. wennerae; they are great little animals. I generally don't recommend O. havs as first time mantids, but they're not that difficult as long as you plan the tank right and are prepared. their biggest pitfall seems to be a susceptibility to low dissolved oxygen; a skimmer and/or high flow and/or an open topped canopy should keep this in check. I also highly recommend allowing the tank to stabilize itself over at least four months before introducing an O. hav into it. N. wennerae can go in once the cycle is complete.

[SMaxwell]

Thanks for the great reply, helps a lot! I wanna go into this with as few screw-ups as possible.
Scott