Yellow Mantis Claw Missing :(

[blackwidow]

Hi Im new here but not to marine fish, I keep a 240 Litre FOWLR Tank with puffers in it, but I also have 90 Litre Sump which I put the yellow mantis in. Now on the same night after setting up the LR Piles for him to make a burrow out of, at first his claws seemed fine then 4 hours later I find one of the Claws hanging down. Afterwhich he then ripped the Claw off and now only has one O_O :@.

So my question wth is that all about with his claw being ok one min and then ripped off the next ?

Will it grow back, if so how long?

Also Since ive only had him 24hrs, the shrimp has not eaten and prawn I put in front of it?

The Mantis Shrimp is yellow at 3 inches long, and is a Spearer

[barnabus's gimp]

it might only want to eat live food. I have the same kind of mantis and any kind of saltwater shrimp would be good. also it might be stressed and hungry.

[blackwidow]

I put ghost shrimp in there when he went in, but he did nothing?

And What about its Claw?

[Mustang Boy]

his raptorial will come back after a few molts so thats not a huge worry. id leave the ghost shrimp in there eventually he will eat some and if he doesnt you can experiment with other live food alternatives

[barnabus's gimp]

yeah ghost shrimp aren't good. you should look around for a camel shrimp or peppermint. anything that is saltwater, freshwater food doesn't have the proper nutrition. I would think that even gut loading those shrimp they should not be a primary source of food. my mantis has a missing rapt as well and I fed her well and a few accelerated molts later she has them both and is as crazy as ever. attacking fish and all kinds of stuff. I would have to say that live saltwater food is far superior to any kind of prepared food.

[blackwidow]

in uk peppermint shrimp / other reef shrimp sell for $15 a pop thats a very expensive meal!!! The river shrimp =ghost shrimp we have here are actually brackish so....?

[Mustang Boy]

how expensive are fish like small damsels and chromis?

[blackwidow]

chromis are like $5-$6 each? I already have a 1.5 inch yellow tang in there with him, but he dont hunt that?

[Mustang Boy]

how long has he been in the sump maybe he is still getting accustomed to his new surroundings and isnt hungry yet. a heads up though a spearer will go after a fish if given the oppurtunity

[blackwidow]

how long has he been in the sump maybe he is still getting accustomed to his new surroundings and isnt hungry yet. a heads up though a spearer will go after a fish if given the oppurtunity

k mate ill ill get a slow swimming small marine fish:fun2::fun2::fun2::fish1::eek1:
and see what happens XD.
Hes been in the Sump 48 Hours now:rolleye1:

[Mustang Boy]

aahh he is still new in the tank he just hasnt gottne comfortable yet give him a little time to settle ine and he will be munching away

[justinl]

Just give it time to get used to its new home. It's probably just stressed out, especially considering it just ripped off a rapt. I suggest just leaving it alone for 24 hours. Leave lights off if you like.

Spearers don't really need live food, especially not feed that it would never encounter in the wild. If you feel like giving it a treat, you can buy a cheap marine fish or shrimp and let the mantis hunt it down. Offer frozen food on a stick (skewers work well). Generally recommended diet is mostly frozen marine flesh (squid, shrimp, clams etc); the frozen foods aisle at your grocery store is your friend, but the fresh stuff is best (no weird preservatives). you freeze it yourself. Soak the frozens in a supplement like selcon once in a while.

Spearers are generally piscivores so do not be surprised if you wake up one day to a missing tang. especially one that small. Like I said, right now, he's just taking the time to get comfortable...

As for the missing rapt, don't worry about it too much. Some crustaceans rip off body parts and leave them lying around as distractions for predators so the crustacean in question can escape (albeit minus a limb). I would not be surprised if stomatopods do this as well. It will eventually regenerate the limb if fed well. If you want to accelerate the process, offer food daily and soak each feeding in selcon. be sure to keep an eye on water quality though, and remove all uneaten food once the mantis is done with it. 3-4 molts will probably do it.

[blackwidow]

Mind the noobness but what is selcon ?? also your advice is great kudos to all of you :D:D:D

[justinl]

just a food supplement with magic molecules in it... its basically stabilised pollock or squid oil. it's an orange goop and most fish stores should stock it. Vita-chem is supposed to be good too.

[gozermantis]

what kind of mantis is it?

[barnabus's gimp]

it will be hard for it to attack fish with only one rapt. I guess the best thing would be to get whatever live food you can, and if it is fresh or brackish you can gutload them with something like enriched brine or my favorite, cyclopeze. either way a mantis shrimp will need to hunt at some point and it is a shame to have one and only feed it prepared food. damsels and chromis are good as long as the rapts are in tact. mine has only attacked one damsel and seems she doesn't like them too much. either way when hungry they will eat anything. flakes and cyclopeze are a good snack in between feedings.

[Gonodactylus]

Once broken or dislocated, the stomatopod raptorial appendage can't be repaired internally the way you heal. They rip them off to regenerate a new one. THis will take three or four molts and at least six months. I assume you have a Pseudosquilla ciliata.

Roy

[justinl]

barnabus, you're not making any sense. your gist of your post if I'm interpreting it correctly is: with only one rapt it will have difficulty catching live food... so feed it mostly enriched live food?

blackwidow, I still recommend feeding frozens. doing this allows better monitoring of feeding behavior. If you just fill the tank with live food, you'll have no idea how much the mantis eats throughout the day. As mentioned, hunting will be hampered (though probably not impossible) and chance of damaging the remaining rapt will be increased while hunting with a single rapt.

[blackwidow]

barnabus, you're not making any sense. your gist of your post if I'm interpreting it correctly is: with only one rapt it will have difficulty catching live food... so feed it mostly enriched live food?

blackwidow, I still recommend feeding frozens. doing this allows better monitoring of feeding behavior. If you just fill the tank with live food, you'll have no idea how much the mantis eats throughout the day. As mentioned, hunting will be hampered (though probably not impossible) and chance of damaging the remaining rapt will be increased while hunting with a single rapt.

I think your right ill continue trying to feed it frozen food, tried shrimp today he would not take it :@, fingers crossed he willl be eating soon

[Thurge]

Don't panic if it doesn't eat for a while. Mantis can go several weeks without eating, and suffer no ill effects.
It sounds like, in the course of getting aquainted with its new home your mantis injured itself. It could habe been beating on a rock or something shifted, or any number of other things; it doesn't happen super often but it happens. As Dr. Roy said they can't heal the injury so they remove the damaged limb and regrow it. Its actually pretty cool to watch. After the first molt there may be a little nub, and that will turn into a mini raptoral appendage and so on until you can't tell which was the origional and which is Memorex. :D

[blackwidow]

Behaviour Update: He still is not eating any shrimp I have put in the tank, I try feeding it to him on the end of a Stick but he seems to fear the stick and runs away when I put the shrimp on a stick !! :S

At first he would always stay in the cave I made for him, but now he is leaving the cave and running around the tank although not eating !

Yesterday I bought a small reef Lobster and sum turbo snails but didnt seem interested in either and infact ran away from the lobster :sad2::sad2::sad2:. so i ended up feeding the lobster to my puffers as I feared the lobster might attack the mantis, I have left the snails in there but they are still alive. Im sure this mantis is retarded, in the LFS they said he ate everything and grew up there ?

p.s. he is indeed Pseudosquilla Ciliata as Dr. Ron said earlier

[blackwidow]

Bump!! ^^^

[Thurge]

If it hasn't eaten by March then you can start getting antsy. Ask the LFS EXACTLY what were they feeding it, and how. It they tell you snails and it bashed them appart they are full of it.
Its not going to eat snails, or a Lobster. P.cilliata is a spearing mantis and as such doesn't smash things appart to eat (though it does have the ability).
Its roaming around getting familiar with its suroundings. Toss in a couple of cheap small chromis and if the mantis really gets hungry it will take out a chromis.

[blackwidow]

my mantis has started eating prawns and is attacking anything he sees moving! :P

[Gonodactylus]

I did a paper many years ago with one of my students, Ilze Berzins, on appendage loss and regeneration in stomatopods. The loss of one raptorial appendage had very little impact on their feeding and didn't significantly accelerate the molt cycle. The loss of both rapts did accelerate the molt cycle significantly. The animals resorbed their gonadal development and basically put all available energy stores into molting. Makes sense. Without raptorial appendages their ability to defend themselves and forage effectively is considerably diminished. Anything they can do to hasten recovery is critical.

Roy

[barnabus's gimp]

I was just stating from experience that when my mantis has 2 rapts she seems to be a lot more proficient in capturing and restraining prey. she is spoiled on peppermint shrimps and wont even touch those fish... I guess if I let her starve for 2 weeks she would eat them.

[justinl]

no worries BG, I just feel that it's best to err on the side of caution under extenuating circumstances like when a mantis is missing a rapt.

another thought occurred to me. Benthic fish like small gobies would be good choices as well. Green clown gobies are often quite cheap.

[Fretfreak13]

Just throwing this out there, but maybe try silversides? just using common sense, cause what I've come to understand is the spearers eat fish. lol Mine (though a smasher) wont eat hermit crabs or chopped up table shrimp, but he eats snails, crabs, freeze dried krill and will take silversides.