Zebra Mantis Tankmates

[btreyes]

I've been put in charge of taking care of a 50 gallon zebra mantis tank in my lab that has almost zero coral and only a poor royal gramma that spends his entire life hiding in fear...

I'm going to start adding coral, macros, and possibly other fish species... Does anyone have any suggestions? I was thinking about adding a damsel and an aiptasia eating filefish to munch on the abundant aiptasia. Is the zebra mantis likely to eat all of the fish?

[EI Gringo]

probably not that likely to go for small fish but why not look into a huge range of inverts? Clams, peppermint shrimp, skunk cleaners, a pistol goby pair will be fine as long as the zebra has its burrow away from the rocks where the pistol and goby will live, nassarius and cerith snails, turbo snails, conches, scooter blennies in a tank with places to hide... Hermits, emerald crabs, cucumbers, stars... There's so much that I'd consider relatively safe. Avoid things like expensive angels, butterflies, tangs, triggers... any small fish I haven't mentioned that would be expensive to replace or large fish that would be too tempting for your lysiosquill.

[Calappidae]

The only thing safe is some snails and thorny oysters.

I disgree on introducing large inverts like crabs as L. maculata's burrow structure isn't the strongest for heavy animals and being low to the ground I'd fear something harming the animal during molting. It isn't like a smasher with an enclosed cavity, but rather sand covered in mucus.

Any fish is food, you can see kharn's videos of his giant spearer ending many eels and venomous rabbitfish. As well as a few lionfish being devoured by wild specimens from random youtube videos.

Pistol shrimp wouldn't be such a good idea, they never stop digging and if they dig in an L. maculata's burrow.. I think you can piece the puzzle.

[EI Gringo]

Pistols dig under rocks in corse substrate, they can't dig a burrow in fine sand alone as it would collapse, pistols really should be ok.

[Calappidae]

Pistols dig under rocks in corse substrate, they can't dig a burrow in fine sand alone as it would collapse, pistols really should be ok.

Actually I can beg to differ, certain alpheus has been seen creating under substrate tunnels to reach divided burrows. Much like stomatopods, they use mucus to strengthen the tunnel walls.

They also roam around at night occasionally when searching for a mate, they will just turn themselves death fodder walking around as shrimp is a very common diet for L.maculata alongside fish. You're also forgeting that L. maculata has the reach of nearly it's body length, it can strike anything under a wee little stone quick enough, and they will crawl out from their burrow a few feet to grab a targeted prey.

[Kharn]

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[EI Gringo]

It's a risk no doubt, but until you try different cohabitants you don't know if they will allow them to live. My tredici was with skunk cleaners more than within strike range but never showed any interest.

[lawfuanda]

grammas spend most of their time by their hiding spot so don't feel so bad as its just doing its thing.

tank mates will be hard with a spearer. they will nab anything that comes by their hole and its never just a little whack, its a stab through the whole body lol

[Kharn]

The general rule of thumb with any mantis is to not put anything in with it that can either harm the mantis (during a molt) and you personally don't fear loosing (so like $10-$20 fish/things) nothing extravagantly priced...

[EI Gringo]

I just saw another guy mention mollies which is something I'm planning on. Mollies and guppies can be acclimated over a few weeks to marine sg (be careful what species though, generally black mollies are the ones you want). These fish will readily eat algae, which is unusual for marines, and also bear live young. Breeding these is pretty easy so you can have a tank full of mollies and guppies fed with selcon dosed mysis, brine and other meaty foods supplementing their algae diet. Simply transfer the adults over when you want. They grow fast and die young too so they're good substance. I will be doing this very soon in fact as I am building my own mantis system, a large aquarium strategically divided.