Mantis in a 2.5 gallong hex?

[trmiv]

I've got a 2.5 gallon hex tank that currently houses a betta that I want to turn into a mantis tank. The tank is about 8" wide by about 9.5" tall. I was considering some aragonite sand, and some live rock from my nano. For filtration and water movement, I'm going to use one of those little Azoo pico HOB filters. I'm also considering doing a DIY siphon powered auto-topoff for it.

So, is this tank big enough for a mantis? I know there are many species of different sizes, but what could I get for this? A few LFS's around me carry mantis shrimp. They never have the scientific name marked on the tank, so what are the common names and description (colors, markings) of the smaller mantis? Thanks

[Lostmind]

My mantis is in a 2.5 gallon minibow. He is only 2" long at most tho.

[trmiv]

Same amount of water, but the hex probably has much less sand area than your mini-bow. what species do you have, is it the type that will stay that small?

[trmiv]

Well I decided the hex wasn't right, so I went and got a 2.5 gallon standard sized tank. Much more surface/sand area.

[Gonodactylus]

Small (under 2.5 inches), cavity living gonodactyllids, haptosquillids and chorisquillids will do fine in a 2.5 gal system as long as there is good flow and water treatement. The footprint of the tank really isn't that important to the animal. It spends most of its time in the cavity and will do well in a 3-D world. The only time I would worry about the amount of sand or gravel area is if I had a burrowing species such as odontodactylids, lysiosquillids or Pseudosquilla ciliata..

There really are no consistant common names that can be used for mantis shrimp other than "Peacock" and "Clown" that are associated with Odontodactylus scyllarus. Occasionally you will see "striped" or "zebra" used to described a lysiosquillid and "rainbow" for Pseudosquilla ciliata.

Roy