Got a michael jackson mantis

[Mkman]

Hey guys, I just started saltwater about 1 month ago. My 37 gallon reef tank has just finished cycling and I will begin adding fish to it soon.

I recently acquired a small piece of live rock with green star polyps and on that rock is a small hole with a baby mantis shrimp!

I call him Zebra as he has black and white spots (like michael jackson) and is very interesting to watch!

Gosh, only a few weeks ago, I had a notion that mantis shrimp were no good and boring, but boy am I wrong!!

[Fuegofish777]

ummm....u do know they have a nasty habit of killing things right?

[Hwarang]

You'll probably want to relocate your mantis to a tank where he/she can exist w/o killing all your reef inverts.

A 2.5g or 5.5g (or 6g minibow) with some sand and a little pile of LR/rubble rock and a small HOB filter of some type would suit it well.

One caveat, identify the species to figure max size ... :)

[Shinobi9P]

post pics!

[Mkman]

Fuegofish, yes I do know they have a habit of killing things, I read all I could about mantis on reefcentral before I got that mantis from a friend. I have moved the the mantis to a 5 gallon tank and it is cdoing well.

I will see if I can identify the mantis. Mantis shrimp are very interesting to sit down and watch.

[Gonodactylus]

There are not too many stomatopods with a black and white pattern. My guess is that it is a Haptosquilla. H. glyptocercus often has a juvenile that is all black with a few white spots. There are a few other species in this genus that have similar patterns. All are from the Indo-Pacific.

Roy