20140612-Tank moving 2

As many aquarist know, tanking moving/cleaning can be one of the few opportunities to view a creature normally not visible- like this tiger pistol shrimp.
I do see this shrimp about once every other week. Most of the time instead of seeing it, I "hear" it.
Pistol shrimps can produce a very loud sound much like my mantis shrimp from the past. My wife loves it as it reminds her of the mantis shrimp, which she adored.
This pistol shrimp actually bonded with my fire fish goby and was a master engineer. He had dug an entire subway system in the tank.

My cleaner shrimp began bearing eggs a month after I got them in the tank and I have never seen them without eggs since then. It's almost impossible to raise young shrimp since they have a rather long planktonic stage. But it sure is a nice feast for all the other critters in the tank when they release the eggs.

Lastly, this nice and big coral banded shrimp has amazing blue marking that is not commonly seen on others. It's the king of the tank and takes no non-sense.

Mantis claw

This would be the second time my mantis have molted since I obtained her earlier this year.

The previous molt was buried deep inside her den so I wasnt able to retrieve it. This time around she decided to kick one of her claw molts out of the den like a piece of garbage!

If you are used to seeing the mantis punching around, it's hard to imagine the underneath the puncher there is a razer sharp blade that even not on the mantis, must be handled with respect.

This is what the claw normally look like, with the razer closed in a beater shape

And here is the post molting mantis stalking my movement

Mantis update

My mantis is still alive and punching! In case anyone is wondering...

I am not really sure whatthe growth rate of this creature is. But since I've acquired her (yes, we are sure it is a her), she has only molted once that we know of.

She has been constructing and reconstructing her burrow into a chain of chambers. So we cant exactly be sure whether she's molted deep in her hole. But in order to maintain the water quality, I try my best to feed her minimally- one meal every three days with either a silverside fish or a cooked shrimp. 

Peacock Mantis

Peacock Mantis Odontodactylus scyllarus has nothing to do with peacock, nor a mantis, nor a shrimp. But just a kiss-ass creature all on its own. The peacock refers to the colorful appearance and the signature "eyes" on its tail that resembles a peacock's tail. The mantis part refers to its front appendix that not only shapes but also functions like that of a praying mantis insect. Finally, as you can imagine, it's easy to mistaken it as a shrimp as it possess many qualities of a common shrimp.

I have been wanting one of these for quite a long time but have not had one for several reasons: 1) they aren't exactly every popular in aquarium trade 2) depends on the source they can be quite pricy 3) they require absolute solidarity and can harm their owners if you don't know what you are dealing with.

It's only been one day since this little guy has been in this 24gallon species tank that has nothing but the mantis along with liverock, some soft coral, macroalgae, and some micro snails. I have prepared a crevice for it, but the little dude was so busy all night "remodeling" it by moving rocks around and puffing out sand. By morning the "cave" is officially a "burrow". They are "reef safe" by the way to a certain degree, that is they will not touch any sessile invertebrates such as anemone or corals, but will readily consume any crustasian, fish, snail, hermit crab, etc that are living alongside them.

There are two types of mantis- the slicer and the splitter. The slicer has razor sharp claws that can slice a fish into two halves before consuming them. The peacock mantis belongs to the splitting group: using its pair of hammer shaped claws, they "punch" the prey with up to 180lb force to either knock them out cold or to split the shell (even clams and snails) before consuming them. Another awesome feature is their two perky eyes- the most complex pair of eyes in the animal kingdom that can see 4 times more "things" than human, including 12 difference color channels (UV and IR included), how neat is that?