juvinile peacock mantis 36 gallon day by day

[sam bozeman]

Right. I was reading up about that. Lfs store info is always taken with a grain of salt. His/her tail is solid neon blue with red fringe. I wallked in last night to get some live rock because I had a mantis on order from a reef store across town, but I walked in and they had it sitting there in a 12-15 gallon with one little archway of live rock and not even 2" of substrate selling the whole setup for $180 and free mollies to eat for two weeks. I was ****ed. He is still sitting there on the counter, quite pretty, but his/her back carapace color is quite subdued, hmkind of a red brown with the black leopard spots. I've got some of the vitamin stuff you use for betty in layaway for when I pick it up. Then I will get some good pictures and bring her to her full red glory!

[sam bozeman]

Right I was reading up on sexing them last night. It's tail is solid neon blue. Can't see any boy parts though. When I get it in his/her new home I'll get some good pictures up

[sam bozeman]

Added about 9" of 2" pvc that I boiled before I put in. Pictures coming when the sediment settles

[docstach]

Originally Posted by Islandoftiki

One could construct an incognito burrow from chunks of live rock and water-weld epoxy putty.

If you do a similar electrical conduit thing like I did, you really can completely disguise it with some careful rock stacking around the entrances. Like this:

I can only take partial credit for this as Betty did a lot of the rock arrangement herself. You can't see the pipe at all.

You can practically bury the entire conduit into the sand bed if you like.

What size did you use if I may ask?

[sam bozeman]

2" pvc. Just plain white. Buried as much as I could. The damsel I have in there wasn't very happy when I took his rock and moved it to hide it some more

[Islandoftiki]

Originally Posted by docstach

What size did you use if I may ask?

Mine is made from a 2 1/2" grey PVC Electrical conduit elbow. I cut the ends at an angle with a chop saw.

This is what it looks like before cutting:



And after chop saw (before I covered it in sand):



This gives her enough room to hang out completely out of view and out of the light, plus she has enough room to do a flip-turn-around inside. She's about 5" or so.

[sam bozeman]

That looks really cool. You can't even see it though such is even cooler. I hope mine decorated as well as betty

[Fartin'Gary]

That's the way to do it. All of my peacocks stacked rocks outside the entrances and hid the pvc too. It's just in their nature.

[Islandoftiki]

Originally Posted by Fartin'Gary

That's the way to do it. All of my peacocks stacked rocks outside the entrances and hid the pvc too. It's just in their nature.

They're experts at making their burrows look incognito. No need to advertise. With the exception of my G. Ternatensis. He wouldn't lift a rock if his life depended on it.

[sam bozeman]

I'm so excited. My tank is almost settled back down from the huge excavation project it just underwent. So I have one end pretty well done. Need about 10-12 lbs more then I can start some frags. Emma is going in as long as ny water test comes back normal tomorrow morning. Hopefully will get some good pictures of her going in

[Calappidae]

By chance was the tank cycled? (it establishes to handle the bio-load)

[sam bozeman]

Yes it was. I was very worried. I used this weird bio cycled thing that came with it (craogslist tank got the whole setup for $130 no filter) and I used it and it cycled in two days. I let it sit for a week after that with 3 lbs of live rock and two bumble bee snails. I never take those quick cyclers but I figured it couldn't hurt. That was 3 weeks ago. All the levels have been stable since the first week.

[Calappidae]

I'd throw in some food like krill.. thats the only way you'll know if it is fully cycled. The bacteria you added is going to handle the bio-load from the snails and rock.. but when you add a huge 4" mantis in there you may see an ammonia spike because the bacteria didn't adjust to that but the little stuff instead. The krill will raise ammonia, cycle the tank, decompose, and the mantis will take its place. Or you can buy pure ammonia to add in the tank. If the ammonia doesn't raise at all from the krill for a day or two.. then take it out and put in a mantis while still keeping a close eye on everything.

[sam bozeman]

Good idea. I'll do that before I go to work in the morning.

[Fartin'Gary]

Do not just toss krill in your tank. Do not add the mantis if it's not fully cycled. You need a mature tank to add anything. That is several months. Other than that it's a crap shoot. I am going to be mean here but do not listen to Calappide. He should not be giving advice to anyone on mantis husbandry given what happened with his last peacock which he basically killed even after we all told him what to do.

[Islandoftiki]

Originally Posted by Fartin'Gary

Do not just toss krill in your tank. Do not add the mantis if it's not fully cycled. You need a mature tank to add anything. That is several months. Other than that it's a crap shoot. I am going to be mean here but do not listen to Calappide. He should not be giving advice to anyone on mantis husbandry given what happened with his last peacock which he basically killed even after we all told him what to do.

Sorry Calappide, but I have to back Gary up on this one. He's absolutely right. You've started spewing ridiculous myths and half-truths again. Gary, you're not being mean. It does no good to the community to misinform newcomers.

A tank takes upwards of six weeks to cycle. My preferred method is to use pure ammonia as it's more controlled and scientific. There are a number of articles on the internet on how to do a fishless (and invertless) cycle with pure ammonia. Obviously you won't know if your tank is cycled unless you have ammonia, nitrite and nitrate test kits and have a solid understanding of the nitrogen cycle. You can test your live rock to see if it's cycled by spiking the ammonia up and seeing how long it takes to convert it to nitrate.

[Calappidae]

Originally Posted by Fartin'Gary

Do not just toss krill in your tank. Do not add the mantis if it's not fully cycled. You need a mature tank to add anything. That is several months. Other than that it's a crap shoot. I am going to be mean here but do not listen to Calappide. He should not be giving advice to anyone on mantis husbandry given what happened with his last peacock which he basically killed even after we all told him what to do.

FYI I specifically did listen to you gary. Here is his 30g bin that I had cycling.. then he decided to molt a couple days before it was ready.. and the molt didn't go well.. duel heaters too because the room was cold. I was actually going to post it but I was a little too embarassed under the situation I was in.
(I did get a little nervous when it started bowing..)
[IMG]http://i42.*******.com/zksxmb.jpg[/IMG]

He had a 3 foot by 1 foot 30 gallon and I had to move him due to a problem that occured in my other setup.. wasn't in my control whatsoever. I'll accept the scolding tho as I could've sped things up a little... was too slow by only a couple days..

From reading around in new-to-hobby threads and personal experience.. the cycle process usually is only around 2 weeks, to a little over a month at best. Mostly depends on how big of a bio-load your dealing with.

[Calappidae]

Originally Posted by Islandoftiki

A tank takes upwards of six weeks to cycle. My preferred method is to use pure ammonia as it's more controlled and scientific. There are a number of articles on the internet on how to do a fishless (and invertless) cycle with pure ammonia. Obviously you won't know if your tank is cycled unless you have ammonia, nitrite and nitrate test kits and have a solid understanding of the nitrogen cycle. You can test your live rock to see if it's cycled by spiking the ammonia up and seeing how long it takes to convert it to nitrate.

Actually I ain't wording it right, you basicly just more clearly said what I was trying to say with the cycle, except I was suggesting using food to spike ammonia rather then adding pure ammonia itself (krill) .

[Islandoftiki]

Originally Posted by Calappidae

FYI I specifically did listen to you gary. Here is his 30g bin that I had cycling.. then he decided to molt a couple days before it was ready.. and the molt didn't go well.. duel heaters too because the room was cold. I was actually going to post it but I was a little too embarassed under the situation I was in.
(I did get a little nervous when it started bowing..)
[IMG]http://i42.*******.com/zksxmb.jpg[/IMG]

That's a picture of an empty bucket of saltwater with a heater and a powerhead in it. You can't cycle that!


AND... this poor thread is getting hijacked with this jackassery. Sorry OP.

[Calappidae]

The salt was actually still being mixed in that pic.. hence the powerhead. I later got a marineland biowheel 100.

Anyhow sorry for the inconvience but back to the thread before this gets in too deep...

[sam bozeman]

No it's all allright. I've cycled tanks before. I have a full test kit for no3 and nitrite abd ammonia and PH BALANCE. My nitrates are at 3ppm and 0 nitrite. I have the two snails and a 2" amsel in right now. I'm going to add 1tsp ammonia to the tank right now and my fiancee will test it this afternoon. All information is welcome. I posted this to trade info and use what works best for my mantos and what I feel is best for it.

[sam bozeman]

Just a new pic of what the tank looks like today. Still barren with out much live rock but we are getting there

[M.r.ducks]

Originally Posted by sam bozeman

No it's all allright. I've cycled tanks before. I have a full test kit for no3 and nitrite abd ammonia and PH BALANCE. My nitrates are at 3ppm and 0 nitrite. I have the two snails and a 2" amsel in right now. I'm going to add 1tsp ammonia to the tank right now and my fiancee will test it this afternoon. All information is welcome. I posted this to trade info and use what works best for my mantos and what I feel is best for it.

Dumb question but what test kit are you using to read down to 3ppm nitrates. I've been using the API saltwater kit but of there's something better out there I'll gladly switch.

[sam bozeman]

Don't have it sitting in from of me but it's like an ocean life I want to say... Ocean something but I think it's ocean life. It's the only one I use because its the only one the local reef store sells. They have a deal with the company that makes it and it has their contact info on it. It's a good one. Costs $46 but needs to come with more test strips.

[Islandoftiki]

Originally Posted by M.r.ducks

Dumb question but what test kit are you using to read down to 3ppm nitrates. I've been using the API saltwater kit but of there's something better out there I'll gladly switch.

API is notoriously for giving bad results. I personally use an Elos kit for nitrates. Red Sea Pro kits are nice, too.