Please critique our mantis tank

[mroldcrow]

Current Specs:

-29 gallon tank, just regular fluorescent bulbs to aid in prevention of SR.
-Aqueon quiet flow crappy filter that came with the tank kit (it's on our upgrade list)
-100 watt shatter resistant heater
-3 inches of live sand
-Somewhere around 17 lbs of live rock
-A small amount of lace rock
-Grey electrical conduit (thanks for the idea, Islandoftiki!) for her burrow
-Hydor Koralia 425 gph pump

We ordered another heater and power head to use when mixing water changes.

Started the tank with tap water and water conditioner (shamefully have to admit to listening to LFS on how to start up a saltwater tank), but have purchased some ro/di water and have plans to purchase our own system in a few months or so. We also want to get a refractometer, but for now we are using a glass hydrometer and cross checking that with one of the coralife plastic ones with the swinging arms. Since we're still really new to this, we check the water with test strips every day to make sure everything is cool.

The little lady mantis has been hard at work all day today filling up her burrow. She also ate our entire CUC. Maybe she's preparing for a molt, so we're about to do a water change so we don't have to worry about it if she holes up in there.

Posting this to ensure we're not making any critical mistakes here, or missing any imperative equipment for the time being. Thanks!

[Fartin'Gary]

I would strongly suggest running carbon if you are not already as a precaution. Tap water can contain all sorts of metals including copper that are harmful to crustaceans. Nice looking tank and little killer.

[mroldcrow]

Ok thank you! I'll research that right now.

[Fartin'Gary]

By using R/O or distilled you can control the amount of nutrients in the water better too so you won't have sudden blooms of bad algae. Tap has a ton of stuff in it.

Once you get good filtration set up you can take that HOB and turn it into a mini fuge with some cheato. It really helps clean the water and pods like to breed in it.

I run these in my canister filter because I can cut them to the shape I need. For the pebble carbon you can get a little net mesh bag and put that in the filter chamber. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Deep-Blue-Ca...item2c6fbd893f

[mroldcrow]

This is super helpful, thank you! I'll stop and get some tomorrow =)

[mroldcrow]

Here is what is currently in our filter:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AQUEON-FILTE...item51a566ae24

Do you think this is sufficient? Or should I buy one of those carbon pads or some pebbles and put in there with it?

[Fartin'Gary]

It's already got activated carbon in there so that is fine. I would get some great filtration as soon as possible though. For salt water you want double so for a 30gal a 60GPH or more filter would be a good choice. Then turn that little HOB into a fuge. Island of Tiki made a nice little fuge with an LED lamp out of one. I made one similar.

[Islandoftiki]

Here's the HOB fuge I built. I'm not using it now since I upgraded to an AIO tank that has all of that built in.

[mroldcrow]

Thanks! We'll definitely build one of those once we upgrade to a new filter =D

Here's what's happening right now, so maybe you guys can tell me if it's normal or not. She arrived Saturday morning, and yesterday was really the first time she ventured out of her burrow. As soon as she did, she started this sort of cycle of grabbing a CUC member, carrying them into her burrow, whacking them a couple times, and after a while coming out and grabbing huge armfuls of sand and carrying those back into her burrow as well. Rinse and repeat that all day yesterday. Then, she started focusing on grabbing small rubble rocks and carrying them to the entrances of her burrow, in between doing this, she would repeat the above cycle a couple times as well. I assumed that she's eating the CUC. She never did throw out any shells, though. She has to have upwards of 7 shells in there with her now along with all that sand she carried in. Today, she's almost completely sealed up both entrances, to the point that if she wanted to get out she would have to move some of the rock. It's really causing me anxiety to think about all those little corpses in there decaying in her tunnel. I read that you should clean those out of there to avoid compromising water quality. However, I absolutely don't want to disturb her if she's preparing to molt. Is it ok to leave those in there? If so, how long is it ok to leave them? I can still hear her in there, clacking away, so I don't think they're all dead and/or eaten.

[Calappidae]

She is molting. Try not to disturb her until she opens back up out of the burrow again.

Kharn suggested to me for my setup to use a small pump or something for waterflow. (to prevent stagnant water or huge ammounts of debris.) I used a pvc burrow and drilled a hole in the back, stuck vinyl in there, and attached a ehiem (spell check?) compact 300 to it (80gph pump).

I guess they can handle the flow then.. I'm not even 100% sure I did that right.. any comments?

[mroldcrow]

Yeah. She's molting. I haven't heard any more popping at all since I made the last post. I shut off all the lights around the tank, and put some blackout curtains up so she doesn't get hit by the sun in the morning. It makes me very uneasy, there are so many molt horror stories on here!

Regarding the small pump, I saw Dr. Caldwell post something about aiming your aquarium pump towards the burrow to provide some circulation. For now, that's what I have done. I'll be interested to see how your ehiem works; I might implement something like that. Thanks for the tip!

[Fartin'Gary]

You did the right thing with the curtains. Just leave it dark for a few days. Don't worry about the pump thing. Especially if it's already established a burrow. And even if it hasn't then it's really hard to guess of that is even beneficial. If you had a really long burrow then it might be nice to have a very light water flow pumped through it. If you keep your water quality in check then it should not be an issue. I firmly believe that having an R/O system in the house is a necessity for good water. It's so much easier and more convenient to us than anything else.

[mroldcrow]

Update: Well, I thought for sure she was molting, but yesterday I heard her in there whacking things in her burrow. Then she started actually coming out of her burrow and exploring a bit, picking up a few new bits of rocks for her construction purposes. I thought maybe she was looking for food, and I really don't want her dragging any more little CUC into her den...I'm still really worried about those things decomposing in there and affecting the nitrates. I'm probably just being super paranoid since I'm new to this, but I just can't stop worrying about that. So I soaked a couple krill in some vitachem and held it down in front of her burrow in case she wanted it (just briefly turned on the light to do so once I saw her coming out). I'll put the video link on here if you want to see it. I still hear her whacking things in her burrow today, but she's pretty much boarded up both entrances again.

Also, since I'm not using a protein skimmer, and there's nothing in there except her and the CUC, do you guys think there needs to be any type of aeration in there? Thanks again for all the advice =) You guys have been invaluable sources of information!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w2To...ature=youtu.be

[Calappidae]

Glad to see everything is going well!

Still she looks like she's trying to close up for her next molt. You'll see her grabbing rubble and such back and forth.

[mroldcrow]

Here's another question. Today we got a refractometer, with the calibrating solution. Before this, we had a swing arm hyrdometer along with a glass one that we used to double check our readings. Both of these read 1.025. Tonight, we calibrate this refractometer per the instructions on the calibration fluid to 35ppt, and we double checked that with ro/di water which read zero. Then we check the tank water, and it reads 1.029. Before I go into full on panic mode and rip 2 gallons of water out of the tank and replace it with ro/di water to try to lower the levels a bit (I'm going to do that every day to try to reduce it somewhat gradually, if this reading is in fact correct), what are the chances that we're doing something wrong with that refractometer? I tried to read up on in depth calibrating instructions, and it was almost worse than when I took chemistry in high school. I admit, it's pretty confusing, and I'm leery of making any changes based on that as of yet.

[Fartin'Gary]

1.029 is high but don't worry. Some people keep their reefs like that for corals. I find it easier to keep mine lower because of evaporation raising the salinity. If it's a gradual change the tank will adapt within reason. It's the sudden changes that kill things. Lower it gradually over a couple days.

[mroldcrow]

Will do. So you think the refractometer is correct, then?

[Fartin'Gary]

Originally Posted by mroldcrow

Will do. So you think the refractometer is correct, then?

If you are sure it's calibrated correctly it probably is. Swing arms not reliable.

[Calappidae]

Fill your Hydrometer with Ro/di water.. see if your hydrometer is correct. Compare the results with RO/DI water rather than the tank water. You can also take your refractometer to a LFS and have them fix it for ya for peace of mind. Or better yet have the LFS test your water and make sure everything is matching your results..

I'd take half a gallon out each day and replace with FW and then top-off from any evaporation to bring it down slowly. Test afterward of course.


At some points my salinity raised to 1.032 in my 2 gallon when that was up.. I added about a cup of water each day to bring that down. I tested daily tho.. the harlequin shrimp I had in there did fine and they certainly are more sensitive than a stomatopod.