Possible game plans...a cut and paste
Methods for Capturing Within the Tank:
1. Use live bait to lure it out, then use nets to capture it. This is the simplest technique, and yet may be the least reliable, especially given the keen eyesight and quickness of many of the smaller mantis shrimps. Also, I find them to be extremely cautious creatures, and if there are hiding places around, it will be very difficult to catch them unawares and vulnerable to simple nets.
2. Use home-made traps to capture the mantis shrimp. One enterprising soul made a funnel-type apparatus by cutting out the top half of a small clear plastic bottle close to where the gradual slope turns to a straight line. He then inserted the top part into the lower half in an inverted position, and secured the whole apparatus by tying a fishing line around the neck of the top half and through a hole in the bottom. A piece of shrimp was secured inside the trap to serve as bait.
4. Use commercial traps.
5. The Prairie Dog "Suction" Method
* This is surely one of the more novel methods of capturing mantis shrimps, and involves the use of a suction to trap the critter. The exact location of the mantis shrimp's home cavity must first be determined, and the hose of a strong filter is then secured tightly over the hole. The system is left to run overnight, and the stomatopod is invariably found trapped inside the filter when morning comes. The contributor has been successful all three times he used this method, and has the stomatopod "trophies" on his wall to prove it. In order to work, the mantis shrimp must be of a manageable size, the location of its hole must be precisely determined, and there must not be any other escape routes within the rock.
6. The Scissor Method
* If you've got the reflexes and "guts" to go mano a mano against the mantis shrimps, then this is for you. On the serious side, I would caution that mantis shrimps display a relatively high degree of behavioral plasticity, and the very aggressive behavior of the mantis in the story may not be applicable to other mantis individuals. For example, the large mantises I maintain do not charge out when I start poking into the insides of their cavities. Instead, they just keep hammering at the intruding object.
7. Use competing animals to control or remove the mantis shrimp. This is much more troublesome and less reliable than using traps, and may involve the temporary removal of other inhabitants out of the container. Unless the competing creature is significantly larger than the mantis shrimp, there's every chance that you're going to lose it instead. These are not recommended methods for mantis shrimp removal.
