Originally Posted by MichaelTX
red plastic or anything that will cause the light to go red. do you remember the army flashlights that had the different colored disks in it. if you have an army surplus store around you they are fairly cheap and work the best if not I have used everything down to holiday saran wrap that was red over the light.
as far where did they come from the liverock is full of little and big holes I had ones piece of rock in my tank that was about the size of basketball when I was changing tanks i drop it and it had a huge cave in the middle of the rock with tunnels going out from it in all directions and had a ton of criiters in it.
Mike
I figured that anything that changes the light to red would do, but just wanted to make sure that there wasn't a special type of red light for this. It is funny that you mentioned the army flashlights cause I mentioned that to my husband but he doesn't remember them, I played with them when I was a kid, they have multiple lens for them including various colors. Funny that someone else remembers them, I was beginning to think I was one of the only ones after the look on his face when I mentioned it! I had also thought about colored saran wrap. I did notice multiple holes that tunnel through the live rock and figured that my critter was hiding in there.
The critter didn't look like a mantis shrimp, more similar to a bristleworm or fireworm. I have had the tank up and running for around 3 years and never seen anything in it that we didn't place in it till recently. It is entirely possible that there is a mantis shrimp though because I have had no luck with fish surviving long in the tank at all. Although I have never seen nor heard a mantis shrimp in it, but that does not always mean it isn't there I guess. My parameters were always fine, I just figured that I had the wrong fish together. I never found them dead, they were always just permanantly missing. Very bizare! I had 2 yellowtail damsels, 2 ocellaris clowns, a lawnmower blenny, a cleaner shrimp and 7 small hermit crabs in a 38 gallon tank. I upgraded to a 54 gallon corner bowfront, but everything was already missing except a couple hermit crabs and my cleaner shrimp. Since then the cleaner shrimp died (we had him for 2 or 3 years), and now all that is left are 2 hermit crabs.
I am afraid to put fish in there after the luck I had! We intend to buy more live rock because there is not enough in there currently.
