mantis in refugium

[fishtanker]

i've been reading all of these post about mantis shrimp and how fun and easy they are to care for. my question is could i put on e in my 10gal refugium as long is he couldn't get into the display tank. my other question is, would he affect the pod reproduction in the refgium (e.g. eat the pods) since i have the refugium to support my mandarin i wouldn't want to sacrafice his food for the mantis sice i like the mandrin a lot more. any help would be great thanks.

 

[nacl-h2o]

A small mantis may eat pods or worms from your fuge and many of the clubbers would eat the snails in there. A larger well feed spearer would probably be OK. Or a larger clubber if you left the snails out or found a spieces that doesn't hunt snails.

 

[jonthefb]

do you have any snails in your fuge? i think you would be fien as long as you kept your mantis well fed. they will eat just about any kind of meaty foods. id say go for it if you can find one
good luck
jon

 

[crazyreef]

I just wanted to tell you a quick story about a friend of mine who tried to keep a mantis shrimp in his Refugium. Everything went OK except for the fact that the Mantis shrimp was carring eggs which ended up in his REEF!! NOT GOOD!!!

 

[jonthefb]

holy cow crazy, that would totally suck. taking care of one, then it spawnign and having like 20 in your main tank!
suck suck suck
jon

 

[phoenixrising]

I have two mantis in my 55 refugium right now and so far have found no evidence of snail destruction or anything else. I do feed the mantis though. I have an enormous pod population in there. The walls, rocks, caulerpa and everything else in there is just covered with them. Guess Mr. and Mrs. Mantis don't have a taste for pods or snails. I have never had one release eggs into the system. Wow! That's when you know you're having a bad day!
A word of caution...my last mantis managed to get into the overflow, sail through the J-tube and free fall down into the sump (causing a minor flood along the way as he clogged the the hose) where I narrowly missed having my fingers mangled by his florescent green self when I reached in to remove the filter pad for rinsing. If you keep mantis, I guess you have to stay pretty alert to where they are all the time. As I found out...they CAN migrate!

 

[reeferdude]

I dont know much at all about tank plumbing but if it was me and I was worried about eggs getting back to my tank I would put my UV inbetween the tank and the refugium. The only problem I forsee there would be killing all of the good stuff comming from the refugium and efectivly making you refugium another tank that is connected to your main tank. Another idea might be to have a rubbermaid box with like super fine filterfloss in it and just put that between your tank and refugium.