pistol or mantis??? help

[horus]

I know that both make a clicking noise but I'm not sure if what I have is between those two. I saw him today when I was turning the lights to dusk. It looks like a mini lobster... kind of a darkish brown, almost bluish. He is hiding in a large piece of conga I bought that has hundreds of little holes and crevices. I wanna take the piece and dangle it over a bucket of water... only bad part is that I have 3 small peppermint shrimp that call that rock home also. Whatever this hitchiker is...hes still a little smaller than the peppermint shrimp, maybe like an inch. I don't want this guy to cause problems down the road if he continues to keep eating and gets bigger. What should I do?

 

[horus]

got another look at him... hes not so dark afterall...kind of light brown. His left claw is bigger than the other. He stalking the smaller of my three peppermints ...but its too fast for him.

 

[ajroc31]

Pretty soon you will not have any peppermint shrimp left. From you description it sounds like a mentis shrimp. He will kill all. A pic would help.

 

[horus]

I looked at a bunch of pictures of both the mantis and pistols. He is a pistol shrimp judging by the bigger claw that I saw. I'm gonna search the board for other threads about pistols shrimps and see what problems I'm facing.

 

[lobstergrabber]

Most people think pistols are a compliment to a tank and go out looking for them on purpose. I had two of them but I removed them when I went through all the trouble to remove all my rock to catch my mantis. Every time they popped I thought I had another mantis and I couldn't take listening to it anymore. HTH
Rich

 

[horus]

I'm the same way... I keep thinking I have a mantis. Today I found my cleaner shrimp nibbling on the remains of a hermit. The pistol that I saw is really tiny though. Can they still decimate a hermit twice their size?