visually confirmed mantis shrimp

we have a mantis shrimp, we've seen his beedy little eyes, we have quarantined the rock he's in and confirmed visually he is in fact in that rock.

 

ha ha, no pics till we get him out of the rock

 

I heard the clicking and noticed hermits and snails going missing.

 

it seems I have someone who wants it who might be coming sunday to take him off my hands. I prefer not to kill anything that people might want.

 

The clicking/popping at night, per what I've read, can be either a pistol shrimp, (relatively harmless) or a mantis shrimp. I suspected the mantis shrimp because of the combination of factors, the clicking but also, that my blue leg hermits and snails were dissapearing, a few of my fish had (scars) and most importantly, my emerald crabs were missing leggs. Emerald crabs seem to be a favorite food of these guys from everything I've seen online in videos and forums. We didn't know for 100% sure we had a mantis shrimp until we saw his eyes poking out from a hole in the rock. Also, another interesting behavior in the tank, the cleaner shrimp, coral banded, and blood shrimp, seemed "frightened" of the other side of the tank, now that the mantis is out, they roam freely.

 

I started to think that maybe the little guy had died in the bucket of water I was keeping his hiding rock in. He wouldn't take the bait from any of my traps. Nope, once I got a chunk of shrimp within 1 cm of his hole, he snatched it. He's a quick little guy, I still have not been able to confirm how big or small his is since he won't extend more than his eyes out hardly.

 

we know we've gotten one of them out, but DAMN IT! we've heard the popping of another one, and he's injurred our purple firefish, we really hope he'll be ok.

 

we know we've gotten one of them out, but DAMN IT! we've heard the popping of another one, and he's injurred our purple firefish, we really hope he'll be ok.

 

we are now looking for the next mantis, we know we have another, it will take a while to find him. The guy did show up for the first one and confirmed that he was still clicking and alive in the rock when he got him home.