Avoid These Mistakes: Essential Tips for Mantis Shrimp Care

In this video I go through all the comments from my previous videos and answer any questions you have about what it's like to keep a peacock mantis shrimp. If I missed anything out leave a comment and maybe I can do another one of these!
Equipment List
Aquaone Reefsys 180
Jecod DCP 4000
D-D Temperature Controller
100W Titanium Heater
Bubble Magus Curve 5 Skimmer
2X Ecotech Vortech MP10 powerheads
Aqua Illuminations Hydra 26HD
Reefloat Auto top-up
D-D Jumpguard
00:00 - Intro
01:29 - Can they break your tank?
03:35 - What equipment do you need?
06:58 - Does he attack the fish?
09:50 - What do you feed him?
13:43 - What happened to the decorator crab?

[@ashganino4169]

I completely agree that the habitat has a huge effect on their temperaments! My mantis shrimp is also very chill and has never made an aggressive move towards any of the fish, and I attribute that almost entirely to a large tank with plenty of hiding spaces for everyone and not overcrowding. They don't deserve the hyper aggressive reputation they get from people who keep them in bare bones tanks with few hiding spots

[@moffrevenge]

I totally agree, I keep mine with probably the "worst" possible fish : 2 Clownfish, 2 Banded pipefish, 1 Lawmoanner Blenny and 1 Cour jester goby and a banded brittlestar my mantis never showed any interests in them, I would like to add that apart the needeed space, I think their aggressivity seems to depand on their feeding, they seem to not normaly go after living fishes, but of course if they get hungry they will start to try...

[@KungFuShrimp]

It's nice to hear other people have come to the same conclusions as me. The pipe fish is the only one I'm surprised about but as you say as long as their kept fed it's not natural prey for them.

[@moffrevenge]

@@KungFuShrimp The banded one swims like normal fish and aren't bad swimmers (at least in normal reef tank with medium flow) at all contrary to what is believed (they are more stragic swimmer and use the flow instead of using brute force like "normal fish) and there are very awake and have great reflexes

[@jamesbryan1285]

Love the Overlord Bruce speech. “All shall love me and despair!”

[@somebodiesheartbreak]

I love Bruce videos! Its amazing how much more confident Bruce II is now that he's settled in with you. Thanks for doing this video especially, it will lead to better understanding and care of these crazy creatures. The YT alg0 is so fickle... I have heard other creators say that posting shorts, longer video descriptions with search keywords, and a consistent upload schedule are all things that help get you boosted. Easier said than done when yt isn't your full time job of course!

[@nunyab666]

Thanks for the info and another great video. Beautiful tanks. That 4’ reef tank is magnificent.

[@Theyallfloat1]

your bruce got me to start collecting stuff to get my own mantis shrimp and i wish to make a nice colorful tank with some coral to go with it. im super new but very excited. please upload more information vids on bruce :)

[@3fingerroll]

great video new sub

[@cooperleroy5406]

When I get a place of my own I’m definitely getting a salt water tank! The local ocean fish store in my city has ordered mantis shrimp before so I can get them here in Canada!

[@samhradh1680]

Thank you for all the info! The life-food question or toppic is somethin I am not sure about myself. I totally think it is natural and they hunt in the wild and that´s fine. Don´t think I would find it disturbing or strange to feed him living snails or mussels/cockles or even small fish. But these small and sweet little crabs......to see them in the tank and fight for their lives does touch my heart and I guess I will try to find as many alternatives to that as possible :-) Just personal favourites. Am very much looking forward to your next video!

[@PracticalReefer]

Great video! 1 thing you've missed is a video on that 4ft reef! Looks like some cracking healthy grown out fish and a select few grown out coral colonies! Very nice! 👌

[@susandanielsson6857]

Thank you so much for all your videos. They've been so helpful in setting up my mantis tank. :)

[@wwarby]

I fed my mantis shrimp a bunch of green shore crabs a while back. I brought seven of them home from a trip to the coast in a 20 litre bucket of seawater and kept them in a plastic crate with a bit of seaweed and an air stone so that I could keep them alive for a couple of weeks and feed them one at a time. I fed the crabs a bit of supermarket prawn every couple of days, and then gave my mantis shrimp one crab every two or three days. She loved it and it was fascinating to watch her predatory behaviour towards live prey first hand, but found it really fouled up my water quality - phosphates and nitrates in particular. A crab is a much messier food than a silverside, cockle or prawn (what my mantis normally eats) and although I tried to get any discarded scraps of crab out of the tank quickly, I'm sure she kept a few of them in her burrow which must have decomposed. I would feed her live shore crabs again, but next time I'd bring one or two home, not seven. The size matters too I think - ones about 3-4cm across on the carapace are ideal. I brought a couple home that were twice that size and those are the ones I think that really did the damage to my water quality. I've managed to get some fish in with my mantis shrimp now - she's been safely cohabiting for a couple of months with a sixline wrasse, an emperor damsel and a maroon clown. The first two I chose specifically based on your experience. It's a more interesting tank for having the fish in it, but I've now got more problems with green hair algae than I had before, thanks to the additional bioload, and my mantis shrimp won't tolerate cleanup crew to help with that.

[@KungFuShrimp]

I agree that the smaller shore crabs definitely work better, I came back with a couple of giant's that I didn't end up using as they were bigger than Bruce! I'm glad you've managed to get Oatmeal some friends, I'm sure they'll get along fine (famous last words!). Nutrient control is always a hassle with a messy eating animal like a mantis shrimp and I'm currently having some algae issues myself. I don't know how much room you have in your setup but I run rowaphos in a reactor to deal with excess phosphate and am considering starting a pellet reactor to help with nitrates as I've used that on my big tank in the past. Keeping cleanup crew alive long enough to do any cleaning is always a challenge and I'm always experimenting to see which survive longest. I've had some success with bumblebee and astrea snails but they still need topping up regularly.

[@wwarby]

@@KungFuShrimp I use rowaphos just in a bag in the sump on the back of my RS Max Nano Peninsula tank - there's no room for a reactor and its not as effective in a bag, but it's better than nothing. My nitrates are at 40ppm which is too high, so I need to find some way of getting them down - I had some macro algae for a while but it got smothered in GHA and I ended up binning it. I'm trying to feed the fish a little less, but I've probably not helped myself putting a huge maroon clown in there as she eats like a horse. Oatmeal killed three snails and a two urchins each within a day of going into the tank, and that was the end of my experiments with CUC - it's just too expensive for too little benefit. Keeping a mantis shrimp is hard work :)

[@TheeLonely_Bird]

I just watched that yesterday

[@lthudgins]

Needed this for my first Mantis Shrimp setup!

[@javariusjavarlamariuslamar3759]

Surprised this channel doesn’t have more subs

[@Charliebarl]

Thanks for the answers man, cant wait to see more about you and Bruce

[@Charliebarl]

And i’ll definetely go back to this video if i ever get a mantis shrimp

[@Jskinner82388]

My son and I love this channel. We are fairly new to it and I don’t believe we have seen all the videos. Do you have any footage of Bruce swimming backwards? We read that mantis shrimp do this. Thank you!

[@KungFuShrimp]

Hmmm not sure about backwards but one of my early vids was Bruce swimming round his tank and poking his head above the surface to look round the room which is one of the strangest things I've seen kzbin.info/www/bejne/gpbMgoehhMStoqcsi=4WQKdTC51Ksmbk1w

[@colinboneham7387]

All Hail Bruce, The Master Mantis Shrimp Kung Fu master. Question who would win out a fight between a Spear Mantis and a punch Mantis?

[@KungFuShrimp]

Good question, it's not something I've ever seen but I'd put my money on the smasher as they are designed for hunting shelled prey where spearers generally go for soft bodied animals

[@luisargudo8314]

Bruce II is in good hands. It's healthier than the first time you got it

[@justsomerandomdudeya]

Does Bruce II ever leave food to rot inside his burrow? Do you ever have clean it out? Seems like it would be impossible to get towards the back. Love your videos btw, so professionally put together and chock full of good information while staying cognizant that it’s from personal experience! Liked and subscribed!

[@KungFuShrimp]

Thanks for the feedback. I leave Bruce to look after himself and he's pretty house proud. He does sometimes have left overs but he always dumps them at the entrance of his lair.

[@rusk4373]

Would it be possible to do a full tank build for the filtration system and or tell us how you learned how to set up your tank. I’m planning on getting a tank just like yours

[@wax2414]

If I get a mantis shrimp somday I’ll have to refer back to this

[@DannysCoralReef]

I am pretty sure it is really hard for a mantis shrimp to break glass because for it to actually break he has to hit it at the tanks week point and when he does he has to hit it a few times which would be hard for him to do. Now my mantis shrimp has punched my tank but it has not broken any glass.

[@TomsReefs]

Hi there! Fellow Mantis Shrimp keeper here! By any chance could you tell me or send me your schedule for the Hydra?

[@KungFuShrimp]

It's the Dave Saxby preset turned down to about 50%. If you Google it you can download it from the AI website

[@TomsReefs]

@@KungFuShrimp amazing thank you! For this information I’ll take a look see! Much appreciated

[@shotoutstar581]

Hi, I plan on getting a mantis shrimp very shortly. If you wouldn’t mind answering some questions? First Is keeping live food, do you have to go to the store every week or can you keep them in a separate holding tank? Also in order to cycle a tank, in live rock required? And I have never heard anything about phosphate in any other video about keeping them, is it something to be worried about or just a nice to have thing?

[@ashganino4169]

I tend to buy a few things at once so I usually have a few snails, hermit crabs etc crawling around, so I don't think a separate holding tank is necessary at all. My mantis shrimp also has a preference for clams and a bag of tiny frozen clams can last you a very long time, especially if you're rotating foods, which means I really don't go food shopping for her very often, maybe every couple weeks for live and much less frequently for frozen.

[@shotoutstar581]

@@ashganino4169 ah okay, thank you that’s makes me much less worried

[@reysesouder3949]

I see that you are keeping corals but I heard the light can cause shell rot. How can I keep a lot of coral and the peacock? I love coral and would like to just have my soon the be peacock mantis and coral in the same tank but don’t want to cause too can’t problems for either of them. PLEASE HELP!! 😢

[@Indyk12pl]

I have one quastion can be 2 of this on in one tank? Like female

[@KungFuShrimp]

I've never seen this done and would assume it would end badly, however the do live in mated pairs in the wild so I would not say it's impossible.

[@garretttaguchi]

Is a lid required?

[@KungFuShrimp]

Mine is primarily because I lost a fish to a suicide dive but I have heard of mantis shrimp carpet surfing on occasion too.

[@nikitach6050]

How wide is the opening of pipes you used for his lair?

[@KungFuShrimp]

It's 2 inch pvc. Thanks for watching!

[@michaelhumerick-qz7lg]

When you are looking for a peacock mantis shrimp, and they advertise just a mantis shrimp ? How many mantis shrimp are there?

[@benboi3257]

450

[@j.rarellano8350]

Hi do u have a Instagram I have a couple questions to ask about my mantis shrimp

[@KungFuShrimp]

Yes its @kungfushrimp