As you all know if you've read my thread I had wonderful creepy crawlies that came in with my Uncured Live Rock from KP Aquatics on Halloween. I wanted uncured because I wanted some critters. There were 3 in my rock. That was just fantastic.
Here they are. The green is .5 inches and it's apparently a Neogonodactylus wennerae.
This is an excerpt about it from someone on the internet.
They are the most common species that hitchhikes in on live rock. They change color depending on environment, and can range from bright green to brown to maroon. They only grow to about 3", and are relatively peaceful for a mantis. They can't hit hard enough to break thick-shelled snails or hermits. They are also more active than the chiragra species, and are often out exploring the tank. She loves to eat krill from a bamboo skewer.
Now my latest pics. Blown up because it's only .5 inches.
This one is 3/4". It may very well be that the this one is also the same variety as it can be maroon also. I also gave the same coloring and 1" to FlCandy who helped me unpack my rock and also found some bad isopods.
Here is their future home. It's the 20g that I couldn't use as a sump/fuge for the 34 as it wouldn't fit the stand it came with. The 34 also came w/ a suction cup led light which I'm using for this tank instead.
Currently though they are in their own 1 c container floating in the Evolve 8 tank. Ever 2 days I change out 2/3 of the water in the container for established water in the Evolve to keep them healthy. I've given them a small scrape of frozen Reef Frenzy from LRS as it has a variety of foods. I can't tell if they're eating it though.
I have 10 lbs of rock in each side, only an inch so far so I need to get another inch in there. I did buy some pvc elbows or whatever they're called but the mantes are too small to put that in there. There are small pieces of live rock that they can crawl under and larger shells if they wish to crawl into those. Each has 50W heater and I just ordered an AC30 for each side as those AquaClear filters are rated for 30g a piece- I can shave down the propeller if I need to but Tamberav made a good point that I need to be able to stick inside what I need to and to have that space. The suction cup light has to sit inside the tank under the ledge and it takes up 2" of space so that is why 1/4" acrylic divider couldn't go all the way up. But anyway, probably is good if there's some space before the top of the tank as I know they can leap/swim. I still have to do something for a lid. The light has the 50/50 led and then flip to blue setting but with the turn of a knob you can put a covering over the light so it can still dim it .
I'm going to put some macros of different colors and some mushrooms more than likely. I will be growing gsp and purple clove polyps hopefully (have to buy them still) on the divider between them. Too cold to spray paint so I didn't paint the back. I can always stick the black side of those tank back wall covers on it if it bothers me. It's dark in the hallway.