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Well here is an update folks.....she FINALLY CAME OUT the day before yesterday and spent approximately 2 hours roaming around her tank and in and out of her burrow at least a dozen times. I basically just pulled a chair up close to her tank and just watched her. She came up to the glass several times and just looked at me and then would continue roaming around and then would come back up to the glass and sit for a few minutes and do the same thing. I didn’t place any fingers or hands up to the glass to see how she would react( nor will I ever because I have seen too many videos of idiots doing this to agitate their animals to get them to attack and I completely disagree with this behavior) or to provoke her in any way. I must say she is a monster in size and is very nimble in her movements and really a beautiful animal. She also is very docile to my surprise after seeing and hearing about how vicious these animals can be when provoked. She has slowly reduced the numbers of CUC that were in the tank and has eaten all but 2 of the 6 emerald crabs that I had placed in her tank. She has killed a few of the larger snails that were in the tank as well over the month I have had her. Really curious as to why she will not touch silversides though since fish makes up part of their diet in the wild. Will keep trying to feed them to her though and see what happens. I’m really trying to vary her diet to just more than raw shrimp and clams on the half shell. I have a blue triggerfish in my reef tank that took me forever to get to eat more than just squid but I persevered knowing they are very carnivorous just like mantis shrimp are so will see what happens. I will say that I have been in the saltwater hobby for over 25 years and this Peacock I now own is by far the most fascinating. Glad I took the plunge and bought her! Thanks again to you all who took the time to post comments and suggestions. Much appreciated!! Btw... I am using a Kessil A160 that is set to the lowest blue actinic light setting and her burrow offers complete darkness throughout the day unless she decides to come out and take a look around. I am deathly afraid of her getting shell rot so lighting is kept to a minimal to duplicate the lighting she would receive in the wild and have a Ecotech MP40 for water current circulation as well as a Tunze protein skimmer. I do 50% water changes every other week to keep high nitrate levels away and check water parameters every other day as I do for my reef tank and make adjustments as needed. Anything I am missing or need to do better by all means feel free to comment.
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