My Ultimate Multi Mantis System(s)

[Kharn]

I'm BACK OVERSEAS for another 6month stint of nothing but daily mantis shrimp madness!

[nmotz]

Awesome Kharn, any extra special battle scenarios you have in mind? Have you purchased your next O. Scyllarus? Looking forward to seeing your work!

[Kharn]

Originally Posted by nmotz

Awesome Kharn, any extra special battle scenarios you have in mind? Have you purchased your next O. Scyllarus? Looking forward to seeing your work!

I have some things in mind...

I don't purchase any mantis here, I catch them!

[Kharn]

Bet you thought (maybe even hoped!) I was gone! LOL

But I have been busy reconfiguring the Large Multi Mantis System Overseas and it has just been finished and about to be stocked!

There are now 6 compartments capable of housing my "Dream Team" and the best part is with all the diving I have been doing I have located 5 of the 6 and have them in GPS ready for collection!!!

Smashers - O.scyllarus, O.cultrifer & O.japonicus
Spearers - L.maculata, L.lisa & L.mapia

The only one I have not yet found but am positive it is here is the O.japonicus

[j4ckfish]

Thats awesome, so keen to see what it turns out like

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

[Bobbitworm13]

Nice. I'd love to have 6 mantises

[Kharn]

I've been doing a LOT of Diving I'm working towards my Master Divers License.

I have my Open Water License & Advanced Open Water License, I'm now working on Specialty Licenses...

- Deep Diving License
- Digital Underwater Photography License
- Digital Underwater Filmography License
- Dry Suit Diving License
- Ecological Diving License
- Enriched Air Nitrox 32 Diving License
- Enriched Air Nitrox 40 Diving License
- Night Time Diving License
- Navigation Diving License
- Science of Diving License
- Search & Recovery Diving License
- Shark Diving License
- Stress & Rescue Diving License (*)
- Wreck Diving License
- Wreck Diving (Advanced) License
(*) - Mandatory for Master Diver License

I'm lucky for a few reasons...
#1 - My instructor is a good friend that I have known for many years here.
#2 - The 'school' is located 100m up the road.
#3 - Because of the relationship between myself & instructor I get big discount (-40%).
#4 - He is keen to see me fulfill my Mantis Shrimp endeavors and is even more keen to help out with acquisition of animals and locating them.

Instead of doing 'boring' dives to get the desired 50 dives for Master License and the 4 specialties licenses we just decided to do all of the most interesting licenses and by the time I am done with the specialty licenses I'll be automatically ready for the Master Diver License.

All up I will have attained 18 Licenses (inc the 2 I already have), whilst there is a physical License card for each...THANKFULLY the Master Diver License Card will list them all anyway so I won't have to lug all 18 cards around!

[Bobbitworm13]

I love diving. I'll be going to a camp in the Florida keys and will be doing 7 dives and then will be ready to do my master diver certification next year

[Kharn]

Originally Posted by Bobbitworm13

I love diving. I'll be going to a camp in the Florida keys and will be doing 7 dives and then will be ready to do my master diver certification next year

I'm here until the end of May so I hope to get my Master License by then because currently I am doing 2 Dives per day.

[Kharn]

Bit of a setback (yet again) but now officially up running and STOCKED!

Finally had some goodluck amongst the plethora of badluck...

Caught 3 peacock mantis shrimp in the span of 24hrs which are now living in the Smasher Tank of the system.

4inch specimen (missing a hammer).
5inch specimen (fat and healthy).
3.5inch specimen (small and energetic).

I also managed to find the perfect location for collecting crabs, ghost crabs & box crabs! No more little nancy sally light foot crabs my mantis will have to work for their meals!








Now I just need to find some large spearers most likely a trio of male L.macs!

Smasher Food


I've still got over 2 months time here so there should be plenty of filming and photos to come!

[Kharn]

Caught a Fourth Peacock Mantis today (In photo on Right).

Only have enough room for 3 so the smallest one (1.5inch smaller than the 3 in the photo) is being released tomorrow where it was caught from.

This photo was taken on 1 of my filming lenses because I do not have a wide lens for photography because I typically do not do or need wide lenses for photography (but I do for filming).

Hence the poorer quality than previous photos (the lens used just isn't meant for photography but filming).

The 3 mantis in the photo are all around 5inchs long. Left - Female / Middle - Female / Right - Male.

[Kharn]

[Hadla]

Awww I wish I had a tiny peacock! Thanks for the pics <3

[Kharn]

Phase 4

With each passing day I get closer to the goal here and closer to returning back to Australia to begin the monstrous task of Phase 4 and this time with an added inhabitant in the form of a Cephalopod!

As large as the build is it won't be all that 'costly' to run (electrical bill) because of the way the build is being designed with efficiency high on the priority list.
- No Chiller(s)/ (I regulated the rooms temperature already)
- No Heater(s) (I regulated the rooms temperature already)
- No Uv Filter(s) (It's a Dark System)
- No Reef Light(s) (It's a Dark System)
- No ATO Pump(s) (Gravity Fed System)
- No Reactor Pump(s) (Feeds from System Pump)
- No Powerhead Pump(s) (Closed Loop System Flow Design)

The only electrical parts are:
- Skimmer Pump (Bill Wann Aquarium Engineering)
- System Pump (Abyss)
- Refugium LEDs (Custom)

SIDE A - TOTAL
Length = 3200mm
Width = 400mm
Height = ?
Volume = 850L

SIDE B - TOTAL
Length = 3200mm
Width = 800mm
Height = ?
Volume = 2400L

Total Est. Vol. = 3250L
Total Display Animals (not inc. live food) = 8 Stomatopods & 1 Cephalopod (possible pipefish/seahorse/dragonet/goby in Refugium)

[nmotz]

Wow Kharn, that is incredible. Almost 900 gallons of mantis shrimp fun. Keep up the good work!

[Kharn]

Originally Posted by nmotz

Wow Kharn, that is incredible. Almost 900 gallons of mantis shrimp & cephalopod fun. Keep up the good work!

I'm going to need to open 1 of the walls in the room in order to get the tanks inside.

A 5000L Rainwater Tank for storing NSW.
A 2000L Rainwater Tank for storing RODI.

The room is sort of like a basement, 1.5m of the room is below ground level, so the 2 reserve rain water tanks will be positioned at the height of the rooms ceiling which makes both tanks Gravity Fed, the plumbing for the 2 reserve rain water tanks will be done through the ceiling of the room, then drop down directly above their sump inputs.

Also having some re-wiring done by my mate who is an electrician, there will be powerboards/wall outlets in the CEILING this way cables go UP and are not in the way at all (because the system sits in the middle of the room with all 4 sides visible) but there will only be 5 cables anyway (Skimmer Pump/System Pump/Refugium Lights), this way I'm never stepping over or tripping on any cables and it all looks clean, not to mention safer because water won't be able to reach the outlets.

There will be about a 6inch gap between the backside of both sides so that the cables and RODI/NSW plumbing can slip down/up the center between the system and not be in the way visually or physically.

All of the Display tanks have SIDE overflows (front to back but on 1 or both sides), this will make overflow maintenance easy and visible for me(if the overflows ran along the back then it would be nearly impossible to reach into.

I'm spending quite a bit on the limited equipment that is in this system, the Tanks(yet to get quotes) are being built by one of the best builders in Australia the Skimmer(over $5k) is being custom made by Bill Wann @ AquariumEngineering one of the best filtration manufacturers in the world and the pump(over $3k) I am getting from Abyss in their largest size range, even the 3 Refugium lights are being custom made specifically for this Refugium.

This should be the last build for a while / perhaps final build period, whilst I've been overseas for the past 3years now I have saved over $30k which is for this system and will also be used for things on the system (a.k.a camera upgrades/accessories).

[Kharn]

Well its been a big week here.

I put out "bounties" on Peacock Mantis Shrimp and printed out 'flyers' which I handed out to local fishermen detailing the animals and my requirements and they certainly served me well!

In the past week I have acquired more Peacock Mantis Shrimp than I can care for and have had to already tell those I handed the "flyers" to that I no longer required this mantis, I had 9 individual peacocks all up but released the 3 smallest individuals.

I can only keep 6 stomatopods and I am only meant to keep 3 peacocks (the other 3 compartments are for giant spearers) with the success of the Peacocks being acquired I am now putting to task the same fishermen in locating 3 giant spearers for me!

No video uploads yet, I have certainly been recording though I had to empty my Cards into Drivers yesterday because since decemeber I have accumulated 400GB of video data onto those cards and they were all near full!

I'm going to upload in Compilation Style rather than individual videos of individuals peacocks themselves.

[Hadla]

Awww I'd love to get one of the smallest ones from you! Thanks for the pics! They're beautiful

[Kharn]

Originally Posted by Hadla

Awww I'd love to get one of the smallest ones from you! Thanks for the pics! They're beautiful

The smallest one I HAD (since released) was roughly 3inchs-3.5inchs long, certainly the smallest I have ever seen with my own eyes.

[Gonodactylus]

The smallest I've seen was 55mm. It was fully colored, so not a new postlarva. I've seen several under 6 cm. Most were living in cavities and had not yet constructed a burrow.

Roy

[nmotz]

Originally Posted by Gonodactylus

The smallest I've seen was 55mm. It was fully colored, so not a new postlarva. I've seen several under 6 cm. Most were living in cavities and had not yet constructed a burrow.

Roy

Wow, so my old Peacock was actually one of the smallest relative to what is normally encountered in the hobby. As best I could measure, she was 2.25 inches long but was definitely no bigger than 2.5 inches upon arrival in July 2015.

[Hadla]

Wow 55mm that sounds adorable! Was just thinking Neptune is the smallest then. I can't remember how big Roger was when I got him.

[Kharn]

1 of my peacocks just laid a clutch of eggs!

This time I can actually do something for the babies rather than just leave them to die/coral/fish food.

Once the babies hatch and leave the burrow I intend to siphon them out and then release them back into the reef where their mother was caught!

I'm also going to attempt to "capture" each stage including release on camera albeit photos or videos.

[Hadla]

great pics! Congrats

[Bobbitworm13]

Why not try to raise a few? I've read everything I could on raising mantis from larval stage and the biggest problem it seems is separating the babies because of they're highly cannabilisti ways.