Australian Peacock Mantis SICK and Blind?

[firefly73]

I truly hate to drop in on forums as a newbie and ask a question straight up i find it quite rude act and i am sorry BUT.......

Have a Mantis that has been healthy and active for the last 6 weeks or so. he is a large size around 12cm and displayed no issues. eating well curious active learnt thats the feed stick etc etc

i feed him a variety of dead foods (fresh prawn meat) (fresh fish) frozen krill AND he also smashes up various hitch hiker snails and crabs etc

Tank is a sps reef 400 with ai prime and t5 sup lights 2 mp40qd and running a m1 return with gfo and biopellet.

Tank
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
.02 no3
<.03 p04
alk 9 dkh (although i did just refill my dosing and havent rechecked as of yet)
ca 420
mg 1400
water temp 26-27 (WINTER IS COMING)
nsw via a 50micron sock collected locally (clean water)
total system volume tank sump and fuge display 540l

stocking
1 decora
1 dartfish goby
1 acro goby
2 false percs
1 yellow tang sub adult
1 blue tang sub adult
1 chromis(cant catch him!)
2 mandys (healthy and fat on natural pods no sup feeding)
coral banded shrimp
peppermint shrimp
2 trochus snails
1 stromb

ISSUE
aquascaped the tank all removed rock went to the fuge display so no loss of bacteria etc. Did stir up the 2 to 3mm sand and exported this to a poly filter in the sump. tank did go manky but cleared quickly. During cleaning the mantis had his hole (which he made) destroyed this was unavoidable. so with him swimming around i caught him and moved him to the fuge tank (which was isolated just before the cleaning. when the tank had cleared to 50% approx i added him back in to the main tank. 1 hr later i reopened the fuge.


next morning tank crystal clear everyone seems happy (although the mantis had not dug out a new den (i supplied a few rocks and ledges etc for him to get started) fast forward 24hrs.

MANTIS head down using feelers to navigate and on closer obs seemed to have a twitching behaviour with a loss of spatial oreintation ie walking on one side legs moving but in the air so to speak.Also noticed all my acro crabs DEAD. saw some fall of sps walk around and twitch then bam dead (spewin had 7 different colours etc)

no issues with the fish nothing period. But did notice my coral banded acting very strange as well

phone call to local marine shop. MAY have disturbed a sponge that released toxins.......May have crushed a small cucumber(unlikely) Stirring up detrius may have blocked gills ( are fish gills more delicate than crabs etc i do know that the crabs and shrimp are more sensitive to toxins and pollution.

Dropped in a bag of carbon turned up mp40 and raised them 1 hr later coral banded seems better and also the mantis. Check the peppers in the fuge they never seemed sick.

Fast forward to today coral banded fine peppers fine snails fine
Mantis very sick but does feed if i hand feed him fresh prawn.

Could this have been because of a bacteria either using to much o2 (fish seemed fine) or a secondary type infection in the gills from the cloudy water? (once again no fish or snails etc show any issues)

not having his den is bad but my coral showed the same issues so its not that.

any suggestions?

[nmotz]

It sounds like some kind of poisoning to me. LFS suggestion was actually pretty sound, it certainly could have been something in your tank that released toxins when it was disturbed. Honestly, if you have another tank (not connected in any way to the current system), I would remove him and keep him there for observation. Otherwise, test the water for ammonia/nitrite (there might be a ton of die-off deep in the rocks in your tank), run lots of carbon and maybe do some WCs. That's really all you can do in these situations.

[firefly73]

cheers mate

he is still eating but def is unbalanced and blind.

[EI Gringo]

Man this is gutting because about a year ago I had my giant spearer randomly start doing something similar and my water quality was perfect and I lost nothing else. After about 2-3 weeks of this behaviour ( blind, swimming aimlessly and being quite clumsy etc) he died and I never got an explanation. He molted a few weeks before but was perfectly okay afterwards.

[firefly73]

Originally Posted by EI Gringo

Man this is gutting because about a year ago I had my giant spearer randomly start doing something similar and my water quality was perfect and I lost nothing else. After about 2-3 weeks of this behaviour ( blind, swimming aimlessly and being quite clumsy etc) he died and I never got an explanation. He molted a few weeks before but was perfectly okay afterwards.

was he still feeding ?

[EI Gringo]

Yup he was still eating but only when I pushed the food into his maxipilleds. He was swimming frantically, often launching himself at the surface. He would flinch and flid out when I shined a light on him but he wouldn't respond to any movement with his eyes. It was horrifically sad and as I said he didn't recover. The only thing that happened before this was a loss of 2 cleaner shrimps because my filter switched off for some reason and deoxygenation took hold but the mantis was fine for a couple of weeks afterwards and the water quickly returned to normal, perhaps an ammonia or nitrate spike caused long term damage but I've had an ammonia and nitrate spike before with a peacock which survived. She didn't show these symptoms but she was totally rocked by the episode, after a few days however she was back to normal and lived another 6 months, I have no reason to believe that this event was forthcoming of her death, It was classic old age death, front of the tank slowly losing movement in her pleopods until she simply stopped.

[firefly73]

Originally Posted by EI Gringo

Yup he was still eating but only when I pushed the food into his maxipilleds. He was swimming frantically, often launching himself at the surface. He would flinch and flid out when I shined a light on him but he wouldn't respond to any movement with his eyes. It was horrifically sad and as I said he didn't recover. The only thing that happened before this was a loss of 2 cleaner shrimps because my filter switched off for some reason and deoxygenation took hold but the mantis was fine for a couple of weeks afterwards and the water quickly returned to normal, perhaps an ammonia or nitrate spike caused long term damage but I've had an ammonia and nitrate spike before with a peacock which survived. She didn't show these symptoms but she was totally rocked by the episode, after a few days however she was back to normal and lived another 6 months, I have no reason to believe that this event was forthcoming of her death, It was classic old age death, front of the tank slowly losing movement in her pleopods until she simply stopped.

Ok intresting exactly the same symptons as mine right down to feeding response. My coral shrimp showed twitching and spasms but recovered within 8hrs.

Acro crabs all dropped dead.. love to hear from others about this surely we aren't the only ones.

[EI Gringo]

Dr Roy said that he had observed the same thing in multiple o.scyllarus and various lysiosquillids, he isn't sure of the cure but thinks it's something neurological triggered by something chemical.

[firefly73]

Originally Posted by EI Gringo

Dr Roy said that he had observed the same thing in multiple o.scyllarus and various lysiosquillids, he isn't sure of the cure but thinks it's something neurological triggered by something chemical.

With lose of balance and random twiching seems hes on the money. Did just notice that his poop is stringy and liquid. Mind you had i eaten only prawn for several days it would give me the squirts to!.

Im off on a 5 day trip in 4 days not sure what to do.

[EI Gringo]

Is your system big enough and your filtration good enough to deal with the death of something so large and then it's complete decomposition? If I were you I would buy a ton of feeder shrimp the day before you leave to help clean up the dead peacock in case the worst were to happen

[firefly73]

Originally Posted by EI Gringo

Is your system big enough and your filtration good enough to deal with the death of something so large and then it's complete decomposition? If I were you I would buy a ton of feeder shrimp the day before you leave to help clean up the dead peacock in case the worst were to happen

no being a sps tank i doubt it would cope

[EI Gringo]

Maybe get a bucket and somehow secure it in the tank in such a way that the water is staying warm but not actually mixing with that in the tank, add live rock and a powerhead to essentially make a quarantine system for the time you are away and then if the Peacock dies it will not pollute the main tank? 25 litre bucket and 2 kilo of liverock should be fine and just don't feed it for that time, any wavemaker or powerhead will suffice just to oxygenate the water

[firefly73]

Originally Posted by EI Gringo

Maybe get a bucket and somehow secure it in the tank in such a way that the water is staying warm but not actually mixing with that in the tank, add live rock and a powerhead to essentially make a quarantine system for the time you are away and then if the Peacock dies it will not pollute the main tank? 25 litre bucket and 2 kilo of liverock should be fine and just don't feed it for that time, any wavemaker or powerhead will suffice just to oxygenate the water

cheers good idea

[firefly73]

well my mantis is still alive and while not perfect seems better.

[EI Gringo]

That's good to here bro! Fingers crossed for you mate because it's not pleasant if the worst happens :/