McLovin/ Evelyn

Ok today in the morning McLovin was out still exploring the tank, and just after lights out he came back out again, and is moving around on the glass. Earlier today i fed him a piece of scallop but he only ate a small piece. I am going to try to get it some live shrimp tomorrow, which hopefully he is quick enough to catch. I will get more pictures of him in a few days so that he wont be as scared of the flash. Hopefully he is out in the day and i wont have to use flash.
 
Ok bad news. Fecha and McLovin fought today. Although McLovin is much bigger it seems Fecha started the fight. She grabbed him and wrapped herself around him. I was able to separate them by getting her off with a feeding stick i had on hand. I tried to catch Fecha to put her in a 12 gallon tank i have, while i finish the dividers, but whenever she realized the critter keeper (what i was using to catch her) she would freak out and once she inked, though i cleaned it up promptly. I ended up making a makeshift divider using window screening, hopefully it holds up for the night. Tomorrow i will definitely finish the real dividers. This was a big mistake on my part, but i still feel that McLovin would not have lived if i left him in the critter keeper initially.
 
I think McLovin doesn't have much time left. For the past two or three days he has stayed inside the same rock, and not budged from there. I have to place his food directly outside the rock so he can grab it and pull it in. This makes me think that McLovin is actually a senescent female, making it very possible that she has laid eggs. I haven't seen any eggs but it does seem that she covering something up .
 
that might be it, but i have divided the tank, and if anything i would feel like McLovin would win a battle between the two since he is substantially bigger. He came out twice the day after the fight, and once it even seemed like he was searching the rocks for Fecha (he hadn't realized she wasn't on his side of the tank), so i don't think he is intimidated.
 
does that mean you finished the "real" divider?

It does seem possible that being able to "smell" the other octo could stress out one or both of them, perhaps.

As usual, when octos seem sick or sluggish, it's also a good idea to check the water quality: maybe 2 octopuses is putting a much bigger load on your filtration or has started a mini-cycle, and it would be a good idea to make sure about that and maybe see if water changes improve things at all.
 
well water quality seems fine except nitrates are a bit high at 40ppm but i wouldn't think this would be the cause. I don't think that Fecha is stressing him out since as mentioned above the day after the attack McLovin came out and was hanging out on the glass, he also messed around with my cleaning magnet a bit, and he searched the rocks. Are there any other possible causes?
 
Nitrates are worrisome if they're over 20ppm, a water change would probably be a good idea... maybe McLovin is more sensitive to nitrates than Fetcha for some reason.
 
McLovin came out last night at around 11:30 pm, but only for about 20 minutes. Today i did some water changes anyways, and got the nitrates down to about 15 ppm...
 
McLovin is what i named my female peacock mantis. She is old enough to party!! chicka chicka yeah chicka yeah!
mclovinID.jpg
 
I have often thought about setting up a small tank for a mantis (Roy's fault, of course) but have not quite taken the bait. She is a beauty.
 
thanks! They are one of the coolest creatures i have ever kept! Amazing architects,crazy hunters, and extremely intelligent! You would not be dissapointed once Roy finally gets the best of you! Mine is really funny...i swer it has OCD! haha
 
dwhatley;112010 said:
I have often thought about setting up a small tank for a mantis (Roy's fault, of course) but have not quite taken the bait. She is a beauty.

Anybody know of a good way to trap one? I'm pretty sure there's one in our 60 gallon seahorse tank. Never seen it, but I've heard it enough to believe that's what it is. Sometimes 2 or 3 snaps, sometimes more. Very rarely just one.
 
well they tend to stick to the same den so if you can locate it then removing the rock that it hides in is the best bet. So in a sense use its den as the trap. If it has a burrow in the sand then you may have to just break the tank down or get lucky.

You sure it isnt a pistol shrimp??
 

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