Mantis Shrimp Molt

[dc5842]

I've had a mantis shrimp for a few weeks now in a 20 gallon tank. It's been collecting sand and piling it up all around the tank for several days and I just found that it molted either early this morning or sometime over night. The Mantis' molt is completely off the mantis and the mantis is laying on it's side moving it's limbs. I've heard that the time your most likely to lose a mantis is during the molting stage. Is anyone else familiar with this or have any suggestions or is the behavior fairly normal. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

[gbelcik]

he may just be stressed... any time i moved my old mantis's tank he would freak out and lay on his side like that moving his legs.... was always back to normal after 2 days

[Timfish]

I've never kept a mantis but with the other shrimps and crabs when I've seen that the animal has died. Keep us posted what happens I'm curious if maybe there's something that could be helpfull when it happens with other crustacueans.

[dc5842]

The Mantis seems to be doing really well. He's staying in his burrow most of the time and rarely comes out (he was really active before the molt) but he's sitting upright and seems to be pretty happy and he's eating whenever we bring krill close enough to the burrow. I did a 1/3 water change after the molt to try and keep Nitrate down but it's spiking pretty quickly so I'll probably have to complete another big change before too long. Thanks for the input.

[Jessie]

Iodine helps with molting also

[dc5842]

Does Iodine "help" with molting or does it just force the animal to molt? I've read that iodine makes the animal molt but doesn't necessarily do it any good.

[Derekreefer]

I add Iodine once a week (5ml for 29g). I have noticed that after molting my fire shrimp goes into hiding. Hard to tell with the peppermints or my marble shrimp as anytiime I walk up to the tank they come out to see if food has been added.

[+ACampbell]

Don't dose unless you test for it.