Mr Nameless.
A few years ago (2-3) I was at Strictly Aquariums on King George’s road on the way home from work (I was working for Buddy club back then) and I noticed a little piece of rock moving in their display tank. It was a mantis shrimp, the hugest one I’ve ever seen and the most colourful one I’d ever seen too. It was building a burrow and I watched it for some time. It had crazy eyes which moved in all sorts of direction independent of each other (apparently they can see a lot better than we do too). I was fascinated by it and surprised they had it in a tank with so many fish.
Long story short, yesterday on the way home from JDMyard I dropped in to Strictly again and I found that their display tank was an absolute mess. They had red algae growing all over it. I spoke to the manager and he told me that the tank had been neglected but they have been working on getting it back in shape again for the past few weeks. I asked about the mantis shrimp he had in there and he said he took it out as it was killing fish. He then took me over to a bank of empty tanks and there it was! I was pretty excited. I asked if I could buy him and he said sure. I didn’t hesitate. $30 and I was on my way home.
I dug out a small tank I had in the garage and set it up as a makeshift tank for now. I’m planning on keeping him by himself in a much nicer little 1ft cube tank. Details I’m not sure of but it’ll be a very basic little set-up. I’m not sure what he’s going to eat. I’ll most likely just walk down to the rock pool at Maroubra Beach and find him food there (snails, crabs).
Filler: Mantis shrimps are crustaceans which a lot of marine tank owners fear and remove from their tanks. They usually come in the live rock people buy and they’re sometimes referred to as “thumb splitters” because of the animal’s ability to inflict painful gashes if handled. These little guys have super powerful claws that they use to attack and kill prey by stunning or dismemberment. Larger species are even capable of breaking through aquarium glass with a single strike from this weapon!