AHA!! It's a mantis!
 

After (violently) losing most of my clean up crew and hearing repetitive clicking, I finally saw him for the first time today. 2" and fierce!

Anyone know how to get him out? Anyone want him?

there's a few ways to get him out. you could make a trap out of a pop bottle like you would for fish and just put a table shrimp in it to make it less resistible.

or you could try shooting some RO water into his hidy hole and then catch him when he gets out.

or you could try taking the whole rock he's in out and dipping it in RO water until he comes out, then just throw him in your sump, and if you dont have one i guess you could take a ziploc container, poke some holes in it, put the mantis in and then just leave it in your tank.

okay, I'll try those methods. Thanks

no problem.

i'd say try them in the order i said them, because they kinda go from least to most stressful for the specimen.
you might want to try to ID the little guy so people know what they are getting if they take it
i suggest Roys list for identification

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Mantis is taken (once captured)

i have a crab trap you can borrow if need be. just let me know i am in bowness.

Thanks for the offer ElGuappo. I'll be in touch if the bottle trap doesn't work. I've just put in some raw shrimp and now we wait.

let me know what you figure out, i ended up with a 3 gallon pico reef for this exact same reason except i got one of those rare breeds of clicking rocks. still havent seen him, tryed freshwater dip tryed air tryed the trap, however i am happy that the rock i transferred is still clicking and the main tank has stopped

haha that's awesome...the only reason I saw him was probably because he was starving and his meal was running toward the front of my tank.