Mantis shrimp??

[Oldsalt]

I've heard the tell-tale clicking at night for 3+ years, but I never caught sight of the critter making the sound. It's too cunning. Now that I've started seeing these snails at night (they look like sundials), I noticed this crustacean in form - red in colour, I've had my healthy, regularly breeding Banggais and an expensive dwarf lionfish go missing this week. There goes $AU90 (plus a mouth full of fry) down the drain.

I thought that I had a pistol shrimp all these years. It's still possible, but doubtful.
If my suspicion is correct, how can I nab this guy before he finishes off more fish?

 

[Vette67]

Years ago I had a mantis shrimp come in as a hitchhiker. I tried, but could not catch or trap it. They are too smart. A trick I read about was to make a bucket of hyper saline water, like 1.035 to 1.040. If you know what rock it hides in, grab that rock (carefully so you don’t get your finger hit) and dip it in the water. It’ll irritate the shrimp, which will try to “get away” and shoot out of the rock. Worked almost instantly for me. Then you will have a shrimp in a bucket, and the hyper saline bath won’t kill everything on your rock.

I didn’t know which rock housed my shrimp, so I had to go through a few before I caught it. A friend had a trigger, and the shrimp made a nice snack for the trigger.

Good luck and let us know if this works.