Peacock Mantis Lighting

[CaliforniaCrisp]

Curious to hear what others are doing for light overs their mantis tanks.

I currently have a stock 29g biocube with the 2x 36watt 10000k and a actinic bulbs.

Not thrilled with the color it produces. It's a bit white for my liking. Planning on having a zoa garden in there.

I do have a rapidLED retro kit in my garage for the 29g. I think it is 24x 3watt dimmable.

Shell rot bacteria thrives on lighting apparently. I have never had an issue with shell rot so I want to use the leds.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

[KorL]

More blue to bring out colors of mantis also since you plan on adding zoas

 

[ritter6788]

The O. scyllarus I had actually looked better under some white lighting. All blue washes out the color. They don't fluoresce like corals do. 1 white 1 blue t8 was what I used. I don't know what one would look like under blue LEDs.

There is a relationship between lighting and shell rot. Which is why it's not recommend to house O. scyllarus in reef settings.

You can really run whatever lighting you like and just not run it all day like a reef. Just turn it on for feeding or viewing. It's a conflict with coral though.

 

[Islandoftiki]

I have a Maxspect Razor Nano 16k over my tank and it does an excellent job of bringing out the blues and reds in her shell. Also, I believe that diet has a lot to do with how vibrant their coloration is. I feed mostly krill and/or LRF Reef frenzy to her that is soaked in both Selcon and Vitachem.

Here are some unedited and unphotoshopped pictures taken with my Galaxy S5 phone under the Maxspect Razor 16k:

Hope this helps!

 

[Islandoftiki]

I'm going to assume you're aware that you need to keep water quality extremely good (Like SPS coral quality) when keeping shell rot prone species such as the O. scyllarus under bright reef lighting, but I'll just mention that here for those browsing along that might not know.

 

[Usatennisfan]

:jaw::jaw:

i have a maxspect razor nano 16k over my tank and it does an excellent job of bringing out the blues and reds in her shell. Also, i believe that diet has a lot to do with how vibrant their coloration is. I feed mostly krill and/or lrf reef frenzy to her that is soaked in both selcon and vitachem.

Here are some unedited and unphotoshopped pictures taken with my galaxy s5 phone under the maxspect razor 16k:

hope this helps!

DAT BLUE!!!

 

[Islandoftiki]

DAT BLUE!!!

Yeah, she's become more blue over time, and I attribute that to diet. However, after her last molt a couple days ago, she's expressing a little more olive color over her carapace and her abdominal segments combined with extra fuchsia in her legs and maxillipeds. The area around her eyes is as blue as ever, so it's even more striking and more colorful, IMO. I think the addition of vitamins and the larger part of her diet being krill which has a lot of carotenoids in it. This is of course entirely empirical and not scientific. Your mileage may vary. I think diet contributes more to the vivid coloration than anything. And of course, diet is extremely important to overall health just like it is in any animal.

 

[ritter6788]

I'm going to assume you're aware that you need to keep water quality extremely good (Like SPS coral quality) when keeping shell rot prone species such as the O. scyllarus under bright reef lighting, but I'll just mention that here for those browsing along that might not know.

Very good point. Too many people attempt to set up stomatopod tanks with less than optimal reef conditions.

Your mantis is absolutely beautiful.