Hi-fin red banded goby and pistol shrimp love triangle

[skijumpersc]

I recently placed a pair of hi-fins and an unknown species of pistol shrimp (Pistol ID thread) into QT. I havent had any experience with gobies, but they were spending at least 50% of the time hanging out together so I assumed they had paired up. For the first 4 days they showed zero interest in the shrimp, and I was beginning to suspect that its one of the alpheus species that doesn't pair. 

 

Two days ago I returned from work to find one of the gobies sharing a burrow with the shrimp. The other is now on his own. 

 

I've only seen the goby that found the shrimp stick his head out a couple of times since he paired up, and when I feed the tank he doesn't come out for food. The other goby eats voraciously and explores the tank with confidence.

 

The burrow is a small pvc elbow buried in a bowl full of sand, I'm wondering if there isn't enough room for all three of them to share it, even though they dont seem to mind enclosed spaces or if the gobies werent actually paired.

 

My end goal is a pair of gobies and a shrimp living in harmony, if anyone has any recommendations on how to acheive this I'd love to hear them

[Snow_Phoenix]

I have two Hi-Fins who share the same candycane pistol shrimp. Regarding the issue of pairing them up, I didn't do anything special - I just let nature take its own course. The first Hi-Fin has been with me for almost a year. He originally had a shrimp buddy, but the shrimp was lost and unaccounted for when my previous tank cracked and I had to do an emergency tank transfer. Few months later, I decided to pair up the Hi-Fin with a new pistol shrimp. Problem was, my LFS sells these guys as pairs, so even though I was willing to offer full price for a goby/shrimp pair and only bring the shrimp home, it didn't sit well with the manager or workers. So I brought home a new goby/shrimp and through some dumb luck, they picked the burrow my original Hi-Fin made for himself within the first two minutes. I was quite worried and in the beginning, the original Hi-Fin used to dart away whenever the new Hi-Fin was around, even though he's twice the size.

 

After a few weeks, both gobies and shrimp have established a camaraderie of sorts and now I have two Hi-Fins paired to a single shrimp. The shrimp doesn't care who she's paired with. But the gobies have a pecking order of sorts. My older, established goby will eat first and the second one will hang back until the first is done with his meal. Once the first goby is content and swims back into the burrow, the second one stays out in the open until I drop sinking pellets near her. I notice the only way to keep everyone sated is by feeding a M-sized seaweed pellet - the pellet is too big to be ingested immediately and each goby gets one pellet each, and they chew it in their mouths for a while. I've seen the pistol create a network of burrows in my sandbed under my right live rock, and also poke out of the holes in my live rock.

 

And get this - they're not the only fish who share the burrow. I have a scissortail dartfish who sleeps in the same burrow with both Hi-Fins and the pistol. All four of them get along well so far and it's been over a month since four of them have been together. It's still too early to tell if I'll encounter any problems with this arrangement, but I hope this helps.

 

Lastly, what I'm describing to you is an outlier in goby/shrimp pairings. Trying to 'force' an older goby or goby/shrimp pair to accept a new goby doesn't end well, especially if both fish are from the same species. Gobies are tiny but territorial as heck. If you wish to attempt the same, there's a very strong chance it might not work out. In any case, make sure you have a back up plan to deport one of the gobies back to the store/transfer it to a different tank if they fight (because they most likely will). 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Pics of goby-to-goby interaction (shrimp is well-hidden under the live rock, but she's there):

 

 

 

 

 

[skijumpersc]

I've never seen any sort of hostility between them and they were both introduced at the same time. Im curious if aggression will develop or if the second will join the pair. Im wondering if I should encourage them to make a bigger burrow by swapping out the PVC elbow

[skijumpersc]

Well not much has changed. The one that has found the shrimp continues to spend almost all his time in the burrow. I never see him eat and I've only seen him out a couple of times. The other goby continues to be super bold and voracious. He has poked in and out of the shrimp's burrow a couple times that I've seen, but usually he sleeps under a pvc elbow.

 

Im worried about the other goby not eating enough. I'm thinking I want to try some live food, I assume they would eat pods if I added some, but can anyone corroborate this?

[skijumpersc]

I added all three to my display tank a couple months ago. After awhile one goby and shrimp established a den and the other goby found a nice rock with a lot of holes on the other side of the tank. Occasionally the shrimp would connect the two spots with a tunnel and the gobys would interact with each other, but mostly they stayed on their own sides. 

 

The goby that lives in the rock shares his burrow with a small fancy banded serpent star. I haven't seen him for about a week now, I'm afraid he got too comfortable with the star and it caught him sleeping. The star itself is pretty small, its disc is still >1" so I think it would be a pretty ambitious meal for him. 

 

its weird for the goby to disappear like this, he was always sticking his head out of one of the holes in the rock and came out for every feeding. If the star didn't get him, maybe he got too close to the RBTA. I'm holding out hope that he just went into hiding for a bit.

 

Has anyone had luck introducing a second goby to a shrimp/goby pair? I really liked having a pair, but I'd prefer if they got along with each other.

 

[Daniel91]

You’d be surprised how long these creatures can hide for. My personal experience was that the fish hid for two weeks. I’ve seen some comment that gobies would hide for months at a time.