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Tiger Pistol shrimp evil???


FishBoy69

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Let me start out by saying this is my first reef tank. Its a 20 gallon. Ive only had it going for about 2 months now i think. Ive got pretty much all the critters i wanted to get(goby, clowns, cleaner shrimp, basic CUC) BUUUTT I just added some Nass snails(3 of em) and I'm like 99% sure my tiger pistol killed them all. This happened in about two days. I used to see their snorkels sticking out and i don't see em at all anymore. I'm kinda sad... also a little pissed. Can anyone else clarify that a tiger pistol shrimp can be aggressive like that? I'm trying to decide if I'm going to rip it out or if I'm just going get a bigger sand sifting snail (maybe a tiger sand conch)

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I only have the small candy cane ones, and I would say its possible that a larger one could eat them. They are blind but he might find some when digging through the sand.

 

However, snails won't really keep your sand clean, nass snails don't even sift sand, they just 'sleep' in it waiting for when you feed the tank like little zombies. A conch will clean the top of it but not enough to matter. I would just keep the pistol and clean the sand yourself which you need to do anyways. 

 

Actually my pistols do a better job than the snails because they flip more sand over building then the snails move. 

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Just now, Tamberav said:

I only have the small candy cane ones, and I would say its possible that a larger one could eat them. They are blind but he might find some when digging through the sand.

 

However, snails won't really keep your sand clean, nass snails don't even sift sand, they just 'sleep' in it waiting for when you feed the tank like little zombies. A conch will clean the top of it but not enough to matter. I would just keep the pistol and clean the sand yourself which you need to do anyways. 

 

Actually my pistols do a better job than the snails because they flip more sand over building then the snails move. 

Sand sifter was the wrong term i suppose. I meant something that eats detritus and stuff like that(nass snail stuff). Thanks for the input!

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Have you found the remains or are they MIA? I sometimes cant find mine in my BB tank 🤷‍♂️

 

When I had sand I could see that the Nass had moved the exact amount of sand that it had emerged and then retreated. Detritus is the name of the game for these though

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1 minute ago, Ratvan said:

Have you found the remains or are they MIA? I sometimes cant find mine in my BB tank 🤷‍♂️

 

When I had sand I could see that the Nass had moved the exact amount of sand that it had emerged and then retreated. Detritus is the name of the game for these though

They're MIA. I've even moved a lot of the sand to look.

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1 minute ago, FishBoy69 said:

They're MIA. I've even moved a lot of the sand to look.

I sometimes dont see mine for weeks, then out of the blue I see it trying to wrestle food from a hermit. 

 

You could see if you could get some bristle worms and/or brittle stars, really useful to help the nass.

 

Hermits I find make as much as they clean I swear mine poops 200 times a day

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They don't eat debris.... they eat food before it becomes debris but debris remains! I suppose if they eat the food before it becomes debris then they still have a job 🙂 

 

My wrasse eats them all so can't say I have many survivors in my current tanks, just two. I have had them in the past but don't feel they are that useful. Mostly they piss me off when they steal food from my slower eating fish. 

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My pistol killed a Pom Pom crab. They had been living peacefully for a few months and I think the Pom Pom came to close to the burrow, I head a snap, dead crab...

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Just got home... no snorkels. My nass snails are probably done for😞

I'm tempted to look in the pistols burrow for the shells. For a 20g, they're pretty damn big snails. i got larger ones, i feel like i would've seen them by now

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update: i looked through the shrimps burrow. no dead nass snails that i noticed. 🙂 they must be burrowed deep in the sand somewhere

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My tiger pistol regularly steals snails to use as 'building materials' inside his holes for him and grumpy mc'gobyface.   Usually within a week or so I will find them happily back out on my glass or in my sandbed.  Give your tiger pistol more rock rubble to build with, more empty shells, etc and he will use those and mostly leave  your snails alone.   

 

I have 3 types of ceriths (one of which is large florida species that buries itself in the sand), ninja star astrea (never touched because never on the sand), a few large nassarius, and trochus snails in my tank.  

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On 7/11/2019 at 2:21 AM, mndfreeze said:

My tiger pistol regularly steals snails to use as 'building materials' inside his holes for him and grumpy mc'gobyface.   Usually within a week or so I will find them happily back out on my glass or in my sandbed.  Give your tiger pistol more rock rubble to build with, more empty shells, etc and he will use those and mostly leave  your snails alone.   

 

I have 3 types of ceriths (one of which is large florida species that buries itself in the sand), ninja star astrea (never touched because never on the sand), a few large nassarius, and trochus snails in my tank.  

This is completely accurate to my tiger pistol. Just saw a cerith crawling out of there today lol

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