pistol shrimp

[SeaFish]

are pistol shrimps reef safe? Do they eat smaller fishes or hunt for them? i have a tiger pistol. when i came home today, it was eating at my dead twin spot goby under the rock. did the pistol attack the twin spot goby or was it dead and thats why pistol went for it? also the dead twin spot goby is now under a rock. to remove the rock would be to remove all my rocks form the tank. is it better to leave it in there and let the clean up crew fish it off? i have 4 scarlet hermits, two cleaner shrimps, one blood shrimp, and one tiger pistol shrimp. would this be enough to clean up the twin spot before it fouls the water? i have a 12 gallon hex tank. please help me.

[Crakeur]

get it out if you can. it can only do harm rotting in the tank

[SeaFish]

should i take out the pistol?

[SeaFish]

what do u all experts think?

[tinyreef]

only an expert at laziness here, so here's some 'lazy' advice.

 

use a turkey baster to suck out the twin-spot or use the baster to flush/squirt it out (aiming to one side of the rock/cave). learn to use chopsticks and get the longest pair you can find.

 

can't offer any expert advice on the shrimp jmo's. i'd be suspicious of the pistol tho. :

[printerdown01]

I too would be suspicious of the pistol... BUT I wouldn’t blame him yet!! It is actually quite hard to get twin-spots to feed sometimes (especially if they are wild caught), and thus it is VERY common for them to starve to death ... Pistols are also great scavengers, and thus it is also likely that he simple retrieved the body! On the flip side they will kill tiny fish (but I wouldn't call a twin-spot tiny!!). I would say however, that if he is a good size and you had a small neon goby the neon would be at risk!! I would consider it unlikely though that he actually killed the twin-spot. Their normal method for feeding on small fish is as follows: Snap their pincher, creating a shock-wave that will paralyze the fish... then snatch them and eat them while they are immobilized.

[Mr_Spam]

HA! try and get the pistol out, its virtually impossable. Ive never had a bad experiance with a pistol shrimp. they just dig alot under your rock. there poping sound can be quite annoying when tryign to sleep though. Ive never heard of an instance where ones killed another fish or creater.

[SeaFish]

thank you all for your replies. I have thought much about all your postes. i have come to the conslusion that the pistol probably didnt kill my twin spot because i notice that the twin spot wasnt eating as much and also not as active. I guess he was dying and the pistol just finished him off. but yeah..i agree that they dig a lot in under the rocks. my usually makes the popping sound when other fishes gets too close. i posted the question jsut in case tiger pistol were aggressive. but thank god it dont seem like it..thank you all for your help.

[ajroahkni]

I've a pistol shrimp in the tank w/ my mantis - both were hitchhikers. Been seeing a LOT of dead, small hitchhiker crabs (gorillas, emeralds, etc. - had like 8-10 of 'em when I set things up and now 1-2) and thought that it was the mantis' fault. Lo and behold, I'm pretty sure I've narrowed it down to the pistol. (The mantis is a little puss)

 

If you can, I think you should extradite the pistol - when big enough, he may pose a threat to your hermits and other crustaceans, then work his way up to being able to kill fish.

 

I had thought that the pistol and the mantis (smasher) would be a threat to any fish, so have not gone to the LFS for fish yet. However, I did net a little sand blenny from the beach to experiment:| . The little guy's still here (and grown about 30%).

 

IME, fish are safeR than your crabbies w/ the pistol.

 

BTW, my smallest hermit was found dead (not shedded) the other morning. Blaming the pistol...