New pistol shrimp question

hopperjl16 · Mar 20, 2016

So I got my watchman goby a little friend today, a tiger pistol shrimp. The shrimp quickly found the same cave as the goby which I was happy about.....but literally 5 min later he had both entrances to the cave blocked with sand with him and the goby "trapped" inside. I assumed the goby would just figure it out, but hours later when I fed everybody the goby was still "trapped" in the cave and didn't come out to eat (really abnormal for him, he's a pig). Should I be concerned and move some of the sand out of the way? Or will they just work it out?

TUSI · Mar 20, 2016

Give them time, the pistol will make openings for the fish to come out and feed don't worry. Don't try to move any sand cause they will get spooked. They work together.

bwgibson · Mar 20, 2016

Mine Does the same thing nothing to worrie about

hopperjl16 · Mar 20, 2016

Ok thanks! [emoji16]

ngvu1 · Mar 24, 2016

I am thinking of getting a pair of these too, but I am not sure how to feed the shrimp. They, google, say the shrimp don't need to be fed. However, I think this is because people feed the fish chunk food and the shrimp eats the left over food from the goby. I feed mysis and pellets and I don't over feed so there won't be much left after the fish is done with its portion.....I don't even know where, which forum, to ask this question

mrsaltwaterguy · Mar 24, 2016

I feed my tank a variety of frozen foods (Mysis, LRS etc.) and my pistol has found food easily enough. As far as the OP's question, nothing to worry about! My pistol puts sand over the entrance every night, next day they are out and about.

briancarterkc · Mar 24, 2016

mrsaltwaterguy said:
I feed my tank a variety of frozen foods (Mysis, LRS etc.) and my pistol has found food easily enough. As far as the OP's question, nothing to worry about! My pistol puts sand over the entrance every night, next day they are out and about.

Goby: "Did you lock the front door, dear?"
Shrimp: "Ugggghhhh. Be right back."

hopperjl16 · Mar 25, 2016

ngvu1 said:
I am thinking of getting a pair of these too, but I am not sure how to feed the shrimp. They, google, say the shrimp don't need to be fed. However, I think this is because people feed the fish chunk food and the shrimp eats the left over food from the goby. I feed mysis and pellets and I don't over feed so there won't be much left after the fish is done with its portion.....I don't even know where, which forum, to ask this question

I've been a little worried about this too. My goby is very assertive about getting out and grabbing food but my pistol shrimp acts like a crazed neurotic person and barely comes out. He's OBSESSED with rearranging all the sand in the tank! I don't overfeed either, just mysis once per day and I alternate pellets/flakes/seaweed once per day. So far he's ok but we're only 5 days in. He and the goby did emerge one day together and literally traveled side by side in the tank, it was really cute.

hopperjl16 · Mar 25, 2016

mrsaltwaterguy said:
I feed my tank a variety of frozen foods (Mysis, LRS etc.) and my pistol has found food easily enough. As far as the OP's question, nothing to worry about! My pistol puts sand over the entrance every night, next day they are out and about.

Yes! Mine's doing this now too! I guess I didn't realize the sand rearranging would be a nonstop process. He's going to go crazy when I clean and do my water change in 2 days bc I inevitably move the sand around!

ngvu1 · Mar 25, 2016

I don't have sand. I use crushed corals for the substrate. I think the shrimp will have more fun carrying out the big chunk crush corals......

ngvu1 · Mar 27, 2016

How big are they? The pair I got is quite different in size. The goby is like 2.5 inches while the shrimp is barely over 1 inch. However, that guy surely can dig. I dropped them in 1 side of the tank and within minutes, they both disappeared under the big rock. 30 minutes later I saw the goby coming out of the other side of the rock. Right at the entrance of my 2 purple fire fish cave.; they sleep there every night or when I put my hand in the tank, they jump to there.
The watchman goby claims the hole right away; when the yellow tang came near by he raised his top fin and buffed his face up and marched right out front. None of my fish seem to be a match for this new member .......The watchman went away for 15 mins but now standing at the entrance of my purple firefish ex-cave. They should find a new home before the lights go out :-(

hopperjl16 · Mar 27, 2016

ngvu1 said:
How big are they? The pair I got is quite different in size. The goby is like 2.5 inches while the shrimp is barely over 1 inch. However, that guy surely can dig. I dropped them in 1 side of the tank and within minutes, they both disappeared under the big rock. 30 minutes later I saw the goby coming out of the other side of the rock. Right at the entrance of my 2 purple fire fish cave.; they sleep there every night or when I put my hand in the tank, they jump to there.
The watchman goby claims the hole right away; when the yellow tang came near by he raised his top fin and buffed his face up and marched right out front. None of my fish seem to be a match for this new member .......The watchman went away for 15 mins but now standing at the entrance of my purple firefish ex-cave. They should find a new home before the lights go out :-(

Yup, mine are about the same as yours. I had read a bunch about "peaceful fish" for beginner tanks, so I thought the watchman goby was a good choice. But boy is mine territorial towards ANY other fish. I thought adding a firefish would be easy since the goby stayed towards the bottom of the tank, but he HATED the firefish. I finally ran interference and strategically placed a rock to separate the two. Then I added the pistol shrimp to buddy up with the goby and keep him happy. However the two seem to feel like they run the whole tank now. They make burrows anywhere they can! Luckily the goby has finally made peace with the firefish so it's not a huge issue now.

Scott Chitwood · Mar 28, 2016

Your Watchman Goby will protect the Pistol Shrimp. It is really neat to watch, he will also warn the pistol and in that case the pistol will retreat back into the cave. Pistol Shrimps have to be one of the hardest working creatures on the planet, I have had mine for a year now and he still moves sand for 8 hours a day non-stop.

ngvu1 · Mar 28, 2016

I looked this morning and yup the cave entrance to my purple firefish home is closed. I don't know where they spend the night.... I hope to see them today when the lights are on

ngvu1 · Mar 30, 2016

My pair have not come out for 2 days now. I saw the coral crushed being pushed out but I have not seen either 1 of them. I fed the goby a bit on the first day. The second day I saw the goby a bit but that was it. I did not see the sign of them yesterday at all. How many days can they hide under the closed gates?

abinder · Mar 30, 2016

ngvu1 said:
My pair have not come out for 2 days now. I saw the coral crushed being pushed out but I have not seen either 1 of them. I fed the goby a bit on the first day. The second day I saw the goby a bit but that was it. I did not see the sign of them yesterday at all. How many days can they hide under the closed gates?

It's a good possiblity that they may be coming out at night. When I had a Tiger pistol shrimp and goby pair, that's when they would really move around a lot of the time.

Allen

ngvu1 · Mar 30, 2016

I thought they closed the gates at night!

abinder said:
It's a good possiblity that they may be coming out at night. When I had a Tiger pistol shrimp and goby pair, that's when they would really move around a lot of the time.

Allen

abinder · Mar 30, 2016

ngvu1 said:
I thought they closed the gates at night!

Nope. Not always.

I saw my pair going around the tank at night on several occasions. Less worry about other fish coming around to bother them at night.

Allen

Pete polyp · Mar 30, 2016

I didn't see my pair for the first 5 months I had them. Just because you're not seeing them doesn't mean they don't have an entrance to the burrow somewhere you can't see and are out all day long. That's kinda part of the excitement when the burrows entrance is somewhere you can see them on a regular basis.

TUSI · Mar 30, 2016

Pete polyp said:
I didn't see my pair for the first 5 months I had them. Just because you're not seeing them doesn't mean they don't have an entrance to the burrow somewhere you can't see and are out all day long. That's kinda part of the excitement when the burrows entrance is somewhere you can see them on a regular basis.

Absolutely. Mine have tunnels everywhere and come out from different spots all the time. What I noticed is that by them doing that it creates a circulation that with the tank flow food get sucked in the tunnel on its own for them to eat. Very interesting when it happens.