Which goby for a pistol shrimp

[hawk82]

Well Ive got a hitch hiker pistol shrimp on my live rock, and I wonder why type of goby I can get that would pair with him. I seen him this morning before lights came on, working like a little bull dozer under a rock. Will a yellow watchman work? Also If I get a yellow watchman is it better to buy the ORA Captive-Bred or just a regular one. Liveaquaria has both.

 

[12gallonsofhex]

Yellow watchman, hi fin, and orange banded? Gobies I know have paired. I am not sure of any others.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

Engineer gobies do it but rarely. Mine paired with a coral handed in my dads old tank and before he passed was cohabitating a burrow with my coral beauty angelfish (one of them was defective for sure, never seen two different species act like that). He’s a seamonster. If he won’t eat shrimp I don’t know of any goby that will.

 

[ThRoewer]

It depends on the pistol shrimp species. Only a small number of pistol shrimp species actually pair with gobies.
Among those that pair with gobies the crosssection of the fully-grown shrimp and the crosssection of the fully grown goby should usually match.
But without knowing the species or at least seeing a picture of the shrimp it is hard to tell if it will pair and with which goby.

 

[SaltySteve]

I had a Yellow Watchman Goby with a Candy-Cane pistol, then later with a Bullseye-Pistol shrimp. Both worked out great. I guess size is pretty important so neither is way too big for the other.

 

[minus9]

It depends on the pistol shrimp species. Only a small number of pistol shrimp species actually pair with gobies.
Among those that pair with gobies the crosssection of the fully-grown shrimp and the crosssection of the fully grown goby should usually match.
But without knowing the species or at least seeing a picture of the shrimp it is hard to tell if it will pair and with which goby.

This! You need to identify the pistol first. Trying to pair a goby with a pistol that doesn't play nice with fish (gobies) could end in disaster.

 

[hikermike]

If you're buying a NEW fish ORA is always better. They're already adapted to tank life and you'll get the full life out of it. You'll know it wasn't caught with poison and you'll keep the save the world fanatics off our backs... but not PETA who think all pets should be killed. If you get a wild caught fish/invertebrate, how to tell if it's not near the end of it's natural life span unless it's one of those specimens whose juvenile form is different than adult. But really, the 2 main forms are it's already known to live in a tank and will "save a reef".

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

High fin with a randalls or tiger.with out a doubt.
D

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Depends on the tank imo
D

 

[Tchung23]

Yasha

 

[saltyhog]

If it's a pistol that came in on live rock, it's very unlikely to be a species that pairs with gobies. These kind of pistols live in the rock, not in the sand where the gobies live. If you see the pistol moving sand and creating tunnels you could try it but I bet it's not the right species.

Here's a picture of one of several pistol shrimp I got as hitch hikers on Caribbean live rock. They tend to not be very colorful and all of mine lived in the rock.