Pistol Shrimp..

NanoReefWanabe

NanoReefWanabe

Active member
how do i rid my tank of it...i have yet to see him but hear him every night..since my tank is now dead silent my wife is happy i am no longer happy listening to this stupid thing torment my snails and hermits..

i dont see a borrow in the sand anywhere...doesnt mean he isnt behind the rocks though..the last one i had was in the rock all the time..and he died, thank god.

and now i introduced some new LR and bam i have another one..everything is pretty much epoxied together or held together by zoanthids now so removing the new rock isnt feasible..

if i can some how live catch him i will otherwise what can i put in there that will kill and or eat it?

mixed reef tank, SPS LPS, soties and zoa's, shrooms etc..

LOL i have a little clown goby but they dont seem to want to make friends..
 
Clowns gobies aren't a shrimp goby so they wouldn't pair anyways, and pistols don't attack snails or hermits. They just click. They're quite harmless. I've been shot by one before and it's just a rush of non damaging water.

There's really no reason to get rid of it, so long as it's a pistol and not a mantis. You can try putting a tall glass against a rock with some food in it overnight. Perhaps you'll wake up to find it in the trap.
 
my last one used to chase snails around clicking them, adn the hermits too...plus my fish seem to jump everytime the thing snaps...

i just dont like how loud it is all night long...i wish i knew which rock it was in so i could glass jar him...what kind of food do they like??

LOL i know the clown goby wouldn't pair with him...
 
Just meaty food or something. You could put in a krill or a piece of fish/prawn from your grocery store. Just a small piece so it doesn't foul you tank too badly in case the shrimp doesn't find it.
 
Will the jar trick work with a shrimp? Shrimp can swim so I would think unless you get lucky it'll probably just swim away with the prize.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10636103#post10636103 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by graveyardworm
Will the jar trick work with a shrimp? Shrimp can swim so I would think unless you get lucky it'll probably just swim away with the prize.
Click to expand...

yeah i was thinking the same...especially since i have no idea how big he is either..

i will have to try and make a trap out of a 500ml water bottle by cutting the top 3rd or so off and inverting it into the bottle, making it harder for him to find the hole...

i just dont want any of my stupid fish, snails or hermits to find there way in there, and knowing my emerald crab...he'll likely pull the inverted part of the bottle out and steal the bait..LOL

plus on top of that it is only a 20 gallon tank and there isnt a whole lot of room for a water bottle or glass in there...

thanx for the replies though guys..i will try to trap him...

nobody knows anything that will kill it though if i am unsuccessful at live trapping?
 
How do I know my Pistol shrimp is eating well?
During feeding time he comes out but I don't see him get much food.
Thanks
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10646692#post10646692 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pezcubano
How do I know my Pistol shrimp is eating well?
During feeding time he comes out but I don't see him get much food.
Thanks
Click to expand...

I believe that they are mostly nighttime scavengers. So he's probably doing alot of feeding at night
 
If you catch him let me know how you did it. I have had one for 4and 1/2 years. Mine is not harmless I've seen it carry off hermits and snails. Perhaps it was just using them to build with. It also cut a purple fire fish almost in half. It also steals small corals on small rocks and takes them down it's hole. It moves lot's of sand and fortunately my rocks are secure.
 
I have two pistols that do not live in the sand. They have made their home in a piece of live rock, that they probably came in on. I never see them come out of the live rock and if they do it is only thier pincers. Mine snap at anything that gets too close to thier oppening (including my fingers). I've tried for almost two years to get them out, but haven't had any luck. Somebody told me to try a fresh water dip on the live rock, but I figured I would have too much die off so they just happily go on living in the rock.
 
I was actually wondering about the swimming thing myself when I said it :D . When I kept a couple pistols they seemed less adept at swimming than other shrimp like cleaners, though. In fact they never swam. If the glass curved inward if only a little I think it could work.
 
I do a lot of diving/lobstering in here in South Florida, and I just realized that the best way to catch the pistol would probably be to use a trap similar to a lobster trap. His body shape/size is like a miniature version of a lobster, and I'm betting with a little food in the trap, he would get himself stuck in it at night.
I have NO idea where to get something like this, but lobster traps are a simple design and I'm sure with some plastic and glue you could put something together. It basically needs to be a box with 1 entry/exit shaped like a funnel. It would allow animals to squeeze in, but not out.
It may not work, but when I thought about the jar idea being tossed around, this seemed like a more logical option. I don't see you having the time/speed to snag the jar out of the tank before he swims out through a large opening in the top. Maybe you could modify the lid of the jar to a "funnel".

Just an idea...
 
I could be off the mark here, but we have a few pistol/goby pairs in our tanks and we've had a mantis tank before...it sounds like most of the issues that people have posted on here lean way more towards the realm of the mantis shrimp IME. Every pistol I've seen lives under a rock and not in one, just bulldozes the sand out of his burrow, and maybe pops at a hermit or snail that gets in his way. from time to time. I've never seen a pistol remove a coral from a rock or kill a fish. I HAVE however seen a mantis do every single one of these lovely things when we had our one tank dedicated to mantis terror...I'm no expert by a long shot on this, but I figured I'd throw my two sense in since we've been down both roads...
 
I wish it were so but my pistol and it is definately a pistol is nasty and large about 3 inches.Calfo and Fenner in," Reef Invertibrates"pg.72,note that aquarist are often relieved to find a pistol and not a mantis is the couse of clicking sounds but that the relilef is often short lived due to some pistols' ability to rival the agression of the mantis.
Glad yours a working out well.
 
well i have noticed that my trochus snails seem to be MIA...but none of my hermits are...just two snails i dont think it is a mantis..but i have never seen it either...just hear his rapid fire clicking...at least five times an hour at night..
 
I got a pair of pistols living in one of my liverock. They are about maybe 2cm in length and they never leave the rock except to click at anything that comes close to their holes. So far they've spawned twice which was a real shock because a was watching the tank and suddenly this jet of grey stuff shot out of one of the holes and next thing a know thousands of the blighters were wiggling around the tank.
 
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