Could a pistol shrimp be causing my fish loss?

fishbulb · Jul 21, 2020

Hi Everyone,

About 8 months ago I purchased a Yashi goby and pistol shrimp pair from the LFS. I never saw the fish again. About 3 months ago I replaced the rock work in the tank to get rid of bubble algae and to restart it with fresh rock and I moved the old corals back onto the new rock. I was shocked when replacing the rock work to see the pistol shrimp scurrying away. He grew a lot.

Regardless, over the last couple months I've been losing a lot of fish. Two were copperband butterfly fish that looked like the had trauma. I blamed it initially on a yellow tang as a bully, but I got rid of the tang and replaced the butterfly fish. He didn't make it either. I have this fear that the butterfly fish are sticking their mouths all of the live rock and then eventually get nailed by the pistol shrimp. Is that crazy? I removed the rock again this morning to look for the pistol shrimp but I think he's just hiding too much now, or he's actually in the rocks. I couldn't find him. Is it feasible to set a trap for him that won't catch my cleaner shrimps and clean up crew instead?

Thanks. These last few months of reefing have really bummed me out.

FB

Sosuke · Jul 21, 2020

Sorry for your losses. What type of pistol shrimp is it? Many pistol shrimp aren't big enough where they can kill a copper band butterfly, especially 3 it's most likely a disease or something wrong with the fish when you get them rather than the shrimp. Were your fish eating when you got them?

fishbulb · Jul 21, 2020

Thanks for the reply Sosuke. Sadly, I'm not 100% sure what type of pistol shrimp it is. It's not the prettier red and white one that I typically see paired with Yashi gobies. It was mostly drab colored. I only lost 2 copperbands, and I returned a yellow tank to the LFS because I thought it was bullying everyone. The first copperband I had for 4 years and I could hand feed him. He ate everything. I mean anything and everything. We were by the tank when he got attacked and there was a large commotion. His "beak" got really damaged and I blamed the tang, but didn't actually see it.

But since them, we also lost a nice wrasse and a firefish. We've had both of those for several years as well. But I never thought a pistol shrimp would wreak havoc on a reef tank. I know mantis shrimp can, but I thought this was an innocuous purchase. Am I paranoid? It could certainly be something else. Parameters test fine and the tank otherwise looks "good". I have two clownfish in there that never seem phased and a pair of 7+ year old fire shrimp. So it's not like there's a toxin in the tank that is wiping everything out. Just not sure what to do.

OrangeCountyReefer · Jul 21, 2020

From my experience probably not. My pistol shrimp snaps at things that get close to it all the time (fish, hermits, starfish, etc.) and the snaps do not Faze them. It’s hard to imagine one killing a fish but I guess anything is possible.

Sosuke · Jul 21, 2020

Oops my mistake sorry. Did the fish die right after being attacked? What did the beak look like? If you saw an attack its definitely not a disease of some kind. No you're not paranoid your going through something tough and you want to know why your fish passed its perfectly reasonable to think about every little detail about why.

fishbulb · Jul 21, 2020

The first fish we lost, the original butterfly had definite trauma to its mouth. It was clearly broken and the fish passed away overnight. I isolated it in a quarantine tank and it just seemed like it was stressed to death. It had definitely been harrassed by the yellow tang for quite a while but just not to that level.

I guess the most parsimonious thing might just be that the Yellow tang is in fact the culprit of the first butterfly fish and that the second copperband just passed away after a few days of my getting him because that's just what a lot of them do unfortunately. I never saw him eat. He just swam frantically towards the glass. The wrasse and firefish maybe just passed away do to re-aquascaping the whole tank. Maybe the lesson is just keep my hands out of the tank and don't add any more fish for a few months?

FB

madweazl · Jul 21, 2020

Did it maybe try to pick some food off a powerhead? I've seen a few fish get jacked up by something like an MP10. A mantis could generate the power to physically damage the fish but not the pistol shrimp (there is no physical contact).

Picasso Clown · Jul 21, 2020

You’re sure the pistol shrimp is actually a pistol shrimp right? I’ve caught some baby mantis shrimp snorkeling and excitedly ran home to show my dad and start acclimating them to our tank, just to get screamed at that they were mantis shrimp and not pistol shrimp, and to put them back. You said he was very drably colored? The mantis I’ve seen around are dark brown/red or mottled brown/grey. I’d definitely say to set a trap for it, the bottle one works well, you might catch your cuc a couple times but if you catch the shrimp then it’s worth it. Then at least we can get a 100% ID on it. If it is a mantis shrimp, we definitely found your problem.

fishbulb · Jul 21, 2020

Sounds totally reasonable. I'll set the trap tonight. I bought it from a pretty reputable fish store as a pistol shrimp that the yashi goby should pair with. But who knows. It's worth seeing seeing if I can catch it to ease my paranoia.

madweazl · Jul 21, 2020

Tiger pistol shrimp maybe? They typically aren't brightly colored; more brownish/orange bands on a white body.

fishbulb · Jul 21, 2020

I think that looks right.

j.falk · Sep 16, 2020

Any update on this issue?

fishbulb · Sep 16, 2020

Hard to tell. Something really odd happened where I essentially lost all fish except the two clowns. None of the coral were affected at all. When I lost the butterfly fish, the aiptasia anemone population really exploded and I've added Berghia in there for now. They seem to be slowly chomping them down, which is cool. I'm going to just let that happen before I try slowly adding fish again. I haven't seen any sign of the pistol shrimp. I lost both 7 year old fire shrimp during this decline, so I don't know if the pistol shrimp perished as well. I also lost the conch which is odd. The other snails for the most part seem OK as well as the two emerald crabs and Golfball, our albino tuxedo urchin.

So no, not really any updates. I've unfortunately not learned a lot as to what could have caused this huge sudden loss except for reinforcement of the golden rule of reefing; go slowly.

FB

ThRoewer · Sep 16, 2020

It's unlikely that a pistol shrimp did this. They normally flee first before they snap. And even the snapping is more to scare attackers than that it can do much damage to a fish.
BTW, if the shrimp is a tiger pistol shrimp they sold you the wrong shrimp for a yasha goby as it gets too big. Yasha's should be paired with the smaller Alpheus randalli (candy-cane pistol shrimp).

fishbulb · Sep 16, 2020

Interesting and good to know about the pairing. I'm sure it was tiger pistol. It definitely wasn't the prettier candy cane pistol.

shred5 · Sep 16, 2020

Problem with Butterfly fish is they are hard to keep and can easily bullied by fish on top of that.

Tangs especially seem to hate them and will hit them with the barb in the their tail part.
Tangs can do some damage with them and on some species they are even poisonous.
One particular tang I had hated my Foxface and was always trying to stick him.

j.falk · Sep 16, 2020

fishbulb said:
Hard to tell. Something really odd happened where I essentially lost all fish except the two clowns. None of the coral were affected at all. When I lost the butterfly fish, the aiptasia anemone population really exploded and I've added Berghia in there for now. They seem to be slowly chomping them down, which is cool. I'm going to just let that happen before I try slowly adding fish again. I haven't seen any sign of the pistol shrimp. I lost both 7 year old fire shrimp during this decline, so I don't know if the pistol shrimp perished as well. I also lost the conch which is odd. The other snails for the most part seem OK as well as the two emerald crabs and Golfball, our albino tuxedo urchin.

So no, not really any updates. I've unfortunately not learned a lot as to what could have caused this huge sudden loss except for reinforcement of the golden rule of reefing; go slowly.

FB

Thank you.

Tamberav · Sep 16, 2020

Sounds to me like your Tang beat up the first Copperband and the next one was not healthy or died because most just don't travel well from collection and succumb. It probably brought in disease as well...and the removing of rock also would have added stress on current fish. Clowns have thick slime coats so not surprising they are the ones hanging on.