Outsmarting a pistol shrimp.

[olonmv]

I have a love/hate relationship with my pistol shrimp. Love love love how he bulldozes sand and keeps it stirred but, I also hated it at the same the time when I had frags in the sand bed. He’s polished off a few of my fags by dragging them to the unknown to their deaths. Well, he finally drew the last straw and I think I finally figured out how to get him to stop taking frags. My fix is only a few days into commission but I’ve noticed sand missing but the frag still exactly where I left it.

the fix: take an ordinary 16.9oz plastic water Bottle and cut the very bottom off all around at about 1/2 inch tall, you should be left with a piece that looks like a saucer. I then took some 40 grit sand paper and scuffed the inside of the saucer so that the frag piece without the stem fit right in the center of it. Glued down my frag and then placed it in the tank where I wanted it and buried the bottle piece up to the frag with sand.

It’s been a few days since I’ve done this and the acan is still where I left it.

 

[bradreef]

Pic?

 

[Idech]

Have you though about glueing your frag onto a small rock ?

 

[olonmv]

Have you though about glueing your frag onto a small rock ?

Lol, yes I’ve done that but lucky for me. I’m murdering that stupid shrimp when I get home. Couldn’t take the frag I put on the bottom piece of the bottle, so over night he took one that was glued down to my rock work to the pits of hell. I can’t find it. It was a goniopora piece that I had been nursing back to health. pistol shrimp……worse purchase EVER. Shoulda bought a conch.
I hate that shrimp.

 

[olonmv]

Pic?

The bottom piece looks like this. I scuffed the center so that the glue had a rough section to adhere to, glued down the acan and backfilled the rest with sand.

 

[olonmv]

Here is the frag mounted on the bottle bottom. The shrimp tried moving it around but didn’t get far. I still loathe him.

 

[Kasrift]

Conches bury and bump things all of the time. You could maybe use the Printed Reef sand plugs, I have a few but the conch still knocks them over. I got one of these and I love it https://www.pnw-custom.com/product-page/pop-stand

 

[olonmv]

Those are some nice sand plugs! So far the bottle idea has kept him from stressing out the acan and is super easy and convenient to make. A few days ago that wasn’t the case. At this point a clumsy conch still sounds less stressful than a thieving shrimp who, without care, drags corals through the sand and hides them till they die lol. He’s lucky I had to go to work and had time to cool off. Had I been off, I think I woulda hunted him all day out of spite. Seatak needs to hurry up and put their wonder glue on the market.

 

[olonmv]

Update: my son was peering into my tank last night towards the end of ramp down and saw the stolen goniopora frag in a little nook. I would have never found it. To our surprise, It had some polyps barely poking out. I’ll post some pics once home under lights. The shrimp is still there too. Couldn’t bring myself to kick him to the curb despite how mad he made me (if I could have caught him that morning, he’d be under my boot). As for the reason for the original post, he hates the frag on the bottle idea. I think he’s given up on it, it’s just too cumbersome for him to work with and he just leaves it be. It worked out great for me, it’s was free to make and you can hardly tell it’s there, with or without sand. It almost disappears once under water.