ihatenitrites
Community Member
Hello everyone, a while ago I bought a pistol shrimp which I thought might be a tiger shrimp. With the help of this forum I found out I was VERY wrong in my identification.
I was going to see if I can return him (pretty slim chance in my area) but my parents convinced me otherwise. For the moment he is in his own little tank. His only companion is a small pest (I think) snail.
My main tank is a small nano tank (13.5g fluval sea aquarium) with a few inhabitants. 1 fish (yellow clown goby - it's not the shrimp pairing type), 2 hermit crabs (blue leg, full black hermit which is 2x the size of blue leg), 1 trochus snail, and copepods and amphipods. I was thinking of eventually adding a few more inverts, like a peppermint shrimp and / or emerald crab.
My question is this: Will the pistol shrimp go around and start hunting the other inhabitants if I add it to the main tank (I don't care about the copepods and amphipods, they seem to be breeding freely. Nothing seems to be eating them at this point)? So far, it NEVER leaves its cave unless it's complete darkness so I'm worried about it killing and eating the goby while it sleeps, or if the goby ends up swimming in his cave.
I know that a lot of people keep the candy cane or tiger pistol shrimps and don't seem to have any issues, but it looks like the blue leg Caribbean pistol shrimp is different from those 2 species. I know they don't pair, but I'm not sure about the aggression.
Side questions: Would you guys keep an emerald crab in a 13.5g tank? I know they can get up to around 2" (at least according to my research, no idea if they reach that in aquariums or not) which may or may not be an issue with this tank size.
And this is just a curiosity question: Are pistol shrimps aggressive towards one another? Do they need X space for a territory or they will start fighting?
I was going to see if I can return him (pretty slim chance in my area) but my parents convinced me otherwise. For the moment he is in his own little tank. His only companion is a small pest (I think) snail.
My main tank is a small nano tank (13.5g fluval sea aquarium) with a few inhabitants. 1 fish (yellow clown goby - it's not the shrimp pairing type), 2 hermit crabs (blue leg, full black hermit which is 2x the size of blue leg), 1 trochus snail, and copepods and amphipods. I was thinking of eventually adding a few more inverts, like a peppermint shrimp and / or emerald crab.
My question is this: Will the pistol shrimp go around and start hunting the other inhabitants if I add it to the main tank (I don't care about the copepods and amphipods, they seem to be breeding freely. Nothing seems to be eating them at this point)? So far, it NEVER leaves its cave unless it's complete darkness so I'm worried about it killing and eating the goby while it sleeps, or if the goby ends up swimming in his cave.
I know that a lot of people keep the candy cane or tiger pistol shrimps and don't seem to have any issues, but it looks like the blue leg Caribbean pistol shrimp is different from those 2 species. I know they don't pair, but I'm not sure about the aggression.
Side questions: Would you guys keep an emerald crab in a 13.5g tank? I know they can get up to around 2" (at least according to my research, no idea if they reach that in aquariums or not) which may or may not be an issue with this tank size.
And this is just a curiosity question: Are pistol shrimps aggressive towards one another? Do they need X space for a territory or they will start fighting?
