Pistol Shrimp...a Killer?

[newbie20]

So, a couple of months ago, my wife asked if I'd seen either of our two dottybacks. She'd not seen either when doing the daily feeding. Our purple dottyback had been known to hide for prolonged stretches, and I'd seen our purple stripe dottyback starting to hide in and around our frogspawn. So, I thought nothing about it, but she had a theory that the pistol shrimp got them.

The dottybacks didn't get along, so usually stayed away from each other, which made it odd to me that their disappearance would be connected; however, she said that she'd noticed them to be regular visitors to the area around the pistol's "lair". Low and behold, there's been no sign. Completely disappeared. Checked the overflows, sump, etc. Nothing.

Yesterday evening, when feeding, I noticed that only one of my two firefish was out. The one that wasn't making an appearance hangs out on the same side of the tank as the pistol. Got me thinking more about my wife's theory. Each of the missing fish has been between 2-3 inches, and the pistol is probably around 4 inches.

Anybody else with a pistol shrimp experience something like this?

Thanks,
Brian

 

[CoralShop]

My pistol shrimp stunned my smaller mandarin about a week ago and the mandarin just sat in the same spot for 2 hours before kicking it....

 

[tbryan]

My dottyback does like to tunnel so it could be they encroached on his territory.

 

[CoralShop]

tbryan;871838 wrote: My dottyback does like to tunnel so it could be they encroached on his territory.

my mandarin went down into his hole for some pods and got popped... I saw it happen :sad:

 

[newbie20]

Hmmmm....what about the disappearances? Would he have eaten them? I have visions of a stash of fish corpses in a tunnel under a rock somewhere.

 

[CoralShop]

Newbie20;871841 wrote: Hmmmm....what about the disappearances? Would he have eaten them? I have visions of a stash of fish corpses in a tunnel under a rock somewhere.

Do you have emerald crabs? Lots of hermits? Big wrasses? All of these could chow on a smaller fish corpse.

 

[newbie20]

renoeb;871842 wrote: Do you have emerald crabs? Lots of hermits? Big wrasses? All of these could chow on a smaller fish corpse.

Does my wife's big wrasse count? J/K...love you honey! Man, I hope she doesn't read this.

Anyway, I do have a couple emeralds and a lot of hermits. Also, a couple serpent stars. Guess I just expected to see some sign of something, a skeleton, etc.

One day when I'm re-arranging the rockwork, I'll probably get a surprise.

 

[newbie20]

barry_keith;871846 wrote: What kind of pistol shrimp is it?

Red Pistol Shrimp

 

[ichthyoid]

I've had a pistol with 2 pairs of fire fish and several others for a long while with no issues. He and the Wheeler's Goby paired right up too