I think my pistol ate all my fish...

[Lili13]

Hey all, I have an established 14 gal BC.   I had in it the regulars for CUC, as well as polyps and sun coral.  For others I had a porcelain crab, dragonet, fountain feather duster, tangoroa (sp?) goby and a peppermint shrimp.  Everything has mysteriously gone missing except the peppermint!!  It has now been about a month and a half since I have seen the crab, but the only thing I had added to my tank was a Michael's Pistol (orange body, purple legs).  We watched him attack the feather duster, shooed him away, but the next morning it was gone....Has anyone ever had this problem? If so, what did you do?  I would really like to get some fish, but refuse to until I can catch this guy and return him!

[fishboy]

I ownd a pistol as a well. they can be very aggressive. once they establish a hole anything that goes in/near it has a good change of being killed/eatin. i lost many hermits and snails, nothing too big tho. but yes i can see the pistol shrimp attacking everything in the tank, even more so in a smaller tank.

[mikerobart]

Get some skunk cleaners, they are awesome. Definitely one of my favorite critters, and won't mess with anything, well, other than maybe doing a little dance on the zoo's once in awhile and closing them up

[gvv]

I doubt that...
I have a pair of candy pistols with wheeler goby and one blue leg, that does not pair with gobies.
Yes, they maybe defensive, when hermits or snails comming to their "home", but otherwise they are not agressive. Have mandarins, firefish etc, but none of them were ever hurt or killed by pistol shrimp.
Mantis shrimp - this is a predator that will kill CUC/fish...

Regards

[pinoy]

I got my pistol shrimps (2 of them) as hitchhikers when I bought some live rocks from Big Als. Didnt notice at them until I got home and of course, I was very happy since I got these for FREE. After a year, I suspect these guy killed my snails, but only because the snails went to their hideout.

These 2 guys never killed any of my fish, (got 7 of them), never killed my emerald crabs...

However, I want them gone since they make irritating noises at night...and they are also very hard to catch...

So I have to agree with GVV, these guys will never kill their tank mates unless they are bothered or...are under fed,

[Vincenzo.]

do you hear a snapping sound or a clicking sound?
Snap - pistol
Click - mantis

do you still see the shrimp? If not its a mantis or some sort of killer crab hiding amungst the rock thats virtually invisible.

Try a red light at night. Or as Az from aquavalley told me..put a small cup in there with food inside. If a crab or mantis goes in they cant climb out.