Keep hearing twig snapping.

If it's mising it's claws then the pistole shrimp would survive but it woulden't be able to make the snaping sound until the larger claw grows back.

 

it would still be able to eat and crack open a shell? I took pics of the claws I found after tearing my rock apart, they should be posted here on this thread. One was smaller and red the other was larger and orangish white. They don't look like anything else in my tank..

 

...and is there anything that eats them?

 

Pistol shrimp don't crack open shells. They stun their prey by snapping their large claw which creates a type of underwater sonic boom. That being said, if a pistol loses its "stunning" claw, it can easily live off of the fish food that you're putting in the tank.

 

oh ok I thought they used the claws to make the hole to get the thing out....I had a dream last night that my gobie grabbed ahold of a crab and ate it LOL weird....... I don't dream often but when I do, they're usually bizzare!

 

Not so far fetched though. I've talked to folks who have had large engineer gobies eat their cleaner shrimp.

 

hmmm a sign of things to come? lol he acts like he's always hungry too. I read that they need to be fed something like 2-3 times a day...no way he would be as big as a python if I did, and would surely eat eveything in the tank LOL

 

I just found a hermit crab gnawing on something that was apparently inside an empty crab shell that was in my tank if another one outgrew it's shell. Could this have been the shrimp thing? Before I could get a real good pic gobie/goby(which is it?) swam up and stole both of them and dragged them under into the abyss LOL

 

Just like anemones and clownfish, pistol shrimp and certain bottom-dwelling gobies share a symbiotic relationship in which both benefits. The goby uses the shrimp's burrow for protection from predators, and in turn acts as "eyes" for the pistol shrimp warning the pistol shrimp of aproching preditors.

also here is a cool video of how the pistol shrimp "shocks" it prey.

[SIZE=-1]www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKPrGxB1Kzc[/SIZE]

 

I don't think my goby was protecting the shrimp...I think he ate it....;D