Panic mode

Ok so it has been 2 days since I acclimated for almost 2.5 hours on Monday for my new fire shrimp. He was gently put in tank slowly crawled on the top of the rocks disappeared behind them and I haven’t seen him since. Im starting to get a little worried. I do have a lot of rock and places where I could never see him but should I see him eventually? I have over 125lbs of live rock in the tank I’ll post a pic. Everything else is doing great including my corals but I really hope to see the fireshrimp soon. Should I be in panic mode?

 

My other inhabitants are feeding regularly seem very happy an the water params are near perfect

 

You may have purchased him right when he was about to molt, in which case he'll be hiding from a day up to a week while his new carapace grows. I wouldn't worry about it. How old is your tank?

 

Have you checked the tank after lights out? It's possible the shrimp has molted and is in hiding while its exoskeleton hardens. Your best bet will be to look for the shrimp's antenna in the various holes and caves, and behind the rockwork.

It doesn't look like you have anything in your tank that would eat the shrimp (damsels, dwarf angel, and Gramma), or am I missing something?

 

I have several damsels but the shrimp was fairly large the tank is about 6 months old but the rock water etc is from another tank I had just went bigger to a 90 gallon with 30 gallon sump all RO/DI water and doing well. in the tank I have 6 damsels 2 clowns, serpent star, sand drifting star, rainbow angel, long tentacle anemone, green brittle star that I feed every 3 days by hand to keep him fat and full lol. several variations of hermits including blue dwarf, scarlet, and a Halloween hermit. And I do have a purple/yellow royal gramma that stays in his little whole until feeding time. I wasn’t aware that he was aggressive towards shrimp ;( the fire shrimp is about 3 times the size of that gramma though. I have a ton of rock and it is epoxied high up the back wall so there is or has to be 60+ wholes and crevices he can hide in I think tonight I’ll look with a led flashlight with lights out for him. I really hope he comes out and or stays near the outer rock work like some peoples tanks. If not as long as he survives lol. was thinking of getting a skunk cleaner shrimp also as I heard they are less shy and will get along with the fire ok. Being this is my first shrimp once he molts etc do I need to find and get the shell out right away will it cause harim in the tank cause if he molts behind 125lbs + of live rock its going to be hard to find lol

 

Shrimp can hide forever. We've had big godzillas come to light when we were moving tanks. Shrimp we thought we'd lost.

 

The green brittle is a good possibility, altho I had a huge specimen (16" span) that never caused any trouble other than rob my Tubastrea, which it did very gently with the tip of its arm.

Grammas can be very aggressive, and it's possible that the shrimp was nibbled apart and eaten, or harassed into hiding.

 

No, it will not cause any harm. IMOPE, most all crustaceans eat their exoskeleton within a couple of days after molting.