Shrimp Goby and Jawfish

[Ray1214]

I recently got a gorgeous Hi-Fin Banded Shrimp goby. He has a yellow face and red/black barberpole stripes down his side. He has been in my tank for about a week now and I can't seem to get him to pair up with a pistol shrimp. (Charles you are right, he likes to shove pieces of CC and rocks into the live rock for some strange reason and everytime I start to think he is dead or gone, I see new little formations that he makes in my tank or I hear a loud pop coming from my tank, very secretive). Anyways I had a slight panic attack Friday, and I decided on Sat morning to bait him out of hiding with frozen mysis and brine shrimp. He has been living with the Jawfish and is on the wrong side of the tank of the pistol shrimp. Yesterday during the coral feeding (corals get a target feed with a frozen brineshrimp/mysis shrimp mush for my non-photosynthetic corals) I saw that jawfish grabs food (the jawfish is twice as large about 4-5 inches in length and the shrimp goby is at about 1.5 inches) and spits it out so that the shrimp goby doesn't have to venture far from the jawfish house. Now I have the jawfish which is a yellow head pearly BTW doing his dance outside of his hole along with a shrimp goby right next to him, almost like father and son or something. Is that weird or what.

How do I get him to mate up with pistol shrimp? I figured a candlelit dinner or something may work. Also I will tell you that I have a royal gramma, neon goby, a green chromis and a blue damsel in this tank. The damsel is the terror of the tank and chases the jawfish and the goby back in the holes. I will post a pic since it seems so commical. I am in the process (over 3 months now) trying to trap the damsel.

Ray

Ray

[ReefDave]

Ray,

I am sure you already know this, but get rid of the Damsel. The gobies are too skitish to start without having to deal with Jaws living in the same house as them. If the gobie gets too far from his whole, and gets spooked by the Damsel he/she may try to jump out of the tank, as they are prone to do. There is just nothing good that can come of having that Damsel in there.

After you rid yourself of that problem, you may see the goby start to come out more, might even venture to the other side of the tank who knows, they won't always pair up with the pistols, I have heard alot of people say "I should have bought them already paired, cuase mine ignore each other"....so you may never get the relationship you are looking for in those two particular critters.

Keep trying to trap that little...you know what

[sally]

Hi: I could be wrong but I thought the watchman goby was the type that bonded with the pistol shrimp. They are greenish color..doesn't sound like yours. Your goby/jawfish relationship sounds really wild...now that is a first.