Funeral for a Fish

Z

zeeter

AC Members
Jan 24, 2010
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My skunk shrimp died yesterday. I have no idea why. He has been very active, even trying to clean my hand a few weeks ago when I was hand-feeding a fish. Monday night I did a 1/3 water change, but he was still happy as heck afterward. Salinity was 1.022 and I used the proper amount of water conditioner. No, I don't have an RO/DI unit yet, but still - this was a pretty hardy shrimp. None of the other animals had any problems.

There are two peppermint shrimps in there now, but the skunk tended to dominate them. There was no apparent trauma to the skunk. He was just dead. Water parameters were good. No ammonia or nitrites and a tiny, tiny nitrate reading. pH was good, too.

Anyway, he's dead and I mourn for him. So where do I go from here? I've been looking at other types of shrimp, but with three already I didn't want to overdo it. I'm thinking now of a pistol/watchman combo. Problem could be, though, that I already have a yellow headed goby and two engineer gobies. Would adding a 4th gobie cause any problems? Also, what purpose do pistol shrimp serve? I had heard that some people consider them to be nuisances. Is the noise they make annoying? I hate being annoyed; it annoys me.

Also - would a pistol shrimp be considered an "ornamental" shrimp? And should I get a cleaner wrasse or go back to another skunk? Maybe a coral banded or something?

About the only thing good about a fish dying is that it opens up some new possibilities for getting something new.
 
Well, the engineers aren't a goby and aren't aggressive at all, so they don't count. The other goby is very different from a watchman and doesn't tend to confine itself to a single burrow all day. As long as there is plenty of room for them to define territory, you should be okay. The shrimp/goby pair is a form of mutualism, in that both parties benefit. The goby gets a maintenance free home and the shrimp gets a sentinel or "watchman" and possibly some food benefits. Any shrimp you buy that isn't for eating or research is considered ornamental.
 
Amphiprion said:
Any shrimp you buy that isn't for eating or research is considered ornamental.
Click to expand...

Really?? Learned something new today.. I thought if the shrimp didn't do anything to benefit the tank it was ornamental. Fire shrimp, sexy shrimp, and pistol shrimp would fall in that category.. I thought if the shrimp served a positive purpose like skunks and peppermints they fell out of the ornamental label.. just something I had stuck in my head.. never read that anywhere.
 
Yup, your whole tank is considered ornamental. Ornamental fish, etc. refers to fish that are used for decoration (whether they are beneficial or not), which essentially includes everything other than food fish and research.
 
what if you had some kind of fish hamster wheel powered generator, and your fish was working for you like a work donkey or something would that be ornamental?

to the op
pistol and goby pairs are awesome, check out my thread for my pair. i dont know how happy the pair would be with another tunnelling fish in there though
 
If it serves a direct utility to you, then I suppose not. I just consider everything we keep in our tanks to be ornamental, since other than having them, they serve no other immediate purpose.
 
I use the term "ornamental" a bit differently. Sure- the whole tank is ornamental. However many fish recognize a purposeful shrimp like a skunk or peppermint as useful and will not bother it. On the other hand, they'll look at a sexy shrimp and say "yum!" The descriptions for quite a few fish say that they will eat ornamental shrimp. To me this wouldn't include a skunk shrimp.

Anyway, I wound up getting a neon gobie that jumps on my hand whenever I put it in to move something around. It's weird how they swim. It actually looks like they're jumping rather than swimming.
 
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