JasonJones Posted October 20, 2010 Share Posted October 20, 2010 (edited) So for the last several weeks I have been contemplating ordering a small gaggle of sexy shrimp. I watched videos online of their little dance. I thought to myself, self, you have a little 20g where you would be able to see them frequently and watch their waltz. So I pulled the trigger and ordered a group of 4 of them. Today was the big day. You know the feeling, waiting around for the fedex guy to show up and deliver your goods. I am sure it is how a crack addict feels waiting on his dealer. Finally, at 11:57 the "package" arrived. Being the good little fishkeeper I am, I pull out my drip acclimator and set it to slowly drip for the next hour. I watch them in the specimen container and my heart just warmed up to these tiny little guys. It was even more exciting seeing them live in front of you then all the videos showed. Then the big moment came to put them into the tank. I turned all the pumps off and let everything settle to try to make their entrance to their new home as peaceful and stress free as possible. I net them all and put them on the same rock together. I am not sure if fish develop Pavlovian responses to stimuli, but I have now decided they do. My six line wrasse knows when its feeding time. When those pumps goes off, baby, that means the food is coming. He is at the top of the tank as soon as he sees me coming when those pumps are off. Now, me being the higher being should have taken this into consideration, especially being that it had been at least 12 hours since my garbage disposal, I mean six line wrasse, had eaten. But I didn't. I didn't think how old Pavlov would be proud that I had trained my fish when it was time to eat. I am sure six line was just sitting there salivating, if a fish could salivate. Well it was not less than 5 seconds after the shrimp left the net that sixline was over investigating who these newcomers were to his tank. It was not more than two seconds later when he startled the first shrimp and it took to moving. Well this just excited sixline even more. And it wasn't another second before the first shrimp was hanging halfway out his mouth clinging for dear life. Six line just cruised around the tank displaying his trophy to all who cared to see. Well it has now been several hours. I don't see any of the other shrimp. I am not sure if this signals that they are dinner or just in hiding. Either way, I am sure they will be dinner soon. I guess we all like a fancy meal from time to time, but I must say, I never planned on feeding sixline a $10 meal, certainly not multiple ones. Edited October 21, 2010 by JasonJones Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diabeetus Posted October 21, 2010 Share Posted October 21, 2010 nice story telling skills! sorry to hear about your shrimpies thho :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mcallahan Posted October 21, 2010 Share Posted October 21, 2010 dang sixlines! I hate those suckers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bige Posted October 21, 2010 Share Posted October 21, 2010 I feel your pain. I bought a 2 inch anemone lobster. Acclimated him. Loved him. Put him in the tank and before he hit the bottom, my dottyback ate him. In two bites. Dang $15 meal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GKarshens Posted October 21, 2010 Share Posted October 21, 2010 Wrasses and shrimp do not mix! I lost several peppermints and a cleaner shrimp to them. I choose the Wrasse over the shrimp. Though I have a Mystery Wrasse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesL Posted October 21, 2010 Share Posted October 21, 2010 I feel your pain. I bought a 2 inch anemone lobster. Acclimated him. Loved him. Put him in the tank and before he hit the bottom, my dottyback ate him. In two bites. Dang $15 meal. This is almost exactly my story! Except it was a strwaberry basslet that snapped up my long tentacle plate shrimp on it's way down Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Hydro Posted October 21, 2010 Share Posted October 21, 2010 My mystery wrasse so far has eaten 3 full size shrimp, 1 fire shrimp, 1 cleaner shrimp, and one peppermint shrimp. He also knocks snails, even the turbo snails, off the glass and eats them. hmmmm $30, $30, $10 worth of shrimp, and at least $20 worth of turbo snails. I've started making sure that it eats every morning and that killing spree has stopped. It hard for me to consider getting rid of the wrasse, he is so cool. Here is my sad shrimp story...I had a fire shrimp in my refugium. I bought a puffer that I put in my display that started eating coral, so he was banned to the 40 gallon refugium. Well I couldn't get the shrimp out b/c of the rock in there so he lived with the puffer for almost a year. He never came out but maybe at night, I just always dropped some food behind the rock for it. Well I moved tanks to my office and the lucky fire shrimp moved in to the DT tank with the other fire shrimp that I have. It wasn't long before it started seeing it everyonce in a while in between the rocks and it actually got to clean a few fish. The day came when the shrimp was truly comfortable, I saw him for the first time hanging right out front and center and I thought "how cool is that, he has a whole new life now". I'm being totally serious when I say less than 10 minutes pieces of this fire shrimp were floating around the tank, destroyed by the mystery wrasse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Dena Posted October 21, 2010 Share Posted October 21, 2010 Sorry about the shrimp...I don't think I'll ever have another sixline. Not after it killed my Potters Leopard Wrasse. I've got Sexy's in my nano and when I move most of the fish to the new tank, I think I'm going to get a bunch more. Make it more of a shrimp tank with a firefish and a tail spot blenny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innate1 Posted October 21, 2010 Share Posted October 21, 2010 " I thought it was a lovely story. And you tell it so well." -Old lady on bench from Forrest Gump Sorry for your loss but thanks for making it our gain. That was so well written they should start a new forum called fish tales just for the likes of that. Well done Jason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexasTiger Posted October 21, 2010 Share Posted October 21, 2010 My cleaner shrimp got too comfortable around my fairy wrasse. Needless to say, he is no longer with us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonJones Posted October 21, 2010 Author Share Posted October 21, 2010 I figured it was a pretty good story so I better milk it for what its worth. Still no sign of any shrimps... It is funny, I have always had a six line wrasse in my tank and I have never had a problem with them. But as I think back on it now, they were always the smallest fish and I never had small shrimp in my tanks, so perhaps that explains why I have never had any problems with them. He does like to chase around my nano gobies sometimes, but he hasn't tried eating any of those yet, fingers crossed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brooks Posted October 21, 2010 Share Posted October 21, 2010 I bought some Chromis that I was SURE were big enough for my LLLIIIIOOOOONNN not to eat them. I was wrong. Then again, they might have ran into the powerhead. They're the dumbest fish I've ever encountered Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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