Wennerae vs. 3" tiger pistol

[jonwright]

I believe I have a hitchhiker @1-2" Wennerae in my 155 gal tank (I've only seen him once for just a second). I'm *thinking* about collapsing a current 50 gal that houses a really cool 3" tiger pistol/goby pair into the bigger tank with the Wennerae.

What are the chances that wennerae will kill my pistol? Frankly I'm not worried about the mantis - he can leave as easily as he showed up IMO. :D

I'm really partial to the shrimp, though.

I also have a large LTA anemone in that 50 that would move as well - I saw a couple of the flower nems torn up (could have been the gorilla and stone crabs) - wennerae ever mess with larger nems? My pistol has not.

I'm not hell-bent on taking out the Wennerae, but if there's an extreme likelyhood he'll mess with the nem or my pistol I'll for sure go to Plan B.

[nmotz]

My suspicion is that at some point one will kill the other. They may live together just fine for a while, but eventually they'll have to molt and will be vulnerable until the exoskeleton hardens. If you're partial to keeping the pistol/gobie then I think the safest thing to do is move the mantis somewhere else. You have to remember that the Wennerae will get larger too (maybe 3.5" max) and will grow bolder as it does so.

[jonwright]

Actually I took my rocks out and I have little pistols. Hmmm. Honestly since this is TBS rock it is a gamble if I have any other mantids.

[nmotz]

Oh yeah, TBS rock comes full of pistol shrimps.

[jonwright]

Update: Tiger lost his battle I suppose. He was pretty dadgum big and the only other pistols I saw were small. I haven't seen him in quite a while, but I've seen a really large pistol that matches exactly the pic that TBS has.

So I'm guessing Pisty lost his battle with the "native" pistol. The native it pretty large - bigger than I ever saw Pisty.

Disappointed, really. Well, that's the gamble we take with having wild organisms in an enclosure.

However, I've never seen any evidence of a mantis, though.