A tale of survival and symbiosis

[Opcn]

The shrimp was carrying small boulders of dried sand out and then would 'snowblow' out loose sand.

Boy I wish I had a shrimp like that, I'd sell that puppy to NASA, I wonder how he gets Dry sand at the bottom of a tank full of saltwater

Lol

Great pics, glad to see hes alive, Terribly envious of you for having such awesome fish, I'll soon be in a dorm were I can only have a 10 gallon tank (But I'm gonna pull a fast one on em and get a 12 gallon with rounded corners, they ill be unable to prove that its mroe than 10 gallons ) Nano here I come!

 

[steelhealr]

Hi..I was finally able to capture what happens between these two animals and it's interesting for both FW and SW enthusiasts. As mentioned above, the pistol shrimp maintains the cave but has poor eyesight. The shrimp retrieves food and shares it with the Yashia Haze goby. The goby in turn protects the pistol and keeps guard. I was able to finally catch a few pix (not the greatest):

In the first pic, the goby emerges and in front of the pectoral fin you can see a claw emerging:

Second pic the pistol emerges but remains in contact with the goby:

Pistol continues to work on the cave carrying debris out:

When the pistol returns, the goby turns crosswise against the cave to block it off and protect the pistol:

Cool stuff. SH

 

[Synirr]

Very neat!! I'd love to see something like that going on in my very own aquarium. Good to see the goby is alive and well

 

[modernhamlet]

Out of curiosity, what other forms of symbiosis are out there in the hobby. I know about clowns/anemone and cleaner wrasses. I'm sure there are plenty in the saltwater world. Anyone know of any symbiotic relationships found in freshwater aquariums?

 

[xxSarahxx]

Mother nature is SO cool!!

 

[steelhealr]

Hmmm...good question....maybe some of you FW'ers should weigh in here. I can list anoter SW example:

Yellow striped clingfish and spiny sea urchin

Having a 46G FW, I haven't seen or heard of anything interesting that one could have in a FW tank. SH

 

[Teelie]

There are plenty of interesting fish to be kept in a freshwater, you just have to look and be willing to do some digging, just like saltwater.

 

[Bloo]

Just amazing - so cool ! and really beautiful pics too

 

[Synirr]

What about boxing/pom-pom crabs that hold anemones in their claws?

 

[Opcn]

decorator crabs and sponges, Certain hermit crabs and staghorn corals, anemony hermits and small anemonies.

As for fresh water none come to mind.

Edit: I seeem to remember someone in chat talking about two cichlid species, (lets say A and B) species A protects the fry of species B because species B kills the main predator of specis A Fry.

 

[Ed4567]

And probably the most common symbiosis: corals and zoanthellae

 

[steelhealr]

Ed...true..very clever response. You know, we forget that when corals are stressed, they can 'dump' their zooxanthellae. I think one of the main reasons I tried a SW tank is...not only color, etc, but, you can find interesting things like this. Teelie...c'mon..find us a FW example to offset our lists....that's your assignment for today (meant positively). SH

 

[pseud]

Awesome. Thanks for sharing the pics!

 

[steelhealr]

No problem Pseud. The SW section in TFF is small..but....would be cool to build it up a bit. I still have my 10G and 46G BF FW's, so, the freshies could have the best of both worlds. SH

 

[Opcn]

Oh, I figued out an observable FW symbiosis. If you get a large Carp, like a goldfish or a koi or a mirror carp, and it gets anchor worms a bitterling may be seen acting as a cleaner fish. Also, bitterlings lay there eggs in the mantles of FW bivalves in order to keep them in a constant current of clean water, although thats more epiphytic than sybiotic.