Pistol shrimp causing clowdy water!

[Gatorfreak]

Recently got a Tiget Pistol Shrimp to accompany my Orange Spotted Shrimp Goby. Took all of 5 minutes for them to find each other and pair up. Watching the two together has been really cool. There is one side effect, however, that I did not anticipate. The pistol shrimp is digging around so much that he is clouding my tank with all the sand that has been kicked up.

Has anyone seen this before? I'm hoping that once he's dug what he needs, then he'll take a vacation from churning up sand.

 

[lando]

Once the tunnels are dug you should see a decrease in this behavior. Mine went nuts at first as well.

 

[Vanphyre]

Mine does the exact same thing and still doing it. He likes to make new tunnels and caves all the time. The sand that gets kicked up clouds up that area for a little bit, but goes away after an hour or so and the tank is crystal clear again. I have a Tiger Pistol Shrimp as well. When he pushes the sand around with his front claws he is real neat about it, but when his little legs go nuts digging he throws it everwhere.

 

[MT79]

Once the tunnels are dug you should see a decrease in this behavior

I agree. Mine will still occasionally reestablish it's tunnels causing cloudiness for a day or so, but they are excellent at keeping sandbeds "fresh". By stirring the sand up all the detritus, DOC's, etc. are put into the water column where your filter/protein skimmer can easily remove them. Good luck.

 

[Gatorfreak]

Well I can live with the intermittent cloudiness. He's my most entertaining critter! He seems to be on a schedule of sorts. About 2pm is when things get cloudy and then it clears up in a few hours.
Then about an hour before lights out, he closes up all the holes for bedtime. I need to get his bulldozing on video.