Lobster/Shrimp Battle

[The Langs]

Well the last two new fish we've baught have died shortly after placing them in the tank. This past friday we added a new fish (a mandoran) and it hasn't died but instead our purple lobster and red coral shrimp have finally crossed paths and the lobster killed the shrimp. This sucks because the shrimp was our very first thing in our tank and we really liked him. He never messed with anyone. The lobster is very cool looking, but he stays inside of a rock most of the time so I think we're going to get rid of him and get another shrimp. Oh, the lobster also tried taking over the bassellet's territory and that didn't work. The bassellet actually won the battle against the lobster, so I guess that makes him king of the tank. We didn't realize how aggressive that bassellet could be until the loster came into his home.

So I've heard that when they start becoming very territorial that you should rearrange the tank. Does this really work?

[Gerwin]

sometimes,
you can always return something not working for you

[Doug]

We would often advise tank rearrangement in the case of an established fish giving a new fish a hard time, the thinking being in-place territories are destroyed, and everyone is then too busy going about establishing their new one as opposed to defending the old. Sort of leveling the playing field, so to speak. Never heard of it working for inverts, though.