Clicking Noise??

Hi everyone,

We've been getting a clicking noise in our tank for a few weeks now, we thought maybe it was some of our equipment, so we went through testing turning everything off. It wasn't any of our equipment, so I did a search for clicking noises in aquariums and found out that it might be a mantis or pistol shrimp.

Since its been there for a few weeks and our snail, hermit crab and fish are still doing fine I'm thinking maybe its a pistol shrimp??

It makes noise quite frequently, at least every 5 minutes or so I would say. It is usually about 2 - 3 clicks at a time, but sometimes its up to 8 or so clicks at a time.

Do you guys think its a pistol shrimp?

We were thinking of trying to find the live rock it's in by removing each piece of live rock one by one and seeing if the tank still makes a noise. But I don't know what we'd do with the piece of live rock once we found him...

What do you think?

Thanks in advance! This clicking noise is kinda driving me insane now!

 

could be either, hard to distinguish the amount each clicks. pistols are more reef safe than mantis. mantis smashes, pistols make there one claw produce a sonic boom that stuns the prey. try and watch the tank to see which rock they prefer, then its up to you if you want to take the rock out in order to rid of either one.

 

I thought the pistol shrimp would only make one click I dint think they made repeated clicks like they are describing here. It may be a mantis shrimp and thats a problem :-/

 

Maybe a dolphin or porpoise!!!! That is how they communicate...
hahahaha
No seriously, it is possible that it is either a pistol shrimp, which is a good thing, or it may be a Mantis shrimp which in a reef tank, is a bad thing!

 

Also seriously...my tank has produced pops and clicks for years...

Have never seen evidence of either a pistol or mantis. :-/

I really think there may be another reason...

Lights cooling/heating..

LR contraction or expansion...

other...

Just guessing.

 

It might not be a shrimp at all maybee a powerhead or some equitment

 

I thought at first that it was some piece of equipment, so I went through and turned everything off, pulled them out at the powerpoint and then went as far as pulling the powerboard out at the powerpoint and it still made the clicking noise.

We made an attempt to extract it last night, but so far no luck.... if I knew whether it was a pistol shrimp or a mantis, then I'd be happy, and it could stay if it was a pistol shrimp!

We haven't had any fish/hermit/snail deaths, so we were thinking maybe its a pistol... but I'd like to be sure, but thats going to be a hard task I think...

 

I had a clicking in my FW tank a long time ago.
Finally found out it was a cichlid moving little rocks with its mouth to make a tunnel. Each time the cichlid would drop a rock and hit another... "click"
Try to sneak up on your tank more often.

 

spend one night just sitting there with a flashlight and listen for it then look for it depending on what area it came from

 

We don't even need to wait for night, thats the good thing I suppose, because it happens during the day with the lights on and everything, its quite frequent! We think we know what rock it's in, maybe we'll stake out that one and see how we go