Where is my Pistol Shrimp?

[reef builder]

I am a new hobbyist. I have a 35 gal RedSea. Recently I went to my LFS and purchased a yellow watchman goby. The sales person told me that I should get a pistol shrimp because they have a nice relationship. I shelled out what I thought was a lot of money for a 1/2 inch red and white shrimp, but thought the experience of the goby shrimp relationship would be worth it. As soon as they were acclimated and I relased the two into my tank the shrimp disappeared into the sand. I returned to the LFS the next day and asked another salesperson what happened. He asked if I bought a "mated pair". I did not. Both the goby and shrimp had just been delivered to the LFS when I purchased them. I have not seen any sign of the shrimp since. It has been 4 days now.
How do I locate such a small and elusive creature and how do I introduce the goby and shrimp so they will become palls? The goby is fine, but just wanders the tank. He looks sad and lonely. Would love to find his friend.

 

[rebelprettyboy]

Theyll do it on their own in time if they wont too!

 

[jerryatrick]

They did not know each other long enough to become BFFs.
I am always gun shy when purchasing a fish or invert from a LFS that just arrived.

 

[yearofthenick]

I had the same exact thing happen to me. I put him in the tank and he zipped off and I never saw him again, until about a week later when I noticed cave-like openings in the sand under my live rock. The pistol shrimp apparently loves to burrow and makes caves underneath your live rock. I never actually saw him, but did see clumps of sand coming out every few seconds.
Then I bought a watchman and it was like second nature to the watchman... he went right to the burrows and stuck his tail in. Now my watchman and pistol shrimp are paired... they take care of each other and it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I'm sure if you give it time they'll pair - the pistol shrimp is not going to chase off your goby.
What's really interesting is that I bought him a few months ago and he was like 1/2" long total, and I saw him the other day as he was shuffling out sand, he moved his pile to another part of the tank and I got to see his whole body - he had grown in size - he was like 1 inch long already! It was amazing to see.
Another funny thing about the pistol shrimp is he eats dead fish. I had a clown that wasn't doing so good and he died in the night. The next morning I was looking for him and couldn't for the life of me find him. As the weekend approached, it gave me some free time to move around some of my live rock and I found it's skeleton in the pistol shrimps cave picked clean. Something kinda creepy about that but oh well... at least he had a nice $14 meal.