Banded Coral Shrimp

[bdare]

Are these guys reef safe or not? I thought I've seen comments about them picking at corals...

[DaveG99]

Most wont harm your corals but they do kill other shrimp as well as small fish. They can be mean.

[HPD Turbo]

Dont do it, they are so mean. Not so reef safe. SK8r can give you more inputs.

[bdare]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11363181#post11363181 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DaveG99
Most wont harm your corals but they do kill other shrimp as well as small fish. They can be mean.

What do you mean "MOST"?

If there is a chance of a fish or invert turning evil I don't want it because it will happen to me. I've never had good luck with dwarfs angels or rogue crabs. Not willing to try the shrimp if there is a chance it will be evil.

[cardiffgiant]

I had a beautiful one for 2 months that didn't cause any problems, but I decided not to take my chances and caught it and traded it back to my LFS.

[kar93]

I have one with 2 cleaners and they just stay away from each other, CBS only comes out when its feeding time though

[rbursek]

I have had one for a year, and a blood red, and a lobster. no problem. Maybe I have just ben lucky, they have there own spacies!
Bob

[rbursek]

I have had one for a year, and a blood red, and a lobster. no problem. Maybe I have just ben lucky, they have there own spacies!
Bob

[sabazerehi]

i've had one for about a year too, he likes his space that's for sure, but otherwise does great with all the inhabitants. i couldn't imagine my tank without him.

[aquaman67]

I have one with mostly softies, toadstool, kenya tree, GSP, frogspawn, hammer and no problems.

I also have a blood shrimp and emerald crabs. They've been together about 20 months now.

[ReefTECK]

I wouldn't trust one! Don't count on it behaving!

[bdare]

Thanks everyone for your replies!

Do coral banded shrimp rip food from the mouths of coral like skunk cleaners do?

[ibnozn]

I have one and he's a meanie. Likes to lunge at anything that gets too close and is a key suspect in the disappearance of some small gobies. I'll be trading him for a smaller one or something nicer very soon. Never heard of problems with corals but I wouldn't trust them with any small fish like a neon goby. Supposedly can't mix them with arrow crabs either.

[ibnozn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11370730#post11370730 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bdare
Thanks everyone for your replies!

Do coral banded shrimp rip food from the mouths of coral like skunk cleaners do?

I've never seen mine actually take the food the way a skunk does. When I target feed something in the vicinity of my guy he'll usually move in that direction but he stops short of taking the food.

[phish guy]

i had one in a dispaly tank at work for like a year, before the tank heater went balisitc and fried everything. he would lunge at the chromis and strawberry psuedochromis, never caught them though. he was really big though, like 2.5 inchs.

the only corals with him were a leather, some shrooms and a condy anemone. he never bother them.

[sk8rreefgeek]

mine minds his own pretty well

[coral rules]

Mine is full grown and doesn't bother anything in the tank. The only time he is mean to anyone is if they swim too close to him, then he snaps at them. But no worries, the fish are faster.

[aquaman67]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11370730#post11370730 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bdare
Thanks everyone for your replies!

Do coral banded shrimp rip food from the mouths of coral like skunk cleaners do?

Not if you make sure to feed the shrimp first....

[Justin James]

What the heck??? I never heard of a CBS being bad??? In all the years i've been in the hobby i've always kept a CBS in my tanks and have yet to see a bad one. I've even keept one in a 20 gallon nano with no trouble. I also have one in a 25 gallon with peppermint shrimp and a cleaner shrimp with no problems let alone ever try to harm a fish. My main display is a 150 gallons with all kinds of small fish, blood shrimp, peppermint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, pistol shrimp, and 2 procelin crabs with absolutly no problems. They are one of the shrimp that I would recommend getting besides a cleaner shrimp because of their bristle worm eating habbits. The CBS i've had in my 150 display has been with me now for almost 4 years and has been in 4 different tanks with yet to cause a problem.

I love Coral Banded Shrimp :)

[sk8rreefgeek]

how big can they get?

[Justin James]

Not all that big. My guy is pretty much full grown and rarley sheds anymore. His size is about 5" long if you straighten out his tail and measure from tip of the tail to the tip of his claws. The body of a CBS is very small actually. The long claws make it look alot bigger.

[ReefGirlSara]

I think they are beautiful, but I am trying sooo hard to catch mine to get rid of it!! I wouldn't add it if I were you. Mine has doubled in size in just about 2 months, and he was cute at first, but now he jumps on my fish!! My coral beauty has little pinch marks on his tail and I've even seen him try to pinch the yellow tang when he swims by. Other than the fish damage, I don't ever see any sign of him, he just comes out when the lights go off.

[Gary Majchrzak]

I've been keeping shrimps in aquaria for many years. There are several species of Stenopus (Coral Banded Shrimps). Some species grow larger than others.
These shrimps are big on bark and short on bite- they love to make themselves look menacing. It's all part of their game.
If your fishes are large enough Stenopus will clean them. If your fishes are small and if the shrimp is hungry enough it might try to catch some nocturnal sushi, but it's much more common to see a Stenopus shrimp picking at a fish that died of other causes. (The unknowing aquarist often blames the shrimp.)
Larger Stenopus will kill smaller shrimps if they can catch them.
It usually takes a pair of Stenopus to corner and catch a smaller (but much quicker) Lysmata spp. shrimp.
I've kept pairs of Stenopus with small fishes (like Clown Gobies) and had no problems. If your aquarium is small (20 gallons or less) you might want to avoid larger species of shrimps.

[KyleO]

I wish I could get my CBS out of my reef............he has eaten 7 out of my 8 green chromis and I am afraid he is going to eat my other shrimp. The CBS seems to be a preditor as opposed to a scavenger. I have 3 cleaner and 3 fire shrimp and they are all great. The CBS lurks around in the dark eating what it can get a hold of.

If you want a reef tank with small fish and inverts.........don't get a Coral Banded Shrimp!

[Gary Majchrzak]

Kyle- someday try this experiment:

place 7 or 8 Green Chromis in your reef aquarium after your CBS has been removed. See what happens.

[KyleO]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11381062#post11381062 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gary Majchrzak
Kyle- someday try this experiment:

place 7 or 8 Green Chromis in your reef aquarium after your CBS has been removed. See what happens.

If you are suggesting that the Chromis killed each other you are going to make me sleep better at night!!!

I never see the Chromis beating up on each other............when one of the Chromis turns up with nasty wounds and missing eyes, the others seem to ignore him..........and then usually I won't see that Chromis after the next night.

I have to admit that I am assuming that the CBS is the culprit.

[Gary Majchrzak]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11381138#post11381138 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by KyleO
If you are suggesting that the Chromis killed each other you are going to make me sleep better at night!!!

I have to admit that I am assuming that the CBS is the culprit.

Promise not to snore if you sleep better. Read this thread:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=825871

[ACBlinky]

My CBS is a sweetie, never harms a thing. I've had her since she was just a tiny little thing (she's HUGE now) and all she's ever done is hang out in her cave waiting for tidbits. She tends to come out at night to pick over the reef for anything the fish may have missed, but doesn't bother corals or fish in the process.

[shredr50]

I have a 4"+ CB in my tank that doesn't bother anything, including my hand or 8 other fish that he could easily get a hold of. Might have something to do with the fact that I keep his belly full. However, he appears to be the exception. Every other CB I've seen are mean little buggers.

[ibnozn]

I've caught mine before. It wasn't too hard, took a few tries though. I shooed him out of the rocks with a turkey baster and continued "encouraging" him to crawl into a clear plastic breeder (Lee's Three-way Breeder) with a long handled scraper. The breeder was positioned on the bottom of the tank, sideways on end. I used the lid to help make a corral and just closed it once he was in.

It may have helped that the breeder was clear and perforated at the bottom making it harder for him to know it was there.

[monkeydude]

Got a CBS and blood red, 2 peppermint, pipefish shrimp and a cleaner in a 65 for 8-10 months now with no problems.

[Lost in Tanks]

I agree, i have never had problems with my CBS, it just hangs out under one of the rocks waiting for me to feed it every few days... and its in a tank that has a Clown that is about 1/4 the size of the CBS

[Skepperz]

Yep CBS are great! They seem to do better when they are in a pair tho, they are greedy little buggers too :-)