cleaner shrimp.. has this ever happened before..

[buddyzs]

ok.. so I was feeding my tank today and than I sat in front of my tank to look at everything eat... than I came across my xenias.. (very healthy) than I saw a small patch of them without the head... so I was like *** than I thought maybe they drifted off for reproduction but than I saw one of my cleaner shrimp crawl up to the xenias after dinner and he was devouring the xenia's head, leaving the stall... I couldn't believe it so I try catching but he kept on crawling to the rocks, so I'll try catching 2morrow again when it's hungry.. but has this ever happend to anyone.. I've had many cleaner shrimps and never seen this before..

[kusanagiz]

is the shrimp well fed?

[SPSFiend]

Wow, never heard or seen that. I have several shrimp in my tank and a grow a ton of xenia on my sand bed (trade the local LFS for salt water). I have heard of them eating Zoos before if they are hungry. good luck

[PotysGSXR]

i bought a cleaner shrimp awhile back and it ate my blue mushrooms, green mushrooms, blastos and toadstool, so I'm not surprised it ate your xenia.

[flyhigh123]

hmmm... that seems like it happened to me as well...

my xenia stalks were missing heads for a while... since i did my interceptor treatment, i took out the shrimp and since then all the heads came back...

[Wickednix]

I already had a talk with my cleaner shrimp. I told it if it touches anything hes gone. So far he has been good.

[buddyzs]

lol I see.. I have 3 shrimps in my tank and only one of them does dat.. i love shrimps but I would really hate it he contineus to eat my stuff.. and if he continues .. how am I going to distiguish him between the others.. hmmm lol

[silverarrow27]

Put him in a boiling pot of water if he continues.

[ReefMeister2]

most likely he was scavening zooplanton from the zenia, not actually devouring its flesh; though it does look like it is in a sense the way they aggressively pick into the stalk with their feeding claws. My cleaner shrimp is literally starving my new carpet anemone to death by stealing even the smallest of food particles right out of it tentacles.
If you have any dwarf angels they are definitely the real culprits.

[coralGoodie]

Four years ago, I had a Cleaner shrimp who was bugging my torch coral and BT anemone. He was a real pig. Last week, purchased a new one fo rmy tank. So far it's behaving well. I've been feeding it frozen stuff on a regular basis.