shrimps give LPS nightmares!

[sickman]

k, I'm getting ready to goto sleep after trying to feed all my LPS in my 135gal tank. I say "try" cause I have 2 cleaner and a peppermint shrimp and the second I feed one of the LPS and move to the next they sneak up and pry all the food out of their mouths.. I fed my plate coral, he was all buldged and happy, made sure his mouth was closed before moving to the next, and there's the pepermint prying his mouth open and ripping out all the food he ate. then I look over and the cleaner are prying open my bubble ripping the food out.

I have tried to catch the shrimp with no luck, is there anything I can toss in my tank to eat the shrimp? I've had it with them!

[Psionicdragon]

hawkfish

[Thurge]

Feed the shrimp first.

[rhdoug]

I agree on the shrimp. Feeding mine first had no effect. I even saw the cleaner shrimp pull food out of lps an hour or two after it had eaten. No more shrimp for me. Too bad because the cleaner shrimp did feed the tank with larvae every couple of weeks, but they were too aggressive toward the corals for me to be comfortable with them in the tank. However, none of the corals ever seemed to be injured by any of this.

[h20cooled]

Yep same problem for me, if they aren't tearing the food out of the LPS mouth then they are harassing the SPS in my tank. I've also tried to feed them first and catch them with no luck. So, in a week or so when I move to my new tank, no more shrimp...

[firefishbrain]

I have that prob too, not as bad tho, since I have a nano...

[sickman]

ahhhh, I can't catch the bastards!! an hour of trying with no luck.

Too bad too, cause I really think the shrimp look cool.

[Justin74]

I had this same problem. I had 6 in my 46g and they rolled like the west side cripps at night. They tormented a florida flower anenome I had every night robbing it of food untill it did become stressed and died of starvation and almost killed my RBTA.

So what I did was grabbed a 2 litter coke bottle, heated the neck with a lighter and pushed it within itself as to invert it. Now I had a top notch fish trap. Put some formula1 gel cube in there and pulled out 4 of em within 1 night and got the rest the second night.Worked like a charm and I never looked back! Good luck! They can be evil! ;)


-Justin

[sickman]

how does the coke bottle work exactly? you kept the opening where to cap screwed on the same size but just pushed it into the bottle and once they get in they just don't know how to get out?

[Justin74]

Yup, it takes em quite a while to figure on how to get out. It kind of hard for them to do anyway once they figure it out as theres only a few inches of swimming area around the inverted opening and nothing for them to really latch on to, to aid there escape other than the lip of the opening itself. Amazingly simple but very effective tool.

Works with smaller fish as well, like damsels and wrasse. But if your going for fish Id suggest being close buy to tip it up and get it out of the tank for retrieval once there in,as they're much more smarter and quicker to get out.

-Justin

[armagedon48]

if your useing the shrimp to produce fry for the tank to eat up, set up a fuge with several shrimp but dont forget to feed them as well.

i had problems with my pepermint shrimp as well. i dont think shrimp are reef safe at all simply because their so greedy.

i moved all my snails and hermits into my fuge but i killed my pepermint shrimp and fed him to the anemone that he constantly harassed!

[duec22]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7887922#post7887922 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by armagedon48

i moved all my snails and hermits into my fuge but i killed my pepermint shrimp and fed him to the anemone that he constantly harassed!

I like it...lol..
Yeah, no more shrimp for me after have the same experiences.. Far to greedy. A lot of times it seems they would already have more than they could eat. So they would drop some just so they could go steal more from the LPS...

[sickman]

shrimp are evil!!! (but I Still think they are cool)

Glad I'm not the only one that has this problem, my members of my local reef club mostly think I'm crazy, their cleaners supposedly do nothing but clean the fish, and their pepermint only kill aptasia..

My cleaners have never touched any of my fish, and I'm the only one killing aptasia.. sigh

[Ryanqk]

I have to supervise the feeding of my corals and anenomes becuase the cleaner shrimp and hermit crabs scramble to pull food from there mouths and tenticles. if i drop (ironically) a piece of jumbo krill or shrimp in the tank they will be preoccupied and then i feed everyone else. My cleaner shrimp is MASSIVE after being a greedy lil mooch for all these months, lol.

[r00onmac]

my shrimp has killed 2 BTAs in my tank.. and picks at ANYTHING new as soon as it comes in...

ate a field of gsp before he decided it wasnt food...


idk what to do, he may go into my sump when the new tank is setup in a week or two...

[Ciarán]

shrimp are evil!!! (but I Still think they are cool)

Ditto, it seems food from LPS is always better! What i do is i give my cleaner shrmip a huge really tough bit of flake or unchopped shrimp, so he has to spend hours in his little den attempting to break it up and consume it all. Works sometimes, they are a pain in the ***, but still got to love when they do the "surface skim"!

[Madoktopus]

what about CB shrimp? do they do it aswell? and also are they safe with small fish?

[andideris]

i've had the same problem. my peppermint shrimps was eating my hammer. i used a clear acclimating container, and put a pellet inside of it. after a few minutes they're inside the container and i remove the container. i didn't even get my hands wet.

[calero]

guys, im completely in agreement with you, i have 2 cleaners, 2 banded, 1 blood and 1 peppermint shrimps in my 110 gls lps tank and they are driving me crazy the peppermint being the worst m......, now im feeding the corals when the lights are on and the monsters are less active, so if you have monsters and dont want to removed them, feed during the day and stay close to the tank ready to protect your priciest corals '
good luck

[sickman]

hehe, when I feed I have a long stick I have to keep in the tank and stand over it and chase the little bastards around with, they still win in the end, these guys are fearless!!



gotta go get me a 2 liter, gonna catch em this week and toss em.

[chem-e]

I don't have too many problems with my red blood shrimp. It's so shy that it doesn't come out into the open much. I just spray a little food into its cave and it's pretty happy.

It also cleans my fish, so I'm pretty happy with it.

I used to want it to come out more, but hearing about others problems, I'm now glad that it stays in its cave.

[calero]

same boat buddy, i always have my stick ready, those little bastards !!!

[ACBlinky]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7882583#post7882583 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sickman
then I look over and the cleaner are prying open my bubble ripping the food out. Mine tried that... once.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a21/ACBlinky/Misc/P7010001Medium.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a21/ACBlinky/Misc/P7010005Medium.jpg

I agree with everyone else, your best bet is to try feeding the shrimp first -- preferably with a big piece of food s/he'll have to work on for a while.

[DarkXerox]

Wow nice picture ACBlinky. I caught my cleaner trying to steal a silverside from my BTA, but then his antenna got caught by the nematocysts. I guess if I didn't pull him off, he would have ended up like yours heh.

I just give him a hunk of frozen shrimp now that he chews on for awhile. If he doesn't finish, the nassarius snails clean it up.

[Genin]

I had a cleaner shrimp get eaten by my elegance coral right after it molted. i guess the soft shell was easily stung through.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/GeninCloud/DSCN1567.jpg

[ezcompany]

the only reason i tolerate my peppermint is because it does a heck of a job destroying aptisia. i'm scared to know what it does at night though.

[jessp]

i only have a coral banded, and i guess he is so full of my fish that he lets the coral have there share and goes right for the fish. so far he has killed 2 blue green chromis, a dusky blenny, and a neon goby. I do like him though, he is a hardcore survivor and i've had him for 2 years. he is pretty gentle with my corals, and i try to feed as soon as lights come on or just prior. I will not add anymore, I'm real picky about my corals, and won't take any corals that have aptisia, and if they do have one or two the lfs will always keep it in there peppermint shrimp tank until it is cleaned up.

[pufferman90]

can't you also try to feed stuff that the shrimp cant necessarily get a hold of, like rotifers and phytoplankton. A Cleaner shrimp isnt a filter feeder.