My Harlequin Shrimp Pair Pics

[Reef69]

Here are a few pictures of my pair of harlequin shrimp eating..Im still reasearching which one is the male and with the female..enjoy!

[Reef69]

oops, forgot the rest...

[Reef69]

very evil..they have these sharp little legs which they use to rip the tubes off the stars legs, they eat the whole star, not just the tubes like i had been told..they are beautiful creaures though..very interesting to watch

[dan]

where do you find food for them? they only eat star fish right?

[Reef69]

yeah, strictly starfish, im planning on feeding them a chocolate chip star once a week...they are almost done with the first one..

[Reef69]

A better look of how they flip the star over to eat the legs..

[BA]

They look AWESOME!!thx for sharing the pics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[scuba_steveo]

Too cool

[Reef69]

hey not a problem..i kinda feel bad for the starfish, but i dont know, they are stunning animals..plus they act real funny, they always walk around the sandbed together, since i bought them separately, when i put them together, the big one, which i am assuming its the male, did a little dance, it was really cool..they have been together ever since.

[Fin-AddictSF]

Glad to see the pair is doing well. We have astrea feeder stars here at the shop...if ever you need them!

[Reef69]

man, you guys rock!..i had been looking for a pair of HS for a while.. the shrimp ate the once yall gave me like cookies..ill stop by no later than friday to pick those up..thanks guys..

[Ram_Puppy]

Silverchair, they have some little starfish at CBPETS as well that breed like fire, they eat algae, I don't know if your harlequins would like them, but you could give it a try, if they work, just put some in your display tank and let them clean it up for you, and in payment for their hardwork, a nice retirement in the HS tank. :)

[oceancube]

if you dont mind me asking, where did you get this pair, i really like them!!

[Reef69]

Hahaha, Thanks Ram, those are astrea stars you are talking about..( i believe).in case im right, they arent reef safe and munch on corals..Sarah from Fin Addict gave me some of those the day i picked up the shrimp, i supposed they werent fed so i gave them a few...they ate them like cookies, those stars do split very easy, i might just keep a few in my mantis tank, see if they split...

Ocean- I got them from Fin Addict, after looking everywhere else, Sarah and Felipe were nice enough to find them for me..

[1salt]

What size tank do you have them in and can we see a shot of the tank? I want some too!!!! ha ha ha

[Ram_Puppy]

Silverchair, I don't think they are cnidarian munchers, I have them too and have not noticed any predation, they are ALWAYS on the walls of the tank, munching on algae, you can see a trail where they have passed... I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.

[Ram_Puppy]

eek... maybe I am wrong... http://www.garf.org/STAR/starfish.html

[Ram_Puppy]

umm... can I borrow your harlequins? :)

[1salt]

ROFLMAO - Ram Puppy too funny... :-o

[Instar]

Thanks silverchair692003! I totally love those creatures myself. They rock!

[btacker]

Sooo... let's say I have those star fish, too. Should I start pulling them out?

[btacker]

Sounds good. I have never seen them eat anything but algae on the glass. I never see them on my corals... .but I guess I will definately watch closer now :)

[Reef69]

ahaha..I knew it!..those stars are coral munchers...

1salt- the live on a 25 gallon jebo R 362, they live with my pair of true percs, a yellow clown goby, 1 tiger pistol shrimp, and a mandarin goby..The tank has 2-36 watt PCs..and a seaclose skimmer which seems to be working extreamly well..I dose the tank with iodine and kalkwasser for molting, ive fed a chocolate chip star monday and they are about half way done..you can see a shot of the tank in this link..

http://www.fin-addict.net/tankgallery/Galleries/DiegoTank_11-20-04_%20rendered/pages/DSCF0359_0020.htm

[Reef69]

sorry for the typos..lol

[Ram_Puppy]

well, after an initial bout of fear I ran home from a 15 hour nightmare shift and closely inspected every coral in my tank, there is not a single polyp out of place, infact, for the first time in a while my corals are showing nice growth. I am happy... if they do turn out to be little opportunists, I will break into silverchair's home and 'borrow' his cuties. I know for a fact there are at least 10 in my 30 with lots of softies and acro's, and such, and nadda, and there is at least one in my fuge, which has a colt frag in it, and a nice zoo rog (with mermaid cup algae coming up on it! Nice! :) ) and that all seems fine as well... yippie. :) bullet dodged, at least temporarily.

[Reef69]

well, dont let it bother you, in case they would attack a coral, it would take them a while to actually do any damage, since they are so small..dont sweat it!

[Reef69]

well, its been a couple of days since they started eating the star...odd thing is, that the only thing left of the star is a leg, and its still moving, lol...and to make things clear, they eat tubes and all, not only the tubes..a bunch of sites say they only eat the tubes off the legs..not true, they eat the whole starfish...still reasearching which one is male or fem...Im guessing the blue on is the girl...no clue..

[Instar]

silverchair692003, sorry, but that assumption because they are small they can't do much damage is not correct. They to not necessarily feed on the healthy coral tissue as a matter of being a nusiance or parasite, its simpler than that. If it just so happens that on your prized acro is where they park one night in the middle of the night, and let down their stomach for a snack, those digestive juices will digest a spot. Its small enough, not even half the size of a dime. In a couple days, though, if not sooner, that spot will turn into a nasty white spot with obvious necrosis and kick off RTN. It will take out that branch at this point. I have those stars too, and have paid the price with a prized deep purple, electric blue polyp sps and an electric lime green one. I stopped it because I broke it, but, the colonies were large, so one of them lives on as many new starts now. Sometimes you get lucky and all they do is scavenge, but, they are meat eaters as well as algae. I should have taken pictures of them eating a tiny anemone for ya'll to see. That write up on GARF is not a bunch of BS at all. They are dangerous for sps keepers and are not totally reef safe. I saw them wipe out a large montopora in someones tank near here. So, call me a witness to what GARF says. Their picture is clear; reproduction of those stars is by splitting so sometimes they don't have all their arms. BTW, someone tried feeding them to the Harlequin shrimp and the shrimp wouldn't touch them. You'll be ditching the little white cusion stars once you pay the price of a prized acro and actually figure out those stars did it.

[Reef69]

Thaks for the input Instar, I was just shooting for common sense, since they re quite tiny. The pair of HS i have ate those tine asterina starts pretty fast, im thinking on breeding some but, i guess they shuld do fine eatng what they are eating so far..

[Instar]

I wish I knew you could use those little things. I've killed about 35 of them in the past week. They keep turning up even though I pull them out and thats just in a 10 gallon nano with figi rock in there. They bother my nano creatures, so I don't want them.

[Reef69]

well, if you have a load of asterina stars, i dont see why you cant have a pair of harlequins, just know that the small starts would be a constant food source, not just the only one, you could feed one small choc. chip cookie every week, like im doing and they would be fine..

[Instar]

Do they bother brittle stars at all? Or just the juicier stars?

[Reef69]

sorry i couldnt reply earlier..well, after a long research i found out that brittle stars might be a bit too fast for the shrimp..since they are supposed to be slower than the brittle stars..which is still a bit not true because mine attacked the choc. chip real quick..it surprised me how fast they were, but who knows..we should try a brittle and see how it reacts..