PDA

View Full Version : Cleaner Shrimp Reef Safe?



alton
Thu, 31st Mar 2011, 06:39 AM
I have had one in just about every tank I have ever owned. And have never had a problem until yesterday when I came home. I started to do a water change on my 40 gallon when I noticed my tyree ponape birdsnest wasn’t looking very well. I had changed over to LED in this tank two weeks ago but everything had been doing well under the new lighting. Thinking maybe I needed to move it when I noticed the cleaner shrimp I had just added a week ago crawl up on to the birdsnest and started picking away at it. I don’t know if he was eating the polyps, but definitely bothering the heck out of it. And of course I had to dismantle the tank to get him out where he now resides in my sump of my 300. I guess I will add this guy to the list of not so reef safe with the purple tang I sold to someone who ate $200 worth of coral out of his tank before they could get him out.

Europhyllia
Thu, 31st Mar 2011, 07:11 AM
Weird!
I had not had much luck with peppermint shrimps and won't keep them anymore for fear of them eating LPS. I also quit the regular cleaner shrimp because they take the food from my sun corals and it's just too much trouble to stay there chasing them off with a stick until the suns are done eating.
Right now I only keep the anemone shrimp and am happy with them. They are also called 'cleaner shrimp' but not sure if they are really related?

Glad you got it out!