Coral Banded Shrimp snacking on blue-legged hermit

[ahochan]

Yesterday I saw my coral banded shrimp eating the skin left over from one of my blue-legged hermits molting. It must have really liked the taste of it, since just now I caught it snacking on a still alive one. I saw the same hermit in its shell only an hour ago, so I don't know how it lured it out.

I'm considering target-feeding the shrimp to keep it from eating my other hermits...

The shrimp is really aggressive toward the fish as well, flaring its arms as they swim by. Doesn't look like cleaning to me.

[melosu58]

Such is the life of a CBS. I`ve heard some horror stories about them. I really dont think feeding them will help much. This is just a way of life for the CBS. You cant change nature or get it to reason like a human.

[Devilishturtles]

Yeah I agree with Mike. They are hit or miss with agression. I had a particularly mean one as well, and while it had acts of agression towards the fish it never bothered them at all. Then one day it just dissapeared.

Anyways, see if your LFS will take it back and get a cleaner shrimp. Very peaceful, and will actually clean!

[tecwzrd]

My CBS only fights with other mobile inverts during feeding time but I haven't seen it go after anything live in the tank so far. IMO a well fed CBS is less likely to exhibit that kind of behavior and giving it a small "peace offering" could not hurt. Mine in particular loves a small 1/4" piece of raw shrimp which I feed weekly.

[produceb]

I caught one in hawaii and the first day I had him in my small holding tank, he ate a very small blenny. I turned on the light to check everyone out and bam right when I was watching he snagged the blenny and had dinner. I was amazed how fast he was with the pincher.

[shannonredburn]

I have one that I bought about a month ago. It hides in a corner all day and only comes out at night. It does it's cleaning, and that is it. It will let anything come up to it. I have it in a 12 gal with a pair of blue green cromis, snails, and hermit crabs. I guess I got lucky!

[kansei]

Mine seems good except it through ( literally ) my lawnmower blenny out of its cave.

[ahochan]

Originally Posted by shannonredburn

I have one that I bought about a month ago. It hides in a corner all day and only comes out at night. It does it's cleaning, and that is it. It will let anything come up to it. I have it in a 12 gal with a pair of blue green cromis, snails, and hermit crabs. I guess I got lucky!

I've had mine for about 3 months now. In the first two months he behaved more or less like you describe. Its only recently that he has started parading around the tank like he owns it. Perhaps you were lucky, perhaps he just needs time to adjust to your tank

[Ziggy953]

What all do you feed the fish in your tank? Do you provide any meaty foods? I have a CBS, the first thing I put in my tank actually (over a year now) and it doesn't come out during the day except at feeding time. At night he goes around the tank and picks up bits of shirmp and food left by the other fish.

[ahochan]

I feed flake/pellet food mostly (Tetra), and I hatch brine shrimp. Perhaps the CBS simply wanted something a bit meatier. Maybe I should put in some raw shrimp for him so he can indulge in some good old fashioned cannibalism

[Ziggy953]

Becareful with that. I feed frozen brine and frozen mysis....my CBS likes that...and will clean up after everyone else is done eating.....

[tecwzrd]

I agree that flake/pellet food isn't going to cut it for the CBS. They are basically scavengers but are strict carnivores that eat meaty type foods so frozen would be best.

Flake also tends to create more po4 problems IME whereas frozen properly thawed and rinsed before adding to the tank does not.

More info can be found in this post on feeding requirements of SW fish.

[ahochan]

Anything wrong with using raw shrimp directly? Do I really need to freeze it first?

[tecwzrd]

Nothing at all, I was referring to frozen for fish feeding because frozen brands like San Fransisco Bay, Ocean Nutrition, ect... come frozen and I like those brands because they have a good balance food and vitamins to give fish a more varied diet.

As mentioned in the link you can make your own mix using fresh seafood (shrimp, clams, oysters, saltwater fish, seaweed, vitamins, ect...) You still need to freeze it though if making your own.

I do feed raw shrimp to my CBS and Sea Star from the grocery store seafood counter but typically I still freeze it unless eating it myself

[jwburleson97]

Just chiming in here...so you feed your critters shrimp from the store? Isn't it funny..we are so conditioned to buy stuff from the petstore for our pets we forget that we can give them what they actually would eat in nature.

[tecwzrd]

Same goes for any pet really but I think it's the conveyance of having food pre-packaged which is why people typically go to the pet store. It's important to deal with quality food stores/products regardless though. Even then you can get into trouble like the recent example with menu foods.

[jwburleson97]

Very true!