Are Cleaner shrimps actually reef safe?

[Rohirrimus]

so I’m writing this after another 30 minutes of struggle to feed my corals.
For whatever reason my cleaner shrimp won’t stop trying to steal food from corals mouth.
I’ve tried everything, flooding the tank with food , spot feeding him LPS pallets, trowing pallets next to coral just for him. Nope.
he wants to take food from the coral. I’ll even smack him with pipette trying to defend the Coral and he will just go to other side of tank to steal from a different coral, and if I remove my hand/pipette/net from the aquarium he immediately goes back for scoly.
Even after it closes its mouth he tries to get the food from inside of it.

and even when it isn’t feeding time, from entire tank he decides to stand on top of scoly -.- . the scoly is start to recede from this constant abuse,
Is there any way to get him to stop touching it without turning him into shrimp pasta?
I’m hoping for some suggestions here because I’m really done with this shrimp

 

[BahCorals]

They are reef safe technically, however that's the number 1 reason myself and many other reefers will never ever own one again. Drove me insane so I got a Harlequin tusk to eat them both. Some people who like their shrimps will put a jar/cage over corals to protect them while they digest. IMO not worth the hassel.

 

[jabberwock]

They are reef safe technically, however that's the number 1 reason myself and many other reefers will never ever own one again. Drove me insane so I got a Harlequin tusk to eat them both. Some people who like their shrimps will put a jar/cage over corals to protect them while they digest. IMO not worth the hassel.

Agree, no more cleaner shrimp for me. I cut the top 1/3 of a 2 liter bottle off to make a dome to put over the corals when I fed them. Too much work. Rehome that shrimpy, maybe get some store credit?

 

[merkmerk73]

"Never trust an invert"

 

[JasonVH]

I'm guessing that goes for shrimps in general? The sexy shrimps pester the corals in my setup. Even aside from feeding times, they'll visit the corals and take their sweet time 'picking' at the polyps. They usually don't take long on frags but on colonies, they can spend a hour or so... repeatedly. It's obvious the corals don't enjoy that as they retract. Super annoying.. thinking of getting rid of the shrimps, especially when they visit a colony several times in a day. Not nice to see an entire colony staying retracted for hours in a day.

Spot feeding the sexy shrimp does not alleviate this in the slightest. It's like shrimps are in perpetual eating mode. More hungry vs. less hungry only.

 

[areefer01]

Opportunistic feeders. I've personally had them snipe food from my fleshy / mouth corals like an Elegance.

 

[twentyleagues]

I really enjoyed my cleaner shrimp he'd pick at my hand and groom me. The blood shrimp would too, but he was a little "aggressive" about it. But they would definitely give me issues at feeding time. I put them in my display fuge so I could still interact with them.

 

[Budman93]

Shrimps and crabs imo are less cleanup crew members and more ‘buy it if you want to own one’ type of critters. They can cause trouble.

 

[Stephen8169301]

Feed your cleaner shrimp frozen mysis first then your corals simple distraction

 

[Tired]

Cleaner shrimp don't generally eat corals, but they can harass them badly enough to approach "reef safe with caution".

If he's more trouble than he's worth, trade him in at the LFS.

 

[rich524]

so I’m writing this after another 30 minutes of struggle to feed my corals.
For whatever reason my cleaner shrimp won’t stop trying to steal food from corals mouth.
I’ve tried everything, flooding the tank with food , spot feeding him LPS pallets, trowing pallets next to coral just for him. Nope.
he wants to take food from the coral. I’ll even smack him with pipette trying to defend the Coral and he will just go to other side of tank to steal from a different coral, and if I remove my hand/pipette/net from the aquarium he immediately goes back for scoly.
Even after it closes its mouth he tries to get the food from inside of it.

and even when it isn’t feeding time, from entire tank he decides to stand on top of scoly -.- . the scoly is start to recede from this constant abuse,
Is there any way to get him to stop touching it without turning him into shrimp pasta?
I’m hoping for some suggestions here because I’m really done with this shrimp

I broadcast feed and i have not had any issues so far about a year in my tank now

 

[Baka Mop]

I had a pair of peppermint shrimp that I witnessed making a meal out of my hammers, so my freshwater tank made a meal out of them. A soul for a soul as they say.

Every skunk cleaner and blood shrimp I've had have been model citizens, though. The blood shrimp seems to just lose its mind whenever it's feeding time and runs out from the caves at mach speed. He's still gentle around corals though and I haven't seen him steal food. He usually grabs one or two pieces floating in the water and runs off.

 

[Rohirrimus]

I had a pair of peppermint shrimp that I witnessed making a meal out of my hammers, so my freshwater tank made a meal out of them. A soul for a soul as they say.

Every skunk cleaner and blood shrimp I've had have been model citizens, though. The blood shrimp seems to just lose its mind whenever it's feeding time and runs out from the caves at mach speed. He's still gentle around corals though and I haven't seen him steal food. He usually grabs one or two pieces floating in the water and runs off.

Opposite of my problem then for sure. My peppermint is super calm and always hides, but put aiptaisia and it will be gone overnight . I think he is also calm because he is afraid of pistol shrimp .

but the cleaner is a menace

 

[Rohirrimus]

Feed your cleaner shrimp frozen mysis first then your corals simple distraction

I am , for whatever reason he sees LPS corals like a plate. I’d completely flood the tank with food and leave flow to wave it around, but to no avail

 

[Rohirrimus]

I'm guessing that goes for shrimps in general? The sexy shrimps pester the corals in my setup. Even aside from feeding times, they'll visit the corals and take their sweet time 'picking' at the polyps. They usually don't take long on frags but on colonies, they can spend a hour or so... repeatedly. It's obvious the corals don't enjoy that as they retract. Super annoying.. thinking of getting rid of the shrimps, especially when they visit a colony several times in a day. Not nice to see an entire colony staying retracted for hours in a day.

Spot feeding the sexy shrimp does not alleviate this in the slightest. It's like shrimps are in perpetual eating mode. More hungry vs. less hungry only.

That’s sad to hear, as Inwas actually thinking of sexy shrimp. Do you have any anemones ?

 

[Rohirrimus]

They are reef safe technically, however that's the number 1 reason myself and many other reefers will never ever own one again. Drove me insane so I got a Harlequin tusk to eat them both. Some people who like their shrimps will put a jar/cage over corals to protect them while they digest. IMO not worth the hassel.

Yee I am trying to catch him now, ******* won’t go for the food in the trap but can’t wait for it to be thrown on the coral .

 

[Tired]

Stick a net in the tank, right next to a coral, and put some food in. When he goes in, scoop him out.

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

so I’m writing this after another 30 minutes of struggle to feed my corals.
For whatever reason my cleaner shrimp won’t stop trying to steal food from corals mouth.
I’ve tried everything, flooding the tank with food , spot feeding him LPS pallets, trowing pallets next to coral just for him. Nope.
he wants to take food from the coral. I’ll even smack him with pipette trying to defend the Coral and he will just go to other side of tank to steal from a different coral, and if I remove my hand/pipette/net from the aquarium he immediately goes back for scoly.
Even after it closes its mouth he tries to get the food from inside of it.

and even when it isn’t feeding time, from entire tank he decides to stand on top of scoly -.- . the scoly is start to recede from this constant abuse,
Is there any way to get him to stop touching it without turning him into shrimp pasta?
I’m hoping for some suggestions here because I’m really done with this shrimp

I'm sorry, I know it's really not funny, but I laughed so hard at this because I've literally done the same thing with my old cleaner shrimp, lol. It always tried stealing from my elegance coral, but even MORE annoying - he would grab food from my long tentacle anemone, right out of it's mouth. That nem was huge, the shrimp is lucky HE didn't get eaten.

I guess I just was lucky that once I started giving the shrimp a big chunk of food before spot feeding the corals, he'd chow down on that and mostly leave them alone. That shrimp has long since passed away, but I still have a large fire shrimp. Interesting, the skunk cleaners are SO bold, but the fire shrimp has always been super shy. He never ventures more than a couple inches away from his cave. I actually feed him a big piece of mysis every other day with long tweezers, so I don't scare him - otherwise he won't come out to grab other food. I'm sure I have the most spoiled shrimp ever, lol.

I don't really have an ideas for you with yours, other than possibly setting one of those mushroom cages on top of the scoly when feeding, to keep the shrimp out?

 

[Lavey29]

I've never spot fed corals in my tank with the exception of my sun coral acquired 4 months ago. I broadcast feed the tank twice a day and let the environment feed everyone which includes fish, inverts and corals. None of these get spot fed in the ocean. I have one cleaner shrimp, two fire shrimp, 2 peppermint shrimp, Leica starfish, serpent starfish, 12 fish and assorted snails and crabs. They all catch what they can.

 

[JasonVH]

That’s sad to hear, as Inwas actually thinking of sexy shrimp. Do you have any anemones ?

I've wondered about that as there are no anemones. At the lfs where they came from, they were in a tank with a couple different kinds of anemones. It was obvious they associate with anemones, however the shrimps were also away from them seemingly in about equal amount of time as they were on one. Still, perhaps the corals might get bothered less often with an anemone present. There's no space for an anemone nor a desire to get one so I won't be able to test out that idea. Also there's no mushroom corals, wondering if they might use those as anemone substitutes?

Besides that, sexy shrimps are pretty neat. The lfs warned they would hide all the time(did not comment on bothering corals, ha..)- not my experience with the two. Out in the open majority of the time, only occasionally hiding/resting on the underside of a leather toadstool. Then again there's only the pair of banggais as the fish. The banggais don't show any interest in the shrimps and are pretty calm fish. No idea how they'll be with active fish. Not compatible with wrasses I'd say- back in my early days in the hobby, one of the first inhabitants was a sexy shrimp. The tiny 6 line that came a couple weeks later considered eating it as one of his first duties...