cleaner shrimp

[pounder]

My cleaner shrimp (lysmata amboinensis) keeps dancing on top of my bubble tip anemone. Is this the shrimp's feeding behavior? The bubble tip immediately retracts. Will the anemone get used to this invasion? I guess there is not much I can do short of removing the offender.

 

[Reefguide]

My cleaner in order to reach foods when I'm feeding will get all over everything from my cup coral, finger leather, xenias, ect... pisses everything off.... like to sleep on the cup too.... As far as anemone I have no clue...

 

[Anonymous]

It's probably not doing your anemone any favors and could possibly harrass it to the point it stresses and dies. Is it reaching in to get food out of the anemone? If so you can try feeding the shrimp a piece of whatever first and then the anemone or depending on the placement of the anemone place a basket like the ones strawberries come in over the anemone until it's done eating.

HTH

 

[reefland]

Keep the shrimps well fed and feed them first.

 

[EmilyB]

If your anemone is bothered by a shrimp, I'd look first to what is wrong with it.

 

[reefland]

Does your anemone still feel sticky to the touch? My anemone would eat a shrimp easily. (I feed it shrimp).

 

[Mike02]

i just now read on one web page that said these kind of shrimp could potentially eat anemones. i have a peppermint shrimp that ate one of my FL ricordia polyps but otherwise hasnt bothered anything. it used to crawl over all the corals and stuff on occasion (looking for food), but it stopped doing that. it pretty much avoids all the corals now. i feed it by hand, in the same corner of the tank. i think that helped keep it from running around looking for food. after the lights go off though, its all over the tank, however, by then the corals are all retracted anyway.