Completely Reef Safe Shrimp

[RoyalGrammaPrincessHannah]

I dont know if there is such a thing but I was thinking about the scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp [who i read were reef safe]. I think it will be cute to watch them set up cleaning stations. However I dont know if they are 100% reef safe. I love the coral banded shrimp but I also read that they will sometimes destroy anemones and corals to eat the ingested food inside{how lazy!} But then again, at one fish store in the display tank, they had like 5 in there and still do so they obviously arent causing problems for them, and at the fish store i always go to, thats where they keep these guys, the coral tanks. So im very confused. Anyone have experiences with either of these?

 

[superman]

the skunk cleaner shrimps are the most reef safe. The coral banded shrimps are very opportunistic feeders and will take out small fish if given the chance. Even skunk cleaner shrimp will take out smaller shrimps like sexy shrimp (wiped out my sexy shrimp population) Many of these problems can however be semi avoided if you feed them VERY well, though I was not willing to do so since I wanted to keep my water quality very high, and make sure that they were cleaning the fish for food as well.

 

[RoyalGrammaPrincessHannah]

So its pretty much a risk no matter how you look at it

 

[fish_keeper2]

i would go with the skunk cleaner. i have one and hes really peacefull. the only prob is he keeps walking over my zoo frag . the only other prob i had was with my old one(which died not too long ago) it treid to eat my firefish when i first put him in the tank.......and then it jumps out and dies a month later(the firefish).

 

[RoyalGrammaPrincessHannah]

I got one and he doesnt seem to be harssaing my corals or anything. But the fish are in a QT right now so I still have to see how the shrimp does with them. Thats sad about your firefish

 

[Aquascaper]

IMO the only totally reef-safe shrimp is the cleaner shrimp, all other shrimps eat or do damage to reefs and their inhabitants on some level or another.