Shrimp Compatibility

[sothoth]

Wanted to solicit others for their experience with mixing different shrimp species. My wife has been trying to populate her 30gal tank with 1-2 peppermint shrimp to help with a glass anemone problem.

It looks like the exisiting cleaner shrimp is killing off the newbie pepper's. I've read that these are supposed to be compatible species, so it's possible they're dropping dead and THEN being eaten, but since she's lost 4 pepper's in the last 6 days that seems unlikely.

Any other observations on this shrimp mix?

I can't help but think of Bubba in Forrest Gump: "Pineapple shrimp, coconut shrimp, boiled shrimp, shrimp coctail... PEPPERMINT shrimp"

 

[Mr Miagi]

What is the existing Shrimp sp? "cleaner shrimp" could be a variety of different Shrimp commonly sold around the world. Are you sure they are dead? How do you know? Is it just the fact you cant find them? They are difficult to see sometimes. Are you finding shells? Sure they arnt just moults?

 

[sothoth]

Are you sure they are dead? How do you know? Is it just the fact you cant find them? They are difficult to see sometimes. Are you finding shells? Sure they arnt just moults?

Sadly, we could tell they were dead because the cleaner shrimp was munching on the dead body of the first shrimp, and the second one was rolling around at the bottom of the tank, lifeless, until the nassarius snail came along and dragged him under the sand so he could snack on him in the privacy of his sand castle below.

Good point about the variety of cleaner shrimp, I'll have to check. I'm not sure I have a book that shows all the types but I'll research that a little and find out.

 

[Mr.September15]

Are you sure they are dead? How do you know? Is it just the fact you cant find them? They are difficult to see sometimes. Are you finding shells? Sure they arnt just moults?

Sadly, we could tell they were dead because the cleaner shrimp was munching on the dead body of the first shrimp, and the second one was rolling around at the bottom of the tank, lifeless, until the nassarius snail came along and dragged him under the sand so he could snack on him in the privacy of his sand castle below.

Good point about the variety of cleaner shrimp, I'll have to check. I'm not sure I have a book that shows all the types but I'll research that a little and find out.

I was wondering if it's normal for Turbo Snails to dig under the sand

 

[Mr Miagi]

It wasnt a Turbo, it was a nassarius snail! How do you acclimatise them?

 

[sothoth]

We acclimatize them slowly. Put the shrimp in a medium sized glass container with the water from the original bag, then drip tank water from tubing until we double the original volume of salt water we started with. Then dump out 1/2 of the new mixed water, and repeat two more times (my math says that after three drips/dumps we should have 1/8 original water and 7/8 new water). Then pour the water and shrimp over a net (discard the water) and put in the tank. Pretty much same as we do for most stuff. We do it over 2+ hours.

Salinity matches pretty close with the fish store.

I also just realized that I never mentioned we can see the cleaner shrimp harass the newcomers and it looks like it pinches/bites them when he first sees them. He's kind of a nasty bugger, and I'm hoping that means we just have an unusual one and they're not all like this. Are there prisons for nasty shrimp??

Anyone else see this kind of unwarranted shrimp attacks? I'm still not able to really identify what sub species of cleaner he is, but he most resembles lysmata grabhami:

http/www.aquanovel.com/images/invertebrados/lysmata.jpg

I hear there are two or more types that look similar to these but admittedly I'm not much of an ornamental crustacean expert, I'm more into corals and fish, so I'm not sure if I need to be more specific.

Thanks!!

 

[Mr.September15]

It wasnt a Turbo, it was a nassarius snail! How do you acclimatise them?

lol that was a question-ish coment thing. 8) I was asking is it normal for turbo snails to dig under the sand? Because mine do

 

[tmreynolds]

We acclimatize them slowly. Put the shrimp in a medium sized glass container with the water from the original bag, then drip tank water from tubing until we double the original volume of salt water we started with. Then dump out 1/2 of the new mixed water, and repeat two more times (my math says that after three drips/dumps we should have 1/8 original water and 7/8 new water). Then pour the water and shrimp over a net (discard the water) and put in the tank. Pretty much same as we do for most stuff. We do it over 2+ hours.

Salinity matches pretty close with the fish store.

I also just realized that I never mentioned we can see the cleaner shrimp harass the newcomers and it looks like it pinches/bites them when he first sees them. He's kind of a nasty bugger, and I'm hoping that means we just have an unusual one and they're not all like this. Are there prisons for nasty shrimp??

Anyone else see this kind of unwarranted shrimp attacks? I'm still not able to really identify what sub species of cleaner he is, but he most resembles lysmata grabhami:

http/www.aquanovel.com/images/invertebrados/lysmata.jpg

I hear there are two or more types that look similar to these but admittedly I'm not much of an ornamental crustacean expert, I'm more into corals and fish, so I'm not sure if I need to be more specific.

Thanks!!

That looks like a skunk cleaner shrimp, hopefully they are compatible as I'm getting 2 skunk cleaners and 2 peppermints?

 

[sothoth]

We moved the cleaner shrimp to a different tank and now the peppermints are doing fine. That cleaner must have been a bad apple.