peppermint shrimp or snack????

[deep water]

just bought 2 peppermint shrimp to help clean the tank. i was worried about them getting along with the coral banded shrimp whom is much bigger. i didn't think about the birdnose wrasse who caught them both and ate them whole before the coral banded new they hit the water.
any thoughts on introductions or forget about it with the wrasse in there??????

[deep water]

hello

[dobejazz]

I'd say no shrimp with the wrasse

[rantsandraves]

We put a peppermint into a tank with a 6 line wrasse and it was gone before you could grab the net. Strange, though, our cleaner shrimp has never been touched.

[Hardhead Cat]

In general terms, you cannot mix any wrasses with any types of shrimp or small crabs. We made this mistake too and the wrasses had a very expensive lunch on us! The only wrasses I know that are safe with shrimp are fairy wrasses, and I've heard that some of those even will attack shrimp, but not necessarily eat them.

I'm sorry for your loss!

HHC

[motorslave]

Any of your larger wrasse will eat em. Usually vendors will have two wrasse section, reef safe and agressive. There are actually many of the smaller wrasse that wil be okay. Just research them.

[betamed]

larger wrasses like the bird wrasse will almost always eat shrimps. your cbs might be ok cause they get fairly large and have those pinchers. A lot of the time fish won't eat cleaners bc of their role of cleaning. plus if the shrimp is put in first it might not be seen as a food item. most small wrasses are fine though like the fairy, flasher, lined, leopard, x mas. but there are always exceptions as fish are individuals. I've kept both fairy wrasses and hawk fish with my cleaning without issuses but I did lose a peppermint a year ago though I have no idea what got it so I've not bothered to try again.

[tdwyatt]

The bird wrasses , especialy as they get larger (the green males in particular) will tend to eat just about anything they can swllow or pick up and bash on the rock until it is small enough to eat, If they are not well-fed, this can include snails... ...which they will pick up off the rock or substrate and bash against the rock until the shell breaks or hey can pick the meat out of the shell. In the early 90's I could not understand why I couldn't keep snails nd would only ind pieces of the shells.


I thought that maybe I had a mantis shrimp until I witnessed this behavior one evening with company at the old Welford Seaquarium during a wine tasting. Talk about a change in the evening's atmosphere!