cleaner shrimp

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kpatrick

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Dec 8, 2002
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I purchased 3 cleaner shrimp the other day and last night I noticed my purple tang dragging one of them across the tank in its mouth. the shrimp was dead but now im not sure if the purple tang killed it or if it died of other causes and the tang just saw an easy source of food. any thoughts??
other tank mates include:

flame angel
coral beauty
4 percula clowns
purple tang
Kleins butterfly

snails
scarlet hermits
2 emerald crabs
 
Cleaner shrimp should be kept singly or in mated pairs. It is possible that the other two shrimp ganged up on the dead one. It is also possible that one of your hermits or emerald crabs killed the shrimp. I doubt very much that the purple tang killed the shrimp.
 
I have always been told that you could have several cleaner shrimp and that mated pairs were not needed. The LFS is ordering 3 fire shrimp for me to add to my tank as well and he said they would also be fine with the cleaners and that in my 125 tank I could have well over a dozen of each kind if I wanted. But then again im not an expert or else I wouldnt be out here asking for help! lol
 
Are you sure the shrimp didn't just molt, and that's what the tang was carrying around?

The fire shrimp and cleaner shrimp should get alone fine. I have three fire shrimp and two cleaners and they never even pay attention to each other.
 
nope it didnt molt, i just looked into the tank this morning and now im down to one cleaner left (one more got killed) and no trace of him to be found except for his antenna.
just a little weird but I think I may take the Klein butterly and Purple tang to the LFS and trade them is for some smaller fish just in case they are doing the damage. it seems like everything started happening after I added the Klien Butterfly and my coral beauty that had been in the tank for over a year is dead this morning as well, seems like nighttime in the fish tank is murder time lately!!!!
 
I'm assuming that water parameters are all in good shape, right?

How long did you acclimate the shrimp? Numbers don't matter; they do set up large cleaning stations in the wild and are pretty tolerant of each other. I think the most likely scenario is that the shrimp died due to moving stress or water issues. Given that the CB angel is also dead, I would start doing water tests ASAP.
 
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