Killer Cleaner Shrimp?

kreblak

kreblak

FDA approval pending
Mar 13, 2003
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I observed something very disconcerting the other day. I witnessed my cleaner shrimp pull an astrea snail off of the glass, wait for him to sink to the substrate, and then proceed to roll him over and begin picking at the snail like it was dinner. This whole process took about an hour. Was the shrimp cleaning the snail, or eating it? The snail is currently upside down on the substrate, but otherwise looks okay. The shrimp has left it alone since yesterday.

What really made me think my shrimp might be evil was that I noticed an abundance of snail shells in the shrimp's little corner of the tank. A few months ago, I lost 4 turbo snails. Their shells are all concentrated around the shrimp's hangout zone. Am I imaging things, or has anyone else seen this?
 
I have never seen or heard of anything like this. My cleaners have cleaned my snails on occasion, but have never attempted to turn them over. Even my peps, which have assaulted other snail species, have left the astreas alone. You sure this is a cleaner?
 
Yep, a candy stripe cleaner. I tried reading about them to see if they had any predatory habits, and found nothing. The snail has since moved from that spot, so perhaps the shrimp was just cleaning him.
 
cleaner shrimp

I watched our cleaner (coral banded) pick up a good size hermit crab and literally dump it out of its shell. I still believe it was the cause of the stress that the royal gramma experienced.
 
How much do you feed your cleaners, guys? Mine get flake in the morning (they dance on the surface to get it) and a variety of frozen foods at night. The dominant one grabs it from my hand, but I usually have to push her out of the way to get some to the younger one. I figure they need the extra food for egg production.

Like most brilliant theories, I'm just clutching at straws. I have had cleaners steal food, but I've never seen them assault anything to eat it.
 
I feed mine flake, and he scavenges algae off the back glass. Sometimes I drop in some frozen food, which the shrimp and the hermits will go bananas over. My trigger used to love the frozen stuff, too. The damsel and dottyback don't really eat it, so I just use the frozen stuff sparingly nowadays.
 
I feed my fish flake in the morning and a variety of frozen food at night. The shrimp eats it all. When he dumped the crab he did not eat it. Just "ran off" with it until he had it dumped out.
 
:D LOL! Maybe they are just bored without any big fish to clean. "Idle Hands..." right?
 
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