Banded Coral Shrimp. Friend or Foe?

[Travisxrs05]

Well i have some bad news. For some reason my so-called peaceful Banded shrimp has become a super aggressive shrimp. I came home from my classes today and found one of my spotted cardinal fish (pajama cardinal) dead with its head almost removed in the shrimps cave. The part that makes it worse was that it was my female out of my mated pair of cardinals. My girlfriend was also upset by this that she removed the shrimp and we returned it. I do have a smaller tank but had rock work that everyone had room in it. The shrimp was very territorial and it was strange to me because i have never heard or saw such an action. My tank is a 29 gallon with 35+ pounds of live rock. Did anyone else have their shrimps become aggressive and kill fish? The shrimp was only a little bigger than an inch and was just feed that night.

 

[reefnetworth]

Coral Banded shrimp are off limits to reef tanks. FOE...

IME, the fish may have been not as healthy as you thought. CBS, are opportunistic, if they can kill it and eat it, they will.
from fish to corals, they dont care...

 

[reefnetworth]

ive seen them over 4" in length, and im not sure if thats full grown, but i do know their manurism!!!

 

[jwre]

I have had two pairs of coral banded shrimp for over 4 years now and I have never seen them attack fish.
I have seen them eat montipora eating nudibranches and small worms but never fish.
My guess is that the fish died from something else and the shrimp was only cleaning up the mess.

 

[Travisxrs05]

Thanks for your replies but i know the fish was fine because i saw it just 2 hours before. The shrimp was always aggressive and i always saw him lunge at the fish but i do know it was him because the fish always ate the most food swam the strongest through the power head flow. The shrimp didnt even eat it it was just about decapitated. the cut was pretty close to the same size as his claws. Also with the size of them, in disney world in epcot they have the finding nemo ride. After the ride they have a whole bunch of tanks and creature tanks set up. They actually have an anemone tank full of aspitia (sp) but they had many Banded Shrimp and easily bigger that 4 inches. i do have pics but theres nothing to compare them to.

 

[Aurora D.]

Personally, I think coral banded shrimps are beautiful, and if you accomodate to them you can have a peaceful habitat. Usually when they do kill fish it's a slow fish, like a cardinalfish. Sorry for your loss, but I don't think people should condem coral banded shrimps fully. Just my .02 cents.

 

[jwre]

They are not only beautiful they are very useful in getting rid of all types of small worms and other pests. They are very good scavengers.

Is it not possible that you have a mantis or big crab in your tank ?
The fact that you did not see the actual kill just makes me wonder.

 

[harleychic]

I had a relatively small coral banded shrimp that went after everything in my well fed 55 gal. If you do a search you will find that others have had similar problems.

 

[Travisxrs05]

Yea i am sure. The biggest crab i got in my tank is a scarlet which is only 1/4 of an inch or smaller. I do have to say that i do find it to be the fish investigating because he hardly leaves his cave, and when he does its only at night or feeding time. I did give the shrimp back because his aggression to all of the tank mates. I do wish i could have kept him, he was one of the first things i added to my tank. I actually had him when he didnt have the stripes on his arms. Maybe i can try another one, but an unfortunate loss on my part.

 

[Fitchguy]

Mine ate everything! It ate a Sunburst Anthias, a Cleaner shrimp, a bluespot jawfish, multiple green chromis, and hunted my clowns every single night! Not joking I would sit there and watch him after the lights went out to wear the clowns slept at night and as the clowns would drift from the flow he would run at them and try and pinch them to death. I tried to kill him once and only ripped off one of his claws, which later grew back after about two weeks and he was back at it. Finally a BBQ Pitch Fork got him and all the fish were happy.