Can a pep shrimp attack a hammer coral?

[ccorpse27]

My hammer is looking sad right now and the only thing I did differently was add a pep shrimp to take care of some aiptasia. Right now the hammer is generating a lot of slime and has receded. Just last night it was perfect and I've had it about 8 months with no problems. I added the pep shrimp last weekend.

 

[Sk8r]

They can, but the assault will be brief and exploratory, not sustained. I'd look for another cause, just in case. Check your nitrate/ammo---that can creep up on an advanced tank: did on mine.

 

[ccorpse27]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9867652#post9867652 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sk8r
They can, but the assault will be brief and exploratory, not sustained.

Yah i figure the shrimp would be stung and give up. It's sliming pretty bad now, can that harm my two clowns? This is in a 20 gal long tank.

 

[clayspst]

just an fyi the hammer coral will kill your aiptasia if they get close enough

 

[ccorpse27]

Well, I changed a gallon of water, dipped the hammer in lugols and siphoned as much slime off as I could. I'll just wait and see what happens when I wake up. I work nights so that's why i'm going to bed.

 

[Sk8r]

Run carbon. Run a multitude of tests. One of the sneakiest things in this hobby is when you look to an obvious recent change to explain something bad going on, when the real cause is something that's been creeping up on your in water quality or old lights or a spent ro/di cylinder. I'd consider a 20% water change, just in case, and just keep an eye on the shrimp. There is a lookalike for the pep shrimp, a camel shrimp, which is not wellbehaved, so you might google pix of both just to be sure what you've got. The camel has a much more bent back.

Re your question, slime won't hurt your clowns, but it can impact water quality, esp. if you have die-off.

 

[ccorpse27]

Thanks for the advice. I checked the nitrates and they were as low as always. Ammonia is undetectable. I use salifert kits. I changed a gallon and i'll have to go get some cabon, i'm out. The sliming stopped and I hope the pep will behave otherwise he's outta there. I did see him attacking some zoos the other day but it's possible he was digging at some dead polyps or something. Hard to say I guess.

 

[J. Montgomery]

During an aquascaping mishap, I dropped a tonga branch on my frogspawn. One head took most of the blow. It opened back up for about 10 days before it closed up and finally died, turning to jelly.

Has your hammer been bumped lately? How many heads does it have? Are all of them affected?

What about other similar corals, how are they doing?

What type of fish do you have?

 

[ccorpse27]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9867899#post9867899 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by J. Montgomery
During an aquascaping mishap, I dropped a tonga branch on my frogspawn. One head took most of the blow. It opened back up for about 10 days before it closed up and finally died, turning to jelly.

Has your hammer been bumped lately? How many heads does it have? Are all of them affected?

What about other similar corals, how are they doing?

What type of fish do you have?

No it hasn't been bumped or moved. I just got up and it's looking almost back to normal now. One of the smaller heads is still not fully extended but it probably needs a few more days to recover. It has about 7 heads on it.

I have two small false percs, a skunk cleaner and a pep. They're all just fine and I have a purple gorgonian that's fine and a bunch of zoos that are all looking normal.

 

[elegance coral]

Your clowns arn't trying to use your coral as a host are they? This can stress your coral out. Shrimp will go after food if they detect it no matter where it is even inside your lps. I don't trust any crab or shrimp with my lps's.

 

[ccorpse27]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9871066#post9871066 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by elegance coral
Your clowns arn't trying to use your coral as a host are they? This can stress your coral out. Shrimp will go after food if they detect it no matter where it is even inside your lps. I don't trust any crab or shrimp with my lps's.

No they don't host the coral. They don't host anything at the moment. It looks like it's doing better now but i'm still keeping an eye on it. Thanks for the advice everyone.

 

[elegance coral]

Just out of curiosity. Are those wild clowns or CB?

 

[Shade00]

Twice I've lost hammer frags to pep shrimp. To be fair, I believe that what they were doing was attacking a bit of damaged or recessed tissue and they just kept going. However, it has me a bit gunshy to try another hammer despite my excellent results with E. paradivisa.

 

[LockeOak]

My peppermint shrimp doesn't bother my frogspawn other than occasionally trying to steal food from it, sometimes successfully. If there isn't any food around it ignores it.

 

[Illuminati]

I had a friend who had a camel shrimp that ate a hammer coral, might double check the peppermint and make sure it's not a camel shrimp, I guess they can look similar.

 

[acdraindrps]

It might not even be the pep shrimp causing the damage in the first place. Your coral mighht have some kind of disease, or could be suffering from poor water parameters.

If there is any dead tissue on the hammer, the peppermint might be eating what he thinks is food, in this case the dead/dying tissue. I saw a tang and a bunch of wrasses picking a dying hammer to shreds.

I don't like the fact that you changed ONE gallon of water. How big is your system? I have seen very poor success with euphyllia in nano tanks......

 

[NanoKat]

I have a frogspawn that has been thriving in my 20 for about 2 years now. I have seen both my peppermint shrimp and my banded coral shrimp take food out of the tentacles of the frogspawn. But as soon as the "feeding frenzy" is over, they leave it alone and it peps back up on its own after the abuse.