did my heliofungia (long tent plate) eat a shrimp?

[patiof]

i have a long tentacle plate coral thats roughly the size of the palm of hand or a bit bigger. its in a 10 gallon tank and doing well for a few months now, but i'm now missing a peppermint shrimp.

to properly set the stage, when i last saw the shrimp a few nights ago, it was trying to wrestle a piece of food away from the plate coral. it was frantically picking at the piece of fish the coral had, and i thought winning the match, but now i'm not so sure. too bad i didn't have the time to watch the drama unfold.

no other signs of the shrimp, like pieces of shell (though i haven't cleaned yet) and the only other culprit would be the single dottyback in there. i just don't think the dottyback could have been the culprit without leaving some evidence behind.

anyone else have experience with this coral taking out something as significant?

 

[AlSimmons]

Sometimes when a shrimp molts they'll disappear for a few days.

 

[patiof]

Sometimes when a shrimp molts they'll disappear for a few days.

yeah i've had them missing for up to maybe a day, but i usually find the shed straight away in those cases.

this was a female with eggs, so i could also see her disappearing for a bit longer than usual without knowing their breeding habits offhand.

at any rate, still missing since sunday night so, i'm about 90% convinced i have a well feed coral right now.

 

[AlSimmons]

Yeah, I'm still having a hard time believing that a Heliofungia could capture and eat a HEALTHY Peppermint shrimp. These things have got some real jets when they want to get away from something. Stranger things have happened though I guess.

 

[patiof]

i'm gonna do a pretty thorough cleaning of the tank this weekend, so any traces left behind should turn up then.

i do think she may have recently molted, as there was a shed in there that morning. i wonder if that my have me her more vulnerable.

i guess i keep coming back to how frantic she seemed, but as far as i can tell it was that she was frantically picking at the piece of fish. again, i i didn't get more than a 10 second glimpse tops. 5 seconds more likely.

 

[patiof]

after a thorough cleaning and finding no trace evidence, i'm about 99% sure it did devour the shrimp. its only a 10 gallon and the only thing capable of disappearing the shrimp in such short order.

 

[ClownNut]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psV9qDSrUMM
unless the shrimp is dead. most likely not your LTP
i will give up this hobby before i would let a dottyback into my display tank.(one and only exception orchid dottyback)

 

[patiof]

i've seen the dottyback harass the shrimp like that in my own tank, but the shrimp is literally half the size of the dottyback, so i can't see how there would have been no evidence whatsoever of that happening.

i will say that i could see the dottyback taking out a freshly molted shrimp, but again, it would have been stuffed to the gills like an anaconda that swallowed a deer.

the ltp on the other hand is both large enough to swallow the shrimp whole and conceal the evidence.

fwiw, i did see the dotty back catch a blue-legged hermit checking out another shell and that didn't end well for the crab. it did leave some evidence behind too.

 

[patiof]

i guess i have come back around and dialed back my initial suspicion that the LTP coral ate the shrimp. i'm back to about 50/50 and not really sure what happened.

i don't recall if i had just cleaned the tank, and if that was the case, i have noticed if i do a large 50% ish water change (been battling some hair algae), my shrimp have sometimes gotten a bit wonky after. like sluggish and seeking shelter around the ltp coral.

i did see the coral expelling a large amount of material following this weeks massive cleaning though. some real dark, long stringy looking stuff and then a shrimp-sized mass of grayish material that looks very similar to wet lint/dust bunnies.

hope that's normal. don't necessarily thing the gray stuff was the shrimp though, as i do feed it a few times a week and that was the first evacuation i've noticed, though there are some other signs around...