Do commensal shrimp/crabs help with anemone acclimation?

[fermentedhiker]

I ask because in researching various anemone species the site selling them will of often(if it's a natural clownfish host) state that having clownfish(they don't specific having the correct clownfish species which they should but whatever) with the anemone can greatly increase it chances of adjusting/thriving in it's new home.

Obviously there are some caveats about this. A large 4" Maroon with a 1"BTA is probably not a great situation whereas a 1"maroon with a 4" BTA could be great. Also mixing clownfish and anemones not normally associated with one another could make the idea pointless as the clowns may ignore it anyways.

So my question is surrounding commensal shrimp/crabs which are much less picky about the anemone species they associate with. Which makes them potentially useful for anemones not associated with any clownfish in the wild. Would the presence of these commensal inverts be of benefit to the nem? Or is the relationship completely different. Meaning that while they benefit from the protection of the anemone, the benefit to the anemone is much less profound?

I'm just thinking out loud really. It just seems like a 10$ sexy shrimp is a worthwhile investment if it improves the chances of the survival of a anemone that you just spent 50-100+$ on.

Any thoughts or experiences?

thanks
Adam

 

[dc]

I don't know the answers to this, but I never see my shrimp, but I love my crabs. Not sure how they can help acclimate an anemone tho. Those sharp claws dug in looks painful.

 

[Ron Popeil]

i would wager that the anemone shrimp goes completely unnoticed by the anemone and do not have any effect on acclimation. i

i have really only seen sexy shrimp on large mushrooms or helianthus carpets. i prefer Periclimenes brevicarpalis shrimps with the larger clownfish anemones.

 

[fermentedhiker]

Yeah I only mentioned sexy shrimp because they are relatively cheap. The white spot you referred to cost as much as normal occe's or percs.

I'm curious as to why anemones would adjust better with the presence of a clown. Is it because the clown feeds it? Or that the clown keeps the area clean/defended? Or something more like less stress when it's it's in contact with a clown?

The shrimp or crab don't feed anemones as far as I'm aware(let me know if I'm wrong), but I suspect they do some custodial activity which might help the nem. Not sure though.

 

[Ron Popeil]

do anemones adjust better with a clown?

more often than not, particularly with larger clowns, they can be detrimental to an anemones adjustment. in my experience. i prefer to let the anemone acclimate, attach and adjust on its own before introducing a pair of well intentioned clowns.

for me, i would say than anemones help newly introduced clowns adjust better than the other way around.

 

[garygb]

Not sure why it is thought that clowns help acclimation, in fact some say don't add clowns until the anemone is acclimated. I personally think as long as the clowns are small, they might be helpful. A while ago I read that anemones were found to grow more quickly with the presence of a clown. I can't recall where I read this article or the conclusions drawn as to why they anemones grow faster, but I believe they speculate that the anemone's zooxanthellae are able to convert the clown fish ammonia that are in higher concentrations as compared to no clown fish presence.

 

[D-Nak]

Regarding clownfish and anemone symbiosis, I don't believe it's a true symbiotic relationship. Anemones are seen in nature without clowns, however clowns are always associated with anemones. While some believe that clowns protect their anemone host, it could be a result of protecting a territory that the anemone happens to be in. Furthermore, some believe that clowns feed their anemone host. However, this observation is not seen in nature. It could be that a clown is trying to bring food back to its territory, and within that territory is an organism that happens to eat the food. In short, I do not think that clownfish increase the chances of an anemone adjusting/thriving in its new home. In some cases, I've witnessed a clownfish "bullying" its anemone, which I refer to as "loving it to death."

The same goes with shrimp and crabs. They seem to use the anemone as a home but don't provide much benefit to the anemone. As Ron mentioned, I agree that shrimp and crabs probably go unnoticed.

 

[fermentedhiker]

Well I mentioned the problem with larger clowns previously so that's not what I'm talking about.

Several sites(liveaquaria included which everyone seems to feel is quite accurate with their recommendations) specifically state usually with regard to a harder to acclimate nem like a Malu that your chances are better if you have a clown with it. Obviously this would depend on having the correct clown and it's not being too large for the nem in question.

 

[OrionN]

Malu is not a hard anemone to keep. Magnifica and Gigantea are most difficult. Often clowns will just swim into a weaken anemone that cannot close his mouth. The clowns proceed to rip out and eat the inner of the anemone. This cannot be good for the anemone.
This behavior is very common. I am sure most if not all of reefers who had sick anemones experienced this.

 

[M Woodhill]

Malu is not a hard anemone to keep. Magnifica and Gigantea are most difficult. Often clowns will just swim into a weaken anemone that cannot close his mouth. The clowns proceed to rip out and eat the inner of the anemone. This cannot be good for the anemone.
This behavior is very common. I am sure most if not all of reefers who had sick anemones experienced this.

It can be seen in the nature that clownfish mouth wash their host anemone. I guess it's possible that clownfish help acclimate an anemone

 

[fermentedhiker]

Malu is not a hard anemone to keep. Magnifica and Gigantea are most difficult. Often clowns will just swim into a weaken anemone that cannot close his mouth. The clowns proceed to rip out and eat the inner of the anemone. This cannot be good for the anemone.
This behavior is very common. I am sure most if not all of reefers who had sick anemones experienced this.

Well Malu are usually listed as a hardy nem ONCE ACCLIMATED but hard to get acclimated. and Magnifica and Sebae have exactly the same recommendation on liveaquaria as Malu in terms of potentially benefiting from a clown. While BTA's, LTAs, Haddons, and gigantea don't have the suggestion that a clown would help in the description.

Just inconsistency on their part(liveaquaria) or an actual difference in the anemone's?

 

[D-Nak]

It can be seen in the nature that clownfish mouth wash their host anemone. I guess it's possible that clownfish help acclimate an anemone

Unfortunately, what we see happen in nature may not occur in our tanks, and vice versa. In this case, I've personally experienced a pair of clowns ramming themselves into a gigantea's mouth. I've had three giganteas, and they've only done this to one that was sick. Needless to say, they didn't help the situation. I've heard similar stories from other nem owners.

I typically recommend that people purchase an anemone first. This is assuming the tank is established and parameters are suitable for an anemone. Once the anemone is acclimated and proven to be healthy, then the clowns can be added. If there are already clowns in the tank, then I recommend QTing the anemone for observation. If all seems on the up and up, then it can be added to the DT.

 

[D-Nak]

Well Malu are usually listed as a hardy nem ONCE ACCLIMATED but hard to get acclimated. and Magnifica and Sebae have exactly the same recommendation on liveaquaria as Malu in terms of potentially benefiting from a clown. While BTA's, LTAs, Haddons, and gigantea don't have the suggestion that a clown would help in the description.

Just inconsistency on their part(liveaquaria) or an actual difference in the anemone's?

While I like LA and have ordered from them, I still treat them as a company who markets their products, anemones and clownfish being no different. While it could be true that clowns help an anemone acclimate, I wouldn't say that it's the recommended course of action, and would venture to say that there's a 50/50 chance that a clown can do just as much harm as it can to help.

For example, Live Aquaria mentions that dragonface pipefish are known to eat red bugs. While this may be anecdotally true, the pipefish I purchased from them never even looked at the red bugs in my tank. I'll admit that the note on LA did sway my decision to purchase the pipefish, which did extremely well for months, until I decided to treat my tank with Interceptor to eradicate the red bugs, after which the pipefish disappeared.

 

[M Woodhill]

I'll admit that the note on LA did sway my decision to purchase the pipefish, which did extremely well for months, until I decided to treat my tank with Interceptor to eradicate the red bugs, after which the pipefish disappeared.

They eat pods. But the key is they will eat. I had three, one finally started to eat. I never had a red bug problem

They only eat pods. When I treated my tank with fauna's dino medicine that swept out all my pod population, the only one perished very shortly afterwards

Presumably they will eat red bugs based on the fact they eat pods. But not recommended at all. They r so finicky as basically won't eat at all

Actually when it's starving to death, it's color and patterns ironically got darker and more apparent. When that happens, u know u r soon to say byebye

 

[fermentedhiker]

Well I'm not trying to treat LA's info as gospel for sure. Just that they are usually more reliable than other online sellers in terms of minimum tank sizes etc.... I wouldn't completely agree that they treat Clowns and nems as the same. All the clowns they have available are listed as easy-moderate care level, while the nems range from easy(maxi minis) to expert only(gigantea). I do think they tend to use the "reef safe with caution" a description perhaps a little too liberally but like you said they are in the business of selling.

But we are kind of sliding off track. If there is some merit to what's listed in LA for Malu, Sebae, and magnifica, I think we're safe in assuming it that it would only apply to healthy anemone specimens matched with an appropriately sized clown of the correct species. I'm not sure how you would go about testing such a theory though.

I may try an experiment with it. I'm a ways off from doing my build so plans could of course change. I'm remodeling my kitchen and plan on building a system into the island that divides the cooking/prep area from the dining area. I'm limited to 36" tanks(small house with smaller rooms) so I'm going to stack three 40B tanks in a column and plumb them to a common sump in the basement below. The top tank will be a "display fuge" with a spartan live rock arrangement and lots of different macros. I want to play around with the visuals of the different colors and textures of the macros that are available. Just for a bit of interest I wanted to include a couple maxi mini's in that tank as well. So maybe I'll include some sexy shrimp(which are known to associate with maxi mini's in the wild) and see if the nem that they shrimp associates with does better.

The results will still be anecdotal to nearly the point of uselessness as it's possible that a shrimp would be drawn to a healthier nem and so you would always find the shrimp drawn to the one that does better if they have a choice, but it'll be interesting to watch anyways.

 

[OrionN]

My experience with this issue is that Sexy shrimps affinity to Maxi-mini are very loose.
I got 3 Maxi-mini and 4 Sexy shrimp. Only sometime I see the Maxi-Mini in the anemone, the rest of the time they wander all over the tank. I did not have any shrimp predators in the tank. This may account for the looseness of the Sexy Shrimp. Looking into that thank 90% of the time the shrimp are not together with the Maxi-mini

 

[fermentedhiker]

My experience with this issue is that Sexy shrimps affinity to Maxi-mini are very loose.
I got 3 Maxi-mini and 4 Sexy shrimp. Only sometime I see the Maxi-Mini in the anemone, the rest of the time they wander all over the tank. I did not have any shrimp predators in the tank. This may account for the looseness of the Sexy Shrimp. Looking into that thank 90% of the time the shrimp are not together with the Maxi-mini

That's good to know. I wonder if other shrimp that associate with anemone's have the same indifference when there isn't any threat in the tank? Like Anclyomenes venustus, Periclimenes brevicarpalis etc....