Flame Hawk ate the eyes off my cleaner shrimp

[Lee_Bay]

Any body else have this type of behavior from a Flame Hawk? He was vicious. Even after the shrimp was laying on the sand almost lifeless, he was still picking at it making sure it was gonna die.

 

[rayjay]

Never had one myself, but several hobbyists around here lost their shrimp to flame hawks, but a couple others have them with shrimp and haven't had a problem. Might be a personality thing, but I won't try it myself other than a fish only.

 

[JENnKerry]

They will eat any ornamental shrimp. Lesson learned.

 

[jgoodrich71]

I'm surprised he only ate the eyes.

 

[Lee_Bay]

True, lesson learned. I just read in DRS. Foster and Smith, "Will prey on small shrimp"

I saw them fighting and stopped him when i saw the eyes were gone and got the shrimp out, still too late though. He would have ate the whole thing if i hadn't.

Will he be that agressive toward other fish, or just shrimp. I don't want to lose anything else or buy anything to watch it die.

 

[crzy4reefs]

he will be fine with fish it's the shrimps and crabs you have to worry about, hawkfish are known to eat shrimps and crabs

 

[szwab]

crustaceans are their natural diet. they are not mild mannered at times and can be territorial you may have problems if you add smaller fish than the hawk.

 

[JENnKerry]

There are cases where the hawk knocked small snails off the glass and ate them. They are a cool fish if you can get past all that. You will also be surprised at how wide these guys can actually open their mouths.

 

[stevebydac]

I used to have a flame that was annoying like that. Then he accidentally collided with my golden stripe grouper's mouth. :worried2:

 

[ri]

I would suggest doing your homework before you buy -

ri

 

[Gobie]

They eat invertebrates in the wild and small fish.