Harlequin shrimp aggressiveness?

[bigdeeezy]

Recently purchased a harlequin shrimp to handle an asterina outbreak in my tank and now Im missing 1 cleaner shrimp and 1 coral banded shrimp!

What is odd is that last night I witnessed the harlequin hovered around a snail and basically rolling it into its little hiding space/nook

Has anyone experienced this before? I have seen a lower number of asterinas now in the tank but I still have plenty to keep it satisfied! The harlequin is about 1.75-2"

 

[bigdeeezy]

no one has seen this before?

 

[Ron Reefman]

Give it time, I think the number of reefers who have owned or still own a harlequin shrimp is kind of small. I've been in the hobby for 12 years and I've never had one and I've only known a couple of reefers who have.

Best of luck.

 

[SeaCucumberFan]

Harlequins like to hide in various nooks and corners. What do you mean "the snail's little nook"? It's shell oran actual space in the live rock/substrate

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

Harlequin Shrimp can be very aggressive to their own kind, but are peaceful towards other shrimp species. A cleaner shrimp would bolt out of the way of a slower harlequin shrimp before anything could happen and a coral banded shrimp could definitely hold its own against any other shrimp. Coral banded shrimp would be more capable of harassing a harlequin shrimp rather than the other way around. I keep my pair of harlies with 7 sexy shrimp and they never even look at the sexies. Something else is likely responsible for the deaths of the other shrimp.

 

[bigdeeezy]

Harlequins like to hide in various nooks and corners. What do you mean "the snail's little nook"? It's shell oran actual space in the live rock/substrate

not the snails nook...the harlequin basically rolled the snail into its own nook!

 

[bigdeeezy]

Harlequin Shrimp can be very aggressive to their own kind, but are peaceful towards other shrimp species. A cleaner shrimp would bolt out of the way of a slower harlequin shrimp before anything could happen and a coral banded shrimp could definitely hold its own against any other shrimp. Coral banded shrimp would be more capable of harassing a harlequin shrimp rather than the other way around. I keep my pair of harlies with 7 sexy shrimp and they never even look at the sexies. Something else is likely responsible for the deaths of the other shrimp.

thats the weird thing...ive had harlequins in past setups and neve saw that. Only other living things i have in the tank is a pair of black clowns a yellow tang a sailfin tang and a pair of orbit cardinals with various snails and cleaner shrimps...lets say i also found the remains of the banded shrimp in the harlequins nook as well...

so unheard of!

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

thats the weird thing...ive had harlequins in past setups and neve saw that. Only other living things i have in the tank is a pair of black clowns a yellow tang a sailfin tang and a pair of orbit cardinals with various snails and cleaner shrimps...lets say i also found the remains of the banded shrimp in the harlequins nook as well...

so unheard of!

This isn't that weird. Harlequins are very strong and capable shrimp so if they don't want a snail near them I could see them moving it out of the way. I've seen them moving small rocks around before and considering they can drag whole, large starfish around, it's not surprising that they can move other things. It's also possible a non-biological aspects caused the other shrimp to die. This is one of this instances where there's no reason to automatically suspect that the harlequins killed the others.

I wonder if there was possibly an asterina on the snail and that's why the shrimp was messing with it.

 

[ThRoewer]

I added first a female and a few days later a male Harlequin shrimp. For a day or so they were sitting close to each other, but now I only see one. Is it likely that one killed the other? How difficult is it to pair these guys?

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

I added first a female and a few days later a male Harlequin shrimp. For a day or so they were sitting close to each other, but now I only see one. Is it likely that one killed the other? How difficult is it to pair these guys?

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Easy as long as you were sure they were male and female. Mine will separate from time to time so the other could just be exploring.

 

[ThRoewer]

One (female) had markings on the swimmerets, while the other ones (male) were plain white.
Whenever I look, l only find one.
One may have killed the other or one carelessly ventured to close to the giganteas in this tank.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[Calappidae]

Yea harleys are pretty harmless, The only thing to worry about with them is starfish you want to keep and speculation with urchins but I've never had an issue with urchins and harlies.

One (female) had markings on the swimmerets, while the other ones (male) were plain white.
Whenever I look, l only find one.
One may have killed the other or one carelessly ventured to close to the giganteas in this tank.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

They usually pair instantly but will pick on each other for a bit. When I paired my hawaiian (male) with a regular harle (female) the female often pinched the male whenever he bumped her on the same star, now they kinda just relaxed and stick together peacefully even breeding. I guess its just a dominance thing like clownfish.

The disappearence could just be bad luck (or something else in the tank) while they're physically strong like above mentioned, they're still somewhat fragile when it comes to water quality, or big fish.

 

[ThRoewer]

Well, I have two hungry giganteas in that tank...
They most certainly ate one of my gobies who was careless enough to set up its home right below the carpets.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk