Killer Skunk Cleaner Shrimp?

[TAF]

I have a skunk cleaner shrimp... she has cleaned and taken care of fish before, but now that I have converted some mollies to saltwater (hoping they would nibble on my algae in the frag tank), she has gone really violent and is acctually hunting down the mollies and trying to kill them.

Has any one ever had a Skunk Cleaner Shrimp go bad?

I am feeding flakes and started to feed shrimp pellets to try to keep her full of food, which seems to have helped a little, but she still tries to kill them any time they come into view.

 

[aZhu]

seems like your shrimp knows that your mollies are from the fresh water realm. Hunt and destroy anything that's non saltwater.

 

[TAF]

I guess. I slowly converted them to salt for over a week, so I wouldn't have thought they would 'smell' like freshwater or anything.

 

[aZhu]

Guess some fish/shrimp have natural instincts that can detect FEAR from the 'other' world. iono what i'm talking about, lol

 

[cloak]

Maybe it smelled the freshwater ich on them...

 

[TAF]

Not sure what they smell like, but she doesn't want to clean them. She REALLY wants to kill them... the only reason they are not all dead right now is that she doesn't have the kind of claws that are meant to kill.

However, the best lookin molly of the bunch now has shredded side fins and probably won't make it. And several mollies have disapeared alltogether.

I tried catching the shrimp to move her, but she is pretty impossible to catch.

 

[cloak]

I'm not really sure if "killing" a fish is in there nature. I hope not.

GL.

 

[TAF]

I wouldn't have thought so either until I saw it. She doesn't have big claws to get ahold of the fish, but she jumps onto it and tries to stab the heck out of it with every leg and limb and is so violent about it that it is truely frightening to see.

I know it sounds dramatic, but I am not exagerating.

I am worried that if I even do ever catch it that I shouldn't put it in my other tank with the clowns. Would it try to attack them now that it has gone bad?

 

[aZhu]

If you can get a video of it, perhaps we can better understand what you mean by it attacking it. You sure it's not trying to clean them?

 

[TAF]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15341090#post15341090 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by aZhu
You sure it's not trying to clean them?

No, it used to have a tiny tang in the tank and would clean it, so I know what that would look like. This could only be called cleaning if jumping onto the fish and trying to rip it's soul out of the center of its being by spiking every leg through the fish would be called cleaning.

I only have a digi camera for video, so don't think I will be able to get any good vid, but I will try.

The black mollies are all gone now, but I have 3 liberty mollies left. The shrimp doesn't seem to hate them quite as much... maybe they blend into the surroundings better?

 

[Tangalong]

I had a black molly in my tanks and she "shimmied" all the time...maybe that makes her nervous...I didn't like it. I had her in a 20L with a little clown and he was terrified of her...the molly that is. I didn't have her with my shrimp though.

 

[TAF]

Well, today I still have the 3 liberty mollies... I am hoping that the killing spree is over. The shrimp is seeming to ignore them, or they are getting smart enough to avoid her.