Question about Bumble Bee Shrimp

[2farNorth]

Hello!
Well I tried to do a search on them, and didn't find any threads on these shrimps on RC, so either the search isn't working, or noones keeps them!!

I seen the Bumble Bee Shrimp (Gnathophyllum americanum) on Liveaquaria and such, and they say that "The Bumble Bee Shrimp will feed upon the tube feet of echinoderms, but do not require them for survival." How true is this?

Reason being is I have a large amount of Asterina Stars, and was looking for something to help with the population of them. But I want to make sure that what ever I get will be able to survive on something else from time to time....

Any thoughts?

 

[LeslieH]

Stars can regrow their tube feet. Gnathophyllum americanum doesn't kill the echinoderms so it's not useful as a control on asterinid stars. Bigger stars will eat the small asterinids but they'll also go after everything else too slow to avoid them - which includes corals.

I don't like to see harlequin shrimp in tanks because they're one of the few predators that eat Crown-of-Thorns starfish. COTs prey on coral and can wipe out entire reefs. The harlequins aren't that common so every shrimp collected for the aquarium trade means one less predator on the COTs. Reefs are having a hard enough time with global warming, pollution, and overfishing - we don't need to take their natural protectors as well.

 

[philter4]

I have a pair of bumble bee shrimp, and they eat frozen shrimp. the ones I have seen in the wild were never with any echinoderm, here is a photo of my most recent pair

I've kept them for more then a year in the past, I've taken down tanks and found them still in there and I've also had a red striped pipe eat one once (that is what happened to the one I had before this pair).

Leslie, I've seen lots of harlequins in the wild and I know they eat COT's but they have a huge preference for linkia type stars (from observations and my own tanks) In fact no matter what star they are on if I give them a linkia they leave it in favor of the linkia. I also think that there are so few in the big picture that they probably don't impact the population very much even if they were removed from an area. As far as aquarium collections go they are a minor part of the take all throughout their range. In fact in HI since it is no longer legal to collect the north west chain there will always be breeders to replace the ones taken from the main islands. Just my own thoughts and observations on collectors.

 

[2farNorth]

Ya, that's actually one of the reasons I was shying away from the Harlequin shrimp, and leaning towards the Bumble Bee.....

So they just eat the legs? That may be enough to ween down the population alittle though....

Philter- How big are those in the photo?

Thats another thing I'm curious about, They would be going in my polyp tank, and the tank also houses a Blue Damsel, and a cleaner shrimp, I just want to make sure they would be big enough to not get eaten by Damsels.....

 

[philter4]

They are tiny, full grown they are only about 3/4 inch, the female in the photo isn't even 1/2 inch, I rarely see them, but at night or when there is food in the tank late in the day, they sometimes come out.

 

[LeslieH]

Philter - fair enough. I admit I tend to be conservative or even pessamistic about long term reef survival.

There's an interesting paper by Peter Gynn on the regulation of COTs by harlequins and bristle worms you might enjoy reading. You can find the abstract & link to the paper at http://www.reefbase.org/resource_center/publication/pub_2716.aspx

Harlequins may be a minor portion of the overall take but if collectors take every one they see in an area that's a major impact on the species. Having a safe population of breeders in the NWHI is great. The question is, can the pelagic juveniles survive long enough to make it down to the main islands provided the major & micro currents carry them that far. I don't know - oceanography is way too much like real science for me! :lol:

 

[philter4]

Thanks for the link, as far as the juv survival to the main chain, I think some would as the distribution of other endemic sp seems to suggest that many are more common in the north such as yellow tangs and masked angels just to name a few, but even if they don't the sp population is still protected- so as much as I would love to collect in the NWHI it is still a good thing.

 

[LeslieH]

In 2006 I was part of a biodiversity survey working at French Frigate Shoals in the NWHI. We had 16 biologists - including some crustacean specialists - collecting and I don't think we got a single harlequin. We were surprised by the absence of a number of species common in the main islands. Like big sabellids - didn't find any.