Skunk Cleaner Shrimp hurting coral?

[joetekyun]

Do skunk cleaner shrimp eat or hurt coral? I just got one in my nano 6 and I have soft corals.

 

[Luigi]

Never heard of such a thing, except when the coral is already dead (or partially dead)

 

[cplklegg]

Agree with Luigi, they are scavengers I think; unless he/she is stealing all the food from the softies and slowing their growth.

 

[DetectiveTofu]

What makes you think the skunk cleaner is hurting your coral?

 

[joetekyun]

Oh, I just was wondering before I bought it if it would hurt my softies. But it looks like all it does is just walk over them. But I thought I saw it poking at my ricordea late at night.

 

[Luigi]

Sometimes the food that corals catch floating around is atractive to shrimp, so maybe he's just stealing the corals food off his mouth

 

[Reefynewby]

cleaner shrimp often steal food and walk (irritating) oncorals

 

[Pitcom]

The only coral my skunk has ever bothered was an australian cynarina. It kept picking at the dimples on its skin. I would keep swatting him away each time he did it. He seems ot have stopped bothering the coral for now.

 

[PiXieCath]

Humm...that was not impossible... I already saw a skunk cleaner taking a lunch on a xenia colony. Animals who are considered reef safe in the wild can be not in captivity...a lot of fish and invert considered reef safe will prefer to eat corals rather than starved to death. And if they like it, they probably continue to eat it even if they are not part of their regular diet. (they can acquired this bad behavior before you buy it)...

 

[stevensun]

I can't agree with PiXieCath more. When we talk about their diets, it's their diets in general. I had a coral beauty that didn't bother soft corals at all but some of my friends' coral beauty constantly nipped their corals. sometimes cleaner shrimps will reach into the interstice between the rock and coral to search for food. This kind of behavior might knock off some polyps.