My peppermint shrimp is getting pretty brave. He comes out for food and I can feed him directly with tongs or a syringe. i was sucking out a little cyano patch tonight and he sort of attacked the syringe. He was swimming upside down at the surface and kept lunging at my hand and the syringe. Quite comical to watch really.

Can peppermint shrimp pinch very hard? I'm not saying he will and at the risk of sounding like a pansy I would rather not have anything attacking my hand while in the tank ....he might think my hand is food

Heh, well they can startle you but not hurt you

Haha.....I sounded like a pansy. I was just curious, as many times as my hands have been cut, gouged, pinched, bruised, shocked, burned, and otherwise brutalized a little pinch shouldn't be bad .

Peppermint shrimp, and all Lysmata for that matter, are cleaners. Their claws are not designed for predation on larger animals, nor for defense. In the way least fag-sounding, they can actually be very effective in removing dead skin from one's nail cuticles.

Other shrimps that have less specialized chelipeds can likewise inflict one hell of a pinch. Examples of these would be coral banded shrimp; watch out around those and do not corner them.

Well, thanks for the info. I would also like to say, for the record, that it fells very strange if you let them stay on your hand. He will actually chase my hand anywhere in the tank.

mmm dead skin... yum yum

Yes, almost as good as fungal growth on dead skin on turtles and groupers!