Cleaner Shrimp And Sps

[techen]

Is this a good mix, When I was target feeding one of my SPS my shrimp ran all over it and tried to remove the food from it. After that it threw up its guts and got really annoyed, I doubt thats healthy. I take it cleaners arent SPS safe?

 

[Donya]

It's not just cleaners that do this. It's quite common to have to feed shrimp and any other fast-moving Crustaceans first and/or separately when feeding corals. Even hermits and emerald crabs can be a pain about it sometimes, although the results are often a bit more brutal then compared to what shrimp do. Shrimp can still kill corals though with too much picking. How prone the Crustaceans are to trying to steal food from corals and how determine they are abut it depends a lot on what their diet and feeding schedule is, although sometimes they will just get into the habit of coming over to stomp all over things wherever feeding is happening. If a good feeding schedule doesn't kick the behavior, you just have to offer them some of whatever you're adding and shoo them away. If there's food sitting by the coral, they will generally go for that and ignore the coral itself. For example, I have a few very well-fed CBS that will still be a pain and go try to steal food when I'm feeding corals in their tanks; I always have to give them some of whatever I'm feeding at the time to make them go back under their ledges.

 

[ech0o]

yea just try to stuff him with food first, usually does the trick

 

[betta fish]

I've also seen people use pop bottles cut in half popped over the coral to feed it, but it is probably easier to feed the shrimp first, mine liked the mini tetra wafers and would grab them and retreat as it took a while to eat it and then I could feed the coral in peace, shrimp are surprisingly fast eaters!