Fish Werx
Active Member
Has anyone ever had experience with skunk cleaner shrimp killing a perfectly healthy sea hare?
I got a sea hare last evening from a buddies system that had tons of algae. The sea hare was in his system for over a month, eating and growing. Cleaned him out actually, so I can safely say it was a healthy specimen. Our parameters are very similar, almost exactly the same actually. Salinity and temps are exact.
Well, just a few minutes after acclimation it was happily munching on algae, cruising around the tank. I watched it for a few minutes as my wrasse and tang checked it out. But they didnt mess with it at all. Eventually they went back to their regular routine.
20 minutes later the sea hare was still munching ans cruising. Well, I noticed the cleaner shrimp had now taken interest in the new guy. They were pacing around right behind it. Following it. Sometimes they would crawl up on it, but that is pretty normal for them, so I figured whatever.
Then, all of a sudden I notice 2 of the 3 shrimp on top of the hare while he is still cruising actively eating, except now they are digging around inside of the hares "breathing holes" kind of tearing at it.
I took my net and scared them away a couple times to the other side of the tank. This went on for a couple hours. The sea hare didn't seem overly concerned, as it was still eating and moving around. So I went to bed not thinking too much of it. Until I got up thins morning!
I noticed all of the cleaner shrimp congregated around a "rock" on the sand..... Well, it wasn't a rock! They were eating the sea hare! They had torn away the entire back side of it and exposed the hard inner shell part of it! Needless to say, the sea hare was dead.
Now that I thought about it, my last sea hare that was doing just fine for weeks in my system a few months ago mysteriously died overnight and I could see the shell exposed....
I looked back in my records and it was within a couple days of introducing the same group of cleaner shrimp!!!!
Am I crazy? Or are these things known to attack and kill cucumbers?
I got a sea hare last evening from a buddies system that had tons of algae. The sea hare was in his system for over a month, eating and growing. Cleaned him out actually, so I can safely say it was a healthy specimen. Our parameters are very similar, almost exactly the same actually. Salinity and temps are exact.
Well, just a few minutes after acclimation it was happily munching on algae, cruising around the tank. I watched it for a few minutes as my wrasse and tang checked it out. But they didnt mess with it at all. Eventually they went back to their regular routine.
20 minutes later the sea hare was still munching ans cruising. Well, I noticed the cleaner shrimp had now taken interest in the new guy. They were pacing around right behind it. Following it. Sometimes they would crawl up on it, but that is pretty normal for them, so I figured whatever.
Then, all of a sudden I notice 2 of the 3 shrimp on top of the hare while he is still cruising actively eating, except now they are digging around inside of the hares "breathing holes" kind of tearing at it.
I took my net and scared them away a couple times to the other side of the tank. This went on for a couple hours. The sea hare didn't seem overly concerned, as it was still eating and moving around. So I went to bed not thinking too much of it. Until I got up thins morning!
I noticed all of the cleaner shrimp congregated around a "rock" on the sand..... Well, it wasn't a rock! They were eating the sea hare! They had torn away the entire back side of it and exposed the hard inner shell part of it! Needless to say, the sea hare was dead.
Now that I thought about it, my last sea hare that was doing just fine for weeks in my system a few months ago mysteriously died overnight and I could see the shell exposed....
I looked back in my records and it was within a couple days of introducing the same group of cleaner shrimp!!!!
Am I crazy? Or are these things known to attack and kill cucumbers?
