RFA and shrimp

FourPawz · Jul 21, 2022

My peppermint shrimp is annoying the hell out of one of my RFAs to the point where he is just closed up and laying on the sand some days. I realize critters will steal the food from them on occasion but this is happening no where near feeding time. I chase him away with my baster any time I see this but it must be happening an awful lot more than I am seeing. Will this eventually kill my RFA? It never gets to open up much anymore. Can anything be done? Should I just get that flame hawkfish that I have been holding off on? lol As you can see it is upside down and barely attached.

ReefLife_Guy · Jul 21, 2022

They will annoy it until it dies. My cleaner shrimp did this to my large bubble tip to the point of death. You can try blasting the peppermint with a turkey baster like I did, it worked for a while and my cleaner shrimp would stay away for a couple of days and then I would have to start at it again. I tried to net him but could not get him out of my tank and I just couldn't keep up with blasting him and gave up. He never really messed with my smaller nems.

I just purchased another larger size BTA and also got an anemone crab, the cleaner shrimp immediately went for the larger nem and darted back across the tank when he saw the anemone crab. Not sure if anemone crabs will hang out on RFAs but its worth the try I guess. Otherwise you will have to try and train the shrimp to stay away by blasting it with water every time you see it annoying the nem or get rid of the shrimp. Or put the shrimp in your sump if you have one, every time it does this as sort of a timeout and see if that works.

ReefLife_Guy · Jul 21, 2022

You may actually end up with a hawkfish that doesn't eat your shrimp but it would at least be enough to keep the shrimp in hiding. That would be a win win.

FourPawz · Jul 21, 2022

Thanks for the reply. I think I am going to try to catch the little ******* tonight and put him in the sump for a while at least. He is getting on my nerves lol.

52728299 · Jul 27, 2022

FourPawz said:
Thanks for the reply. I think I am going to try to catch the little ******* tonight and put him in the sump for a while at least. He is getting on my nerves lol.

How is that working out? I have an annoying shrimp too