skunk cleaner attacking anemone

[Jonathanw1234]

I got an RFA and put it into my tank and my cleaner shrimp just started pestering it and made it close up fully so I put a cup over top of the RFA to protect it but are the cleaners supposed to do that?

 

[Saltyreef]

I got an RFA and put it into my tank and my cleaner shrimp just started pestering it and made it close up fully so I put a cup over top of the RFA to protect it but are the cleaners supposed to do that?

Its foraging for food. Needs to be fed more. Its common for shrimp to pull food from nems before they eat it.

 

[rhdoug]

They also do that to sun corals and other fleshy lps corals. I stopped keeping them many years ago because of that behavior, which is too bad because they have many other good qualities!

 

[fishnchips17]

I got an RFA and put it into my tank and my cleaner shrimp just started pestering it and made it close up fully so I put a cup over top of the RFA to protect it but are the cleaners supposed to do that?

Yeah the shrimp trying to get food from the rfa. They do this to all corals when they realize that coral can take in food. Rfa do better when they are periodically fed, so unfortunately you will have to rehome the shrimp IMHO.

 

[exnisstech]

I won't keep skunk cleaners any longer. I have one left but it only comes out at night. I used to have to place a 2 liter bottle over my lps to feed them. Those theiving cleaner shrimp will dig down inside a fleshy lps to pull food out.

 

[kevgib67]

Ya, I put my first rfa in and my cleaner shrimp went crazy on it. It happened immediately, didn’t seem like a food thing. Eventually the RFA disappeared and a couple days later reappeared and the assault continued. It disappeared again never to be seen again. After a year and a half the shrimp passed. I now have to cleaner shrimp and five RFAs with no problems.

 

[Jonathanw1234]

Thanks for the input!