Would you boot this guy?

ianryd · Nov 1, 2019

My skunk shrimp is a thief. Every time I feed he's front and center and when he's done eating the food in the water he hops from coral to coral digging food out of their closed mouths. I don't think hes doing damage but he's definitely robbing my corals of food. Should I give him the boot?

Naturalreef · Nov 1, 2019

That’s why I wont keep one in my tank. He use to always steal food from my Scoly’s and irritated my clam.

James M · Nov 1, 2019

They are scavengers, that’s what they do. You can give it a chunk of food while feeding coral to keep it distracted

Dave1993 · Nov 1, 2019

LOL keep him he's funny

ianryd · Nov 1, 2019

Dave1993 said:
LOL keep him he's funny

Honestly he's one of my faves, but hes kind of a *******!

NatD · Nov 1, 2019

I feed mine first, before the corals. He comes right up to the turkey baster and goes to town when I put it in the tank.

Bastray · Nov 1, 2019

Keep him. I agree with the above post, I think it’s pretty funny when my shrimp do this.

ianryd · Nov 3, 2019

Yeah, I'll just try to keep him occupied during feeding time. I think he earned a name-Bandit!

Bob Weigant · Nov 3, 2019

If that was mine I’d give him the boot

flyline · Nov 3, 2019

In the past I’ve given mine a chunk of food before feeding my corals and he would disappear with it then I would feed the corals and he would leave them alone

Waynerock · Nov 3, 2019

ianryd said:
My skunk shrimp is a thief. Every time I feed he's front and center and when he's done eating the food in the water he hops from coral to coral digging food out of their closed mouths. I don't think hes doing damage but he's definitely robbing my corals of food. Should I give him the boot?

I got rid of mine for that very reason. I still have an elusive peppermint that steals food from my scoly so I feed it once a week and put a little cage over it so the shrimp can’t steal food. Total PITA but the peppermint is great at scavenging so what chu gonna do? Plus there is no way to catch him so there’s that too.

anon9896 · Nov 3, 2019

Had the same issue , I did try to feed him something nice and go onto the feeding...
But hours later he was still doing it ... he did damage some corals mouth and keep them from valuable nutriments , hes a goner now

vetteguy53081 · Nov 3, 2019

Id evict him or at least trap/block him until others have eaten.
Mine catches food mid air (water) but does not steal from coral and it is huge (over 3")

Bret Brinkmann · Nov 5, 2019

I put a bunch of earth worms in a tank I had years ago. The fish went crazy over eating them. The shrimp ran up and grabbed the biggest one, several inches long. It took 3 days for the shrimp to finish eating it. At one point it was eating it at one end and pooping it out at the other end.

I recommend giving the shrimp a massive piece of food. If it finishes it and goes back to taking food out of the coral, then give it an even bigger piece next time. Those things are pigs.

ianryd · Nov 5, 2019

Bret Brinkmann said:
I recommend giving the shrimp a massive piece of food. If it finishes it and goes back to taking food out of the coral, then give it an even bigger piece next time. Those things are pigs.

I'll try giving him a chunk of cocktail shrimp next time I feed. See if he's a cannibal lol