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cleaning shrimp?


clowe18

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i was thinking of adding a shrimp to my tank, as a member of my CUC.. I have a 20 gallon long tank 30" L 12" H 12 " W. my current CUC is consister of 8 hermit crabs, 5 turbo snails, and 2 nassarius snails. would adding a cleaning shrimp be over kill? what kind of shrimp should i get? thanks

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thadscottmoore

I have a pair of skunk cleaner shrimp in my 34 gallon. friendly creatures!!!

 

i was thinking of adding a shrimp to my tank, as a member of my CUC.. I have a 20 gallon long tank 30" L 12" H 12 " W. my current CUC is consister of 8 hermit crabs, 5 turbo snails, and 2 nassarius snails. would adding a cleaning shrimp be over kill? what kind of shrimp should i get? thanks
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I had a conversation about this earlier with a buddy of mine. Any leftover food, consider it gone. They will help keeping nitrates down by lowering your chances of overfeeding., Just feed them before any coral.

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i love my skunk, except his fat ass steals all the food from my coral.

 

feed him a lot or in a corner while you feed your corals so he doesn't steal the food from the corals

 

the really do a great job of getting rid of excess food!!

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I meant if you feed your coral, make sure you give him some before you give the coral food. That way it is busy while the coral eats. Otherwise the shrimp will come nab the food from the coral. And there are 3 popular cleaner shrimp (peppermint, skunk, and fire shrimps). I think all are could be decent choices. I like the skunk cleaners but may get a fire shrimp since they stay smaller but the skunks are less timid and will jump on your hand when it's in the tank. I have some deciding to do myself :D

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yah skunk si the way to go, they have so much personality, he was one of my favorites cuz he is such a dick, and tried to clean everyone and no one lets him so he gets pissed and hides in his rock!

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hahaha thats legti i want a shrimp like that.

what do i feed the little guy? can i get a away if fish flakes? or frozen mysis shrimp? ( canabalism) haha

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literally anything, he eats my rods food, he eats my fish pellets, he eats my fish meat flakes, he even eats my fish veggie flakes. He eats my hand whenever im cleaning the tank, he tries to eat plastic bags floating in the tank when im acclimating.

 

Worlds fattest shrimp

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I don't think any cleaner shrimp are necessary as part of a CUC, but they are interesting critters if you can deal with they're annoying habit of stealing food. I keep a Peppermint shrimp because they will also eat aiptasia.

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I don't think any cleaner shrimp are necessary as part of a CUC, but they are interesting critters if you can deal with they're annoying habit of stealing food.

 

lol.. they do steal food, I think mine can eat an entire block of shrimp if i let him!

 

But yea you got to feed these guys first, they don't care who or what it is, they will steal from it an eat it.. mine even picks food off my nems tentacles.. little bastard

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OClownsandNanos

I agree with the others. You really shouldn't consider them so much a part of your CUC as much as 1/2 a fish for bioload purposes and as ornamental critters because you will need to target feed them separately so they will not become nuisances, esp. if you feed corals. IMO you probably have enough scavengers in your tank for leftover fish food. It's just a matter of preference at this point.

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consider a fire shrimp, just as interesting as a skunk but much nicer looking imo

 

because of my shrimp i use a turkey baster to feed my tank so I can make sure my fish and corals actually get some food...otherwise nothing in the tank would ever get to eat...my shrimp will grab up to 10 small food pellets and then go hide while he eats them...

 

theyre pigs but theyre beautiful and fun to watch

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