CLEANER SHRIMP ARE ABSOLUTELY NOT REEF SAFE

[Blue Topia]

I want to just share my experience. All animals are different, even in the same species you can have totally different behaviors. 

 

I have had 2 cleaner shrimp almost since birth. They were the size of a match stick head. Now they are about 2 inches. I had an Elegance Coral that was the size of a basketball and it kept getting worse every morning when I woke. I started seeing peices of the oral disks missing. Then it developed all the signs of E.C.S. The white spiderweb looking mucus and died. I have no angels or another fish that even think about corals in this tank. 

 

I just received a new elegance coral and I turned the lights on and both cleaner shrimp are on top of it picking away!

 

Is all this my imagination? O...and I just removed an emerald crab that I watched chop up and eat 4 different corals in my tank. 

 

 

[Kayman]

Hmmm that's weird. I know peppermint shrimp will rip up some corals but skunk cleaners usually just steal food from them. Sounds like you have couple or criminals!

[Clown79]

Cleaners are known to pick at corals but not harm them, they usually steal food or clean them.

 

It's pretty normal when a coral is newly added.

[Tired]

They'll tear up and eat a dead coral, just like they will any other dead thing. I sincerely doubt they could have killed that entire coral all at once, anyway. The worst they'll do is steal food. Probably they were just investigating the new coral for potential food, not AS food. 

 

Emeralds are definitely very much hit-or-miss, though.

 

Do you happen to have any pics of when they were super-tiny babies? That sounds absolutely precious.