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Harlequin Shrimp with Pistol & others??
- Thread starter 9supratt4
- Start date
They all go after different food sources so you should be ok. The only one I would be worried about is the pistol, they don't have that big claw for nothing. I kept halequins and cleaners together with no problem. I got rid of the harlequins because I wanted a reef tank and their food is not reef safe. If you tiger pistol is not bothering your other shrimp, you really should have no problem.
So you are saying a reef tank is bad to house these in then?? I have a ton of Astrina stars in my tank they could eat....then I can throw it a Chocolate Chip Star one a month or so....I've seen pictures and talked to people who say as soon as it gets to the CC Star the Star is done for and never moves.
9supratt4 said:
This is very true, ours barely hit the bottom of the tank and they were all over it. It also depends on the size of the starfish vs the size of the shrimp. Once ours molted several times they were pretty big and were able to control the CC star pretty quickly. They also loved sand sifting stars but that will become some expensive food as they are generally twice the price of CC stars. The other option I have heard of but never tried is to cut the legs off the stars and throw them in. The problem is every now and again the CC stars can get away and it was just not worth it to me to run that risk. The only stars they will eat it stars with "suction cups" on their feet. They will leave brittle stars alone. The other thing is harlequins are supposed to start off at the tips of the legs and work their way down keeping the star alive the whole time. Sometimes mine skipped that memo and just ate the middle of the star killing it early leaving the body to decompose. This resulted in the need to check if the star is alive to make sure they did not kill it.
I loved those shrimp and they were one of my first WANT purchases for my tank when I got started. After a while I gave them away as they were just too much of a hassle. They are also not hermaphoditic as the cleaner and blood shrimp are so you have to get a male/female pair or they will fight. Unfortunately I don't think they are that easy to sex. Ours tolerated each other but when one got bigger it kind of dominated the other and kept him away from the starfish once is was flipped.
Another quick note (Starting to ramble here) you can keep a whole bunch of CC stars in your sump, throw one in let them take off an arm and then toss it back in the sump and keep rotating. They will regenerate the arms and you have a constant supply of food without buying new ones.
Still to this day they are my favorite looking shrimp and I loved watching them, but after 6 months or so I wanted to move onto something else. I wish you the best of luck with them, and please don't take this as a discouraging post, I just want to pass on my experience with them (just to clarify I gave one away after the other was eaten during a molt by a nasty hermit that was mislabeled when we bought it (mexican red tip nasty little bugger)).
Wow...great response mnat!! Thanks!!
You are correct....I was at Absolutely fish on Sunday and they were feeding pieces of the arms. And having it live in my sump and being able to continually use it for food is a really good idea too.
My gf doesn't want me to geth them because she thinks it's cruel LOL.
You are correct....I was at Absolutely fish on Sunday and they were feeding pieces of the arms. And having it live in my sump and being able to continually use it for food is a really good idea too.
My gf doesn't want me to geth them because she thinks it's cruel LOL.