Harlequin Shrimp

I saw one of these at my lfs and thought wow! Cool, and its 10 bucks;D! Then he told me they eat only starfish(saw this great common red star). So I bought a cleaner instead, but now I think they are cool... How hard are they to care for, what shoul I feed them, do they cohabitate with other shrimp?

 

I have a skunk cleaner and he just eats whatever I put in, if it is frozen brine or flake food. I also have 2 pepermint and they just ignore eachother, they have never had a problem I've seen.
By the way if you only pd $10 for yours that is a great price, I pd double that.

 

Sorry, I mean the harlequins

 

I don't think they are very hard to care for, however, you will need to feed them starfish, so that can be an expense. It is best to keep them as a mated pair, but I don't think that's necessary. What some people do is buy two starfish, allow the shrimp to eat one arm of the starfish, then switch out the starfish to allow the eaten one to heal, then continue the cycle.

 

I love those shrimps. I had a mated pair, but my "beautiful"(sarcasm) Eng Goby had them for lunch. They are easy to keep, just have a star fish in you tank. I used to buy a star fish once a week for my pair.


luna

 

They are easy to care for and the great thing about them is that they take one arm go eat that and the starfish starts to heal and it does this cycle over and over until the starfish is under the shrimps control it's really interesting

 

Wow...gee, always wanted a star and shrimp but man, tough to keep both...

 

You are very welcome I have been looking into getting one myself

 

i want to get one of these now too. i think they will eat asterina stars so that may be a food source. i know i have enough of those

 

I had a pair and they didn't leave the starfish's side until it was completely consumed.