Introducing Harley-the harlequin shrimp

This is Harley our female Harlequin.

She is a little piggy! The first week we got her we fed her a large chocalate chip star. She devoured that in under 1 week. This is her second star so far.









It is amazing watching these guys eat. You can see how much bigger the star is compared to the shrimp, however he works each leg at a time until the star is completely paralyzed, then flips it over and starts eating. The star is still alive during this process, however he is out of it. The shrimp keeps the star alive during the days they eat it, keeping their meal "fresh"

 

that is crazy- how expensive are the chocolate stars? I really want one, I have lots of small starfish in my tank but don't think this would be enough

 

Thats super cool!!

 

Awesome! He reminds me of my sexy shrimp.

 

I get chocolate stars at a slight discount.........it runs around $10.00. Not a cheap pet to keep (I also have in seperate tank an angler who right now is only eating live) so the fish eat better then we do now!. The little stars will not be able to sustain one for very long. They also do not eat a lot of other types of stars (serpent etc)

They do look just like the sexy shrimp, just much much bigger


I didnt realize this until someone else pointed it out, look at her center of her back, she has a heart on it!

 

I love those shrimp. You should get her a boyfriend. We had a mated pair in our reef and it was awesome watching them work as a team to take down a starfish.

 

she's purdy. awesome photos!

 

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that would be awesome. However the person we bought her from said he had tried to get her a boyfriend, however she is SO big that he couldnt find one her size and she just went after a smaller one he placed

He had her for 3 years and I have not seen any her size. To top it off, she has already molted so she is a growing little girl!

 

Ah well, that's a shame but at the same time, I commend her for being a strong willed single lady who doesn't need or want a man in her life

 

SO TRUE:yelrotflm

It is funny how we got her! Inwall knew I have always wanted one. However we never picked one up. I got to watch them and feed them at the store and was just fascinated with it.

Couple weeks ago this guy was having to take down his tanks due to some personal issues and brought her in to the store. Curt worked out the credit for everything he brought in, and finally the guy after everything was settled, was like "I dont want her to go to somebody that will get bored with her and not feed her properly, Curt can you and Mel take her home" So Curt had a surprise for me after work! It was a deal, only $12.50