Shrimps stealing food from corals. I'm very irritated about this! Please help.

I was able to net and remove two peppermints by luring them out with nori on a food clip after lights out.While the lights are on the fish would keep them in hiding.Place the food clip near the substrate in an area thats big enough to allow you to sneak your net in behind them.When frightened they always dart backwards and up.

 

Wohooo!!! Success!!! I used this trick with some garlic soaked seaweed and it worked like a charm! Thanks a bunch sailorguy!!
I was able to capture 2 of them on the first try, and the 3rd one took a while longer to come out from the rocks, but it was just as easy to catch
Now they live in the sump until further service is required in the DT. I hope they don't learn from this experience and that I can keep getting them in and out of the DT as I please, whenever I need them for aiptasia control.

SushiGirl, I guarantee you, I was whacking them to hurt them for the past 5 days and they do not care about the presence of the baster, pipette or anything. I could see them swinging left to right with a big smirk on their face... just laughing at me.

 

wow, I tried for days and days to catch mine and had to remove most LR to get the last one. Good job;D

 

Thanks!! I really do hope they don't learn the trick... but I'm guessing it won't take long for them to fear the net if I re-introduce them to the DT at any point. They will know.

For now, they live in the sump. It's funny to watch because they don't have a whole lot of places to hide, so they're all there, swinging left to right. Looks like they're dancing

 

I was just thinking about posting something about my cleaner shrimp last night. They steal every bit of food I give my candycane and torch corals. They eat more than my fish do.

 

Yeah, I feel your pain, ManNurseReefer. Even my hermits stick their pincers in my corals mouth lately. I am feeding them every 2 or 3 days some times. I don't want to get them on a schedule feeding in case I leave for a weekend or something... trying to keep it more random, but I may be causing this myself this way. If the others know that food is coming, its just a matter of time until they start conglomerating in that area where the "easy food" is at.

The turkey baster battle continues

 

I used a turkey baster to feed my corals. Before I would do this, I would feed (with the baster) my shrimp. The shrimp would take the food and go hide to eat it. While eating, I could target my corals. This worked for me.

 

I'm interested in the polyp behaviour of the candy cane as well... mine does the exact same thing... extends it's polyps at night...

I notice that a lot more pods come out with the lights off, so maybe it is a response to that and it is feeding on the small pods it catches...

The tentacles on my candy cane's polyps are very clear looking, so maybe candy cane corals don't have the pigment in their tentacles to block intense light...

FWIW, one of the heads on my candy cane has split, so it is growing.

 

You know... it could be that it's feeding of tiny pods. I have actually also seen the big pods steal the food from the candy cane. It only takes a few seconds after I target feed the candy cane and pods start to show up in the area, and swarm all over the candy's head, but I've never seen it catch any of the big guys or small ones for that matter.

I was worrying about this since I had this candy cane for about 5 months, maybe 4 at the least and hasn't split at all. It's that one single head and I haven't even seen it get any bigger since I got it. When I first got it, though, a rock fell on it and crushed his skeleton. I used super glue gel to hold him together around the skeleton, but I didn't use any on the head itself. Maybe this glue is keeping him from splitting. All my other frags are showing good growth. Not mutant growth like reefmonkey's frags, for example, but they've outgrown the plugs they were on and started to shoot tiny branches around. I really hope the candy will catch up and split.

Congrats on the split of yours!!!

- Mag.