6-line wrasse vs coral banded shrimp

[jsofield]

I have a 55 galreef tank that I am starting up. Been up for about 3 months. Have a yellow tang 2 clowns algea blenny 2 peppermint shrimp and some corals.(zoos ricordia mushrooms zenias and a growing star pollap.) I have noticed alot of bristleworms and dont know which would be better to get rid of them. I like shrimp and want more but I have heard that the wrasse will eat them. But i have heard the coral banded shrimp will harass my corals and anemeoes.Anyone have any suggestions? Also heard about the arrow crab but dont know much about them.

 

[phoenixfla]

Dont bother trying to get rid of bristle worms (a) you will never get rid of all of them I guarentee and (b) unless they are really large and eating corals, they are beneficial. If anything dies in your tank they will clean it up.
The six line wrass is a nice fish, however.
I dont think the arrow crabs are reef safe.

 

[monalisa]

I don't know about a coral banded harassing your corals and such, but I have heard that they don't generally live peacefully with other shrimp. My cb shrimp does really fine with my corals. I've not heard that they would be potentially not safe in a reef...hmmmm
Oh, and the bristleworms, they're actually very beneficial to your system.
Lisa :happyfish

 

[stanlalee]

if you have peppermint shrimp either may (or may not) harrass the peppermints (and the sixline may harrass both or neither). I would put my money on the sixline over the coral banded. Briste worms may not be harmful but IMO you shouldn't see bristle worms frequently or on a regular basis even at night. there population gets noticeable for a reason and if you are seeing them there's probably a bunch.

 

[hagfish]

Leave the bristleworms, they are excellent cleaners. Every once in a while a bad species shows up, but this is rare. If you aren't losing corals, leave it.
CB shrimp should be the only shrimp in the tank unless it's a rather large tank. IME CB's are reef safe.
Sixline wrasse should leave the shrimp alone. I have a 6 line and a cleaner shrimp and the wrasse never bothers the shrimp. I do recommend the 6 line just because they look great and have a great personality. Mine is always swimming right at the front of the glass almost like it's showing off or something, it's pretty cool.

 

[blitz99]

how about an orchid dottyback? peaceful as can be and will chow on the bristles...

 

[pyro]

I got a peppermint shrimp for free to get rid of a minor aiptasia problem. My CBS caught it and killed it within a couple days =(.
Otherwise, It appears to be perfectly reef safe, even cleaning off the corals carefully at night when they pull in.
My 6-line is a great fish too. Never had a bristleworm problem, dunno if I was lucky or if my CBS/6-line took care of it. I have never seen one in my tank and it has been setup for a good year and a half with 45lbs of LR.
I'd say avoid the CBS and if you want go with the 6-line =), Good Luck!

 

[jsofield]

Thanks for the info. Through more research and these posts I have added a six line wrass. I like it alot. He is constantly on the go through my rocks and looks reaaly cool. The bristle worms I know are benificial but just had too many and didnt want to wait till I lost coral to do something about them. They were at the baseof every one of my coral andthought that was too many. The rock I got was from a storegoing out of business andthey let the tanks getout of control. So I am suffering from my good price. Still have some algea from their tanks but algea blenny andyellow tang are doing a GREAT job. In the process of building a 20 gallon refugium. Cant wait to get it up and running. Hopefully by the weekend. Anyone have any thoughts of keeping my choclate chip starfish(from the 20 gallon tank) in a refugium? Thanksfor the post, lots of good info on here.