Taking a poll...Coral Banded Shrimp, A good thing??

mrstwig

mrstwig

Member
I am just wondering what you all think about the CBS as a friendly reef mate? I just bought one and I can't decide if he's messing with my urchin. I just want to hear what people think of them and can you eventually add a cleaner shrimp or fire shrimp?? I also bought a couple of peppermint shrimp at the same time as the CB but they hide all the time in the rocks. :help:
 
mrstwig

mrstwig

Member
The first few days he was in the front of the tank and interesting to simply look at. Very interesting little creature, especially watching him eat. The past three days, he is hanging out in the back off the tank. I don't know, he looks fine but he is a rather large creature and I'm sure intimidating to the other critters in the tank. Go check out my sea urchin question from a few days again to get a better idea of my dilema PFitz. I am hoping for lots of ideas re: if this CBS is a good thing or not.
 
vito525

vito525

Member
My CBS has been a good reef addition, I'm upgrading to a 55 so he'll leave my nemo alone. Molts like crazy at least once a month
 
mrstwig

mrstwig

Member
I just talked to my lfs and I'm going to take back the cbs tomorrow.........I hope they have a cleaner or a fireshrimp to replace him with.
 
monalisa

monalisa

Active Member
I've had a coral banded in my tank since my clean up crew went in in May. I would venture to say that he's been marginally a good tank mate. He molts about every 4-6 weeks, and he seems to get aggressive after each molt, and then he settles down again. I wouldn't put any other kind of shrimp in with a CBS unless you want to treat him to an expensive meal!!

Next time I'll go with peppermints or cleaners or both, but for now Scampi is fine.
Lisa :happyfish
 
lenr87g

lenr87g

New Member
I think Coral Braded Shrimps are to aggressive mine has already got at least one of my fish for shure and another one of my fish is misterously missing. I have so many crabs in my tank if I dont catch when one of my fish die I'll never know what happend b/c my crabs devour them to quickly, and completly. Also if my fish get to close to the coral bradded shrimp he snaps at them and at night my cbs is active but my fish arent and they like to what look likes sleep on the bottom of the tank so I hope my shrimp dosent attack them while there resting.
 
mudplayerx

mudplayerx

Active Member
CBS is a beautiful, agressive shrimp. With that said, I have a large one in my 55 gallon tank with three other shrimp (saron shrimp). I very rarely see the saron shrimp, and neither does the CBS. When he does encounter them, he tries to catch them, but is nowhere near fast enough.
My CBS has never bothered my fish. He does a threatening gesture if the damsel comes too close, but stops short of attacking. He doesn't bother the mandarin at all because he is well aware that it is poisonous.
My guess is that if your CBS kills anything in your tank it can be one or a combination of two reasons.
  • The fish or invert was sick or injured to begin with.
    You are not feeding your CBS enough food and/or frequently enough.
My CBS tries to start a fight when I put my hand into the tank, but he never actually pinches. I think a lot of the agression is show. I love this shrimp and it is my opinion that if you could have multiple shrimp, or just a CBS....I would go with just the CBS.
ps- I don't think your cbs is capable of causing any serious injury to an urchin.
 
monalisa

monalisa

Active Member
Originally Posted by mudplayerx
CBS is a beautiful, agressive shrimp. With that said, I have a large one in my 55 gallon tank with three other shrimp (saron shrimp). I very rarely see the saron shrimp, and neither does the CBS. When he does encounter them, he tries to catch them, but is nowhere near fast enough.
My CBS has never bothered my fish. He does a threatening gesture if the damsel comes too close, but stops short of attacking. He doesn't bother the mandarin at all because he is well aware that it is poisonous.
My guess is that if your CBS kills anything in your tank it can be one or a combination of two reasons.
  • The fish or invert was sick or injured to begin with.
    You are not feeding your CBS enough food and/or frequently enough.
My CBS tries to start a fight when I put my hand into the tank, but he never actually pinches. I think a lot of the agression is show. I love this shrimp and it is my opinion that if you could have multiple shrimp, or just a CBS....I would go with just the CBS.
ps- I don't think your cbs is capable of causing any serious injury to an urchin.

The behavior of my CBS is exactly the same when I put my hand into the tank!! He's also very curious about new additions to the tank, but I've never seen him harm anything. I have, however, seen him give my fish a threatening gesture, but at the moment, they're all too fast for him to catch (and I think the fish make a game of it...let's antagonize the ol' guy :hilarious). I don't think he'd know what to do with them if he did catch them...hmmmm. Like I said, Scampi is here to stay...my son-in-law thinks he's a great addition to the tank, and frankly, so do I.
Lisa :happyfish
 
tyedyed1

tyedyed1

Member
i would get a cleaner shrimp over a cbs. ive had both and the cleaner is more of an asset than the other. the cleaner will eat anything the cb shrimp plus they clean your fish....bonus.
 
1journeyman

1journeyman

Active Member
When in doubt: Form=Function. They've got those claws for a reason. They are beautiful and interesting, but I wouldn't roll the dice and introduce one to my tank.
 
mudplayerx

mudplayerx

Active Member
Originally Posted by Tyedyed1
i would get a cleaner shrimp over a cbs. ive had both and the cleaner is more of an asset than the other. the cleaner will eat anything the cb shrimp plus they clean your fish....bonus.

Funny thing is that CBS's are cleaners in nature.... for some reason they just give up this habit in captivity. Kind of sad actually.
 
ktsdad

ktsdad

Member
When I had my 60 gallon reef going, we had a CBS, Cleaner, and 5 Peppermint shrimp.
Lots of rockwork, so they each had their own corner to hang out in.
Now that we got the 250 running we still have a CBS, Cleaner and 5 Peppermint shrimp.

We only occasionally see any of them, mostly when I pour in dinner for the fishes.
I have never had a problem, that I have seen anyway with any of them.
When the CBS does come out, he just cruises the rocks picking up any titbits he can find.
Very cool animals, all of them!
 
fishieness

fishieness

Active Member
coral banded shrimps are agressive like it is said above. They have loads of perosmality and are amazing to watch, but some will eat most of whatever you have. Ive seen mine take a stab at my clown and my new pepermint. Both have proved too fast for him.
 
mrstwig

mrstwig

Member
I think the cbs is beautiful and I think that if my tank were bigger (I have a 29 gallon.......alas!) it might not be such a problem. I originally wanted a cleaner shrimp and I should have waited until I could have one. Patience IS a virtue!
 
mikeyjer

mikeyjer

Active Member
I just recently bought a Long Tentacle Plate Coral, now the guy had a CBS in the tank with it and it was fine. I have read IF I place a peppermint shrimp in there, it's a different story. I read that they will eat the Plate Coral or attack your anemone, since they do eat the nuisance Aiptasia Anemone. I do have some Aiptasia Anemone on the rocks with my zoos that I got from this guy, but I don't want to get the peppermint shrimp cause it may mess with my plate coral. I just did a Lemon Juice treatment tonight on the anemone, hoping it would do the trick. It seems like it did though. There was like 7 Aiptasias that I had to treat. All shriveled up when I squirt them with lemon juice(very small amount with medicine dropper). IF this works, I won't be buying a peppermint shrimp, I'll buy the cleaner shrimp instead. IF anyone else thinks differ about the peppermint, let me know. :happyfish
 
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