Coral Banded Shrimp

[rluix]

So yeah, yesterday i bought a coral banded shrimp, since my cleaner had an acident during molting , hes an interesting uy, beautiful specimen, but i haven't seen him eating since he got here, hes hiding behind a rock in a cornor of the tank, and when i turn the lights off he comes out.
What can i use to make him eat? i have frozen brine shrimp , krill, and blood worms, but im a bit afraid of using freshwater food such as blood worms for saltwater.
Maybe hes perparing to molt? My Skunk did that when he first got here.

[peacock]

So yeah, yesterday i bought a coral banded shrimp, since my cleaner had an acident during molting , hes an interesting uy, beautiful specimen, but i haven't seen him eating since he got here, hes hiding behind a rock in a cornor of the tank, and when i turn the lights off he comes out.
What can i use to make him eat? i have frozen brine shrimp , krill, and blood worms, but im a bit afraid of using freshwater food such as blood worms for saltwater.
Maybe hes perparing to molt? My Skunk did that when he first got here.

yeah don't use blood worm thats more for trops than marine. he may have not settle in yet or something could be having a go at him. try putting some brine in front of him when the lights r off plus i wouldn't worry to much yet give it a few days and let him settle in to tank life

[Parrothead]

Give it a chance to settle in

[twisted]

my cbs hide for almost a week. once he came out of his phase, he was fine...until he met my red serpent star....just give it time

[rluix]

Alright, thank you everyone, hes starting to become active, ill give him the time.

[Original Fin]

I had been target feeding mine pellets for crabs and shrimp, (which he loves), however, I now limit the specific CBA feedings to once a week. Mine was molting every couple weeks when I fed it daily and has grown a lot, so I'm holding way back on his feedings now because for one, I don't want to create a monster, and two, I want to encourage him to be a tank janitor...he will literarally eat anything left over from fish feedings.
Matter of fact, I have to be careful when I feed my BTA, because the CBS will try to steal it right out from the anemone's tentacles if i don't first give the CBS something to munch on.
You'll want to make sure there are cave spaces in your rockwork...they like to hang upside down in the shade and seclusion. Mine seems to be intollerant of high flow areas as well. When I turn the powerheads off for feeding is the only time he really comes out of his cave.

[Ninong]

So yeah, yesterday i bought a coral banded shrimp, since my cleaner had an acident during molting , hes an interesting uy, beautiful specimen, but i haven't seen him eating since he got here, hes hiding behind a rock in a cornor of the tank, and when i turn the lights off he comes out.

In their natural environment, banded coral shrimp (Stenopus hispidus) rest during the day and become active at dusk.

My Skunk did that when he first got here.

That's because that's just the way they behave in their natural environment. My Lysmata amboinensis shrimp always stayed inside the caves in the rock structure when the metal halides were on and then came out all over the tank as soon as the halides went off and just the power compact actinic fluorescents were on.

Lysmata amboinensis (skunk cleaner shrimp) and Stenopus hispidus (banded coral shrimp) have some things in common but there a lot of significant differences.

Both of them have a natural lifespan of two to three years, although some may live a little longer than three years in captivity. Banded coral shrimp specialize in cleaning larger fish.

Stenopus hispidus occupies a territory of 1 to 2 meters in diameter in nature, which is why it not a good idea to put other shrimp with these guys unless you have a fairly large tank. Lysmata amboinensis occupies a natural territory of only about 30 cm in diameter.

It's easy to add extra specimens of other Lysmata spp. shrimp to an aquarium that already has one or two Lysmata shrimp, unless the tank is really small. This is not the case with Stenopus hispidus, especially if you put two males together.

Since Lysmata spp. shrimp are hermaphroditic, any specimens of the same species will mate with each other. And they really don't care who they're getting it on with as long as it's a conspecific (same species).

Stenopus hispidus shrimp are not hermaphroditic; they're gonochoristic. That simply means that they are born either male or female and they do not ever change sex or, as in the case of Lysmata spp., perform the female role only for a couple of hours following moulting. Both Lysmata and Stenopus shrimp mate in a similar fashion -- by inserting a sperm packet into the body of the female. Lysmata shrimp do not carry their offspring for anywhere near as long as Stenopus shrimp. With Lysmata shrimp, once the eggs hatch, the babies are on their own. Stenopus eggs take about 16 days to hatch and then the young are carried by their mother for the next six weeks before they leave and become part of the plankton.

Unlike Lysmata spp., male and female Stenopus hispidus shrimp are not the same size as adults. The body of a female S. hispidus can be 3-4" long, not counting the much longer antennae. Males are much smaller and more slender than females. You should be able to see the greenish ovaries through the transparent carapace of an adult female S. hispidus. The reason all Lysmata shrimp of the same species are the same size as adults is because they're all both sexes, male and female.

S. hispidus are monogamous. They form lasting mated pairs. If you ever decide you want a mate for your present shrimp, you should wait until the current one is mature enough that you can tell its sex before going out and buying the wrong thing. If you put two males together, they will literally tear each other limb from limb. They will fight until one of them is dead. Sometimes both of them die. That doesn't happen in nature because in nature they don't invade another male's territory. One or the other will back off without a fight.