shrimp compatibility ...
 

Hi,

Every time I buy a peppermint shrimp, my skunk cleaner either kills it or harasses it into hiding so that it never comes out to eat, and it eventually starves to death. And I thought they were supposed to be friendly. I have a 20 gal nano ... could it be that the tank is too small for them to coexist?

My cleaner shrimp is also quite large, and I can never find a peppermint of similar size at any LFSs.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

I would probably think they are not compatible. Especially in a small tank. I have always found cleaners to be aggressive scavengers. I personally would not try it.:biggrin:

Ya they're pretty aggressive... killed the last peppermint I bought.

Anybody with similar experiences or am I the only one? :(

bump..........:)

I've got 2 peppermints and a skunk cleaner and they've been happy together for the last 6 or so months...
I've never noticed any agression from the skunk.

Thanks for the reply.

Hm...maybe it's just my skunk cleaner that's aggressive. Or maybe my tank is too small. How big is your tank btw?

I put a peppermint shrimp in my 44g with a common cleaner and voila - no more peppermint. I am not positive it was the cleaner though as I also have a small Niger trigger in there. To date he has not bothered any of my inverts but I know that they are prone to so who know if it just died of ??? or if there is a killer lurking in my tank.

Yup that's exactly what happened to me. My skunk cleaner just would not stop harassing the little peppermint.

I've found cleaner shrimp have a tendency to be thugs, even picking on little fish at feeding time :biggrin:

and I just hate it when they steal food from corals when you're target feeding... i really want a peppermint though ... darn :(

has anybody kept peppermints and skunk cleaners in tanks <20 gallons w/ no problems?