Reef Aquarium Information - Brett’s Reef

        Here is picture of my coral banded shrimp i so aptly named Mr. Pig. If you look closely at the picture you can see that he is holding two pieces of Ora glow shrimp pellets. This picture was taken right after i fed my tank.
         The Coral banded shrimp is a “reef safe” shrimp that can be very temperamental at times. Its scientific name is the Stenopus hispidus and like other cleaner shrimp he provides a valuable cleaning service to the tanks other inhabitants. The coral banded shrimp is known to pick parasites off of larger fish, seek out and eat died and decaying organic matter (detritus), and is an avid worm hunter.
           I originally bought this shrimp because i had a lot of bristle worms and I didn’t like the looks of them on my rocks, even though they do a major part in the clean up of an aquarium, I didn’t want there population to go unchecked. Now with this shrimp I have a happy medium, the worms only come out at night and there population is well within what I want it to be.
           A word of caution before buying such a shrimp is that they are a little more aggressive then you’re other cleaner shrimps. My shrimp is rather docile and i have never seen him attack my goby, snails or hermits, however i have read that, when not properly fed they have been known to attack snails, small fish and hermit crabs.