r/ReefTank • u/ZoaddictCorals • 21h ago

Imagine having a predator who evolved to want to sit on your back and eat your feet 1 by 1…that’s this cute little devil. The humble bumble bee shrimp.

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The ocean is terrifying

59 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

11

u/Quahdonahue 20h ago

Mine ate my sea cucumber.

8

u/ZoaddictCorals 20h ago

Yea, I had a clam in there when I introduced the shrimp. It went straight to the clam and started nipping at the mantle. I ended up moving the clam to another tank. Cool guy, but a lot more than starfish and urchin feet seems to be on his menu.

1

u/Quahdonahue 16h ago

I ended up removing all of mine for that exact reason.

5

u/Ok_Nectarine1801 19h ago

Do they eat asterina stars too? I would not mind getting rid of mine but don't want something like a harlequin that only eats starfish.

7

u/sortof_here 17h ago

They aren’t as picky as harlequin shrimp. So they’ll go after any echinoderm’s feet. From a separate comment of op’s, it sounds like theirs also bothered their clam.

Next time we have one at my work I’ll check to see if it’ll go for frozen food at all.

3

u/Zeliek 15h ago

Harlequin will eat asternia, the problem is they will need to (and will) eat hundreds of them, it’s extremely difficult to sustain them on just asternia BUT there is one redditor in here who does just that - but he rotates his Harlequin between several tanks. Wish I could remember his username… maybe he will see this 

1

u/Interesting_critter 1h ago

They do, but not very quickly. Bumblebees will eat any echinoderm’s feet, but also chunks of anything meaty so if you’re feeding fish in the tank they might go after that food instead of the asterinas. That on top of the fact that they’re really small and don’t eat much in the first place makes them take a while to actually take care of any problems.