Hungry peppermint shrimp and coco worms

[Nordy]

Brought home a new Coco worm yesterday. Noticed today it was being chowed down by one of my peppermint shrimps in my 48 gallon Maxspect tank. Took a look at it before light outs tonight, and I better take some action tomorrow to help it some. There are 5 feather dusters in that tank and another coco worm in a different part of the tank that has no signs of being bothered. My Pygmy Hawk likes to chill next to the other coco worm, so maybe that’s a deterrent, and perhaps feather dusters are not on the menu yet, until they get hungry enough I assume, and that opportunistic feeding tendency predicates new food groups. In addition to a cube of frozen food added for feeding this evening, I added pellet food and made sure it made its way to the bottom for there benefit. This is my first experience having a problem with a peppermint shrimp, I have had quite a few over the years that never bothered corals, I’m thinking my dilemma has arisen due to the large invertebrate population I added 6 weeks ago. That tank being roughly 8 months old is a detritus trap and had plenty of hair algae. It’s looking pretty stellar now from the invertebrate effort, so the food is more scarce. There’s enough to go around still for forage and fodder, so maybe they are getting spoiled too much. I’m thinking I need to somehow imply to them to broaden there scavenging efforts (earn your keep, get to work, quit being lazy and no holding out for the good stuff intended for fish). I did anticipate the over abundance of a large CUC, so for the past couple of weeks, I have lightly thinned them out daily and tossed them in another tank. I don’t mind adding some sinking pellet food intended for the inverts around lights out to ensure they’re not going to starve, it’s more or less I wish to avoid getting in over my head again trying to manage nutrients. Always looking for tips and tricks. I’ll move it tomorrow, but any perspectives and thoughts on the matter are very much appreciated, Thx.
PS.
These shrimp are fat, I got the perfect beer batter

 

[Nordy]

Got the worm moved pronto when lights came on this morning. It is now next to the other worm. Hopefully that will not be an invitation for a peppermint to try the red one. Got a few places to work with that can accommodate wedging the tube enclosure. The right side of the tank was ideal initially, yet the shrimp hideout more in caves over there. The Pyramidal Pygmy has been assigned sentry duty, and of course when enlisted, to watch like a hawk for any potential threats from shrimp. A little extra food and monitoring are in order. I’ll tape a 4x6 picture of this by there cave if any attacks persist.