Skunk cleaner shrimp bothering fish?

[christinna77]

I have two skunk cleaner shrimps and one blood fire shrimp in my tank. The two skunks are always out and around, especially at night. They even jump toward my fish to try to clean them. A few times their antennas touched my tilefish at night (as they don't really sleep), completely freaking them out in the dark.

My blood fire shrimp mostly stays in its cave, maybe 90% of the time. It set up a cleaning station there and waits for any fish to swim to it instead. But the skunks feel like too much. They even seem to "guard" the main cave sometimes, so my tilefish can't go in without getting bothered.

My tilefish actually does like being cleaned sometimes, but the skunks take it to another level. They literally jump on the fish. Note that I feed 4-5 times a day and they always get their share, so they're not hungry by any means. My yellow tilefish unfortunately ended up jumping out after the last incident, so I'm now considering just rehoming them and only having blood fire shrimps instead. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

 

[Privateye]

Yup, I've had a similar experience with skunks and firefish. I love their personalities, but they are like little energizer bunnies when it comes to feeding. They steal it from corals, they want to clean fish, and they can bother corals by touching them with their antennae.

It's probably a combination of them being too eager, and tilefish being "jumpy". Most fish tolerate skunks IME.

My sharknose goby was relentless too. He used to ride my clownfish.

 

[christinna77]

Yup, I've had a similar experience with skunks and firefish. I love their personalities, but they are like little energizer bunnies when it comes to feeding. They steal it from corals, they want to clean fish, and they can bother corals by touching them with their antennae.

It's probably a combination of them being too eager, and tilefish being "jumpy". Most fish tolerate skunks IME.

My sharknose goby was relentless too. He used to ride my clownfish.

Yep, I love how they rush to my hands whenever I put them in the water. They're always out and moving around, and people love them looking at my tank. But like you said, they do steal food from the corals, even when I feed them separately, and they end up bothering my fish too.

Interesting about the sharknose goby - it's actually on my list, as I prefer them to neon gobies, I'm going to reconsider now lol.