cleaner eats peppermints

[alex glenn]

i added 2 peppermints today, very small ones, to my tank which used to have 2 peppermints that recently died
however, within 5 minutes both newly added peppermints were being devoured by the cleaner
is this normal?
what does this mean if iwant to add more

 

[iandawson]

I would suspect that the cleaners ate the peppermints AFTER they had already died. I have not known them to be predatory, but definately the first of the cleaner crew to get to anything that has died.

 

[alex glenn]

this might be true because one of the peppermints is still in one piece and dead while the other is bitten in half
could it have been my clown fish
and why would they have done this

 

[maxfischer]

what else do you have for fish? and other livestock?

 

[randoma]

Also, how did you acclimate them?

 

[NateHanson]

I'd also ask what size the peppermints were, and where they were purchased (mail order? LFS?) How long did you have the previous pair before they died?

Nate

 

[alex glenn]

i had the previous pair since about september and they were quite big
the pair i just recieved were quite small and they had been in the bag for about 30 minutes
i have a cleaner shrimp and two clowns in my 10 gallon tank
must have been the clowns
i dripped them in over a period of about 20-30 minutes

 

[alex glenn]

the salinity was pretty high too
not sure if thats what it was but its down to normal now

 

[NateHanson]

must have been the clowns

I don't think so. I've never heard of clowns to go postal on a shrimp.

I think the shrimp died on their own. In my experience shrimp are very sensitive to salinity. When you say your salinity was high, how high do you mean? Was it just low from needing topped off? If you didn't measure it before topping off, do you know how much water you added and what the salinity was after topping off? We can calculate roughly what the salinity was before.

Did the high salinity coincide with the death of the first pair? Did you correct the salinity before or after adding the second pair?

 

[alex glenn]

it was about 31 which is unusual because i usually have it around 27
that must have been the problem but i didnt not realize it until now