Just found my shrimp gnawing on this..... ID please?

[koehler]

Hi,

I walked by my tank, and saw my cleaner shrimp jump off a rock, looked like he ripped something off of it also. Took a closer look, and saw he had this in his grip. He picked at it for a minute or two, then dropped it and went away. Its about 2/3 the size of a dime, and the one side has a shell. Haven't heard of any one half shelled creatures, so I am assuming the other side of the shell is in the tank somewhere?

Any clues?

 

[jorcutt]

Looks like it's probably a Stomatella. GREAT for your tank. They reproduce rather rapidly and in larger numbers do great work on algae. Reef safe in all capacities I am aware of. Usually out at night much more than during the day. Leave it in there!

 

[Anonymous]

Well, whatever it is, it looks past being able to move about on it's own, which is why the cleaner was making sushi of it. I wouldn't put it back unless you want to feed somebody else.

 

[koehler]

Hey, thanks. Just found a picture here: http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:uA ... n&ie=UTF-8

Thank you.

 

[Saltykirk]

I used to have a real nice population of those things, Stomatella sp. I bought a cleaner shrimp & after 2 weeks it started hunting them down. It ate every one of them. So much for free algae eaters. They breed about as fast as those little white stars.

 

[BigE]

When I started my first reef tank I got a bunch of those guys on live rock. They look like slugs with those rather flat shells. They bred like crazy and after a while they all died off rather quickly.