Cleaner Shrimp Cleaning?

[simonas]

Had my two cleaner shrimps for a few weeks now and enjoy them being in the tank as they are interesting to watch to the point of being comical when flying after floating food in the powerhead stream

Just seen some crazy scenes tonight my lawnmower blenny Dave stopped next to a shrimp and the shrimp went straight to his mouth and spent a short while with his legs busy inside Daves mouth.

I assume this is why they are called cleaner shrimp, do they actually clean or remove anythingfrom the fish?

 

[bulldogsimon]

yes they do, they will remove parasites etc from your fish

 

[seffieuk]

They do indeed Simon - they tend to set-up a cleaning station which some fish will regularly stop by at

Seffie x

 

[xxBarneyxx]

And other fish will try to get by as quickly as possible while be dived on by shrimp

Mine used to come and clean my hands as well when I was working in the tank. Cant wait to get a group of these again.

 

[simonas]

Yes they do make great tank characters, one of mines annoying me slightly by nicking food from the sun coral though

 

[-Nemo-]

Indeed they are good coral food snatchers. I always have to swat at them and i end up yelling at them to go away as I do so. Some people here think I'm nuts

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yes they do make great tank characters, one of mines annoying me slightly by nicking food from the sun coral though

You have probably already come across it but putting the top off a drinks bottle over the coral while you feed it stops shrimp from stealing the food. I'm working on a few ways to feed corals now to A) stop other tank inhabitants eating the food and B)stop you from having to put your hands in the tank (my arms are currently covered in cuts and scratches so trying to keep them out the tank as much as possible at the moment). Basically its a over engineered version of the cut off drinks bottle