How many cleaner shrimp

Log in or Sign up. Cleaner shrimp, worth it??? Joined: Feb 21, Messages: I've been thinking about maybe getting a cleaner shrimp or two for my 75 gal. But do they just bug LPS coral until the coral regurgitates the food you just feed em?

What shrimp have you had luck with? SaltyClown , Nov 11, Joined: Sep 4, Messages: We have 3 cleaners in a 90 gallon and they do steal food from corals. Our sun coral is being bowl fed as a result but may not survive. Wondering if they are worth it. Am also interested in the responses from more experienced folks. I traded mine in cuz it irritated my corals. It never "cleaned" any fish they usually don't in captivity so I figured what's the point?

Va Reef , Nov 11, Joined: Aug 27, Messages: 3, Location: Dallas. Maybe in a small tank but in a good size tank seems like there's plenty of room for all to be happy. They do steal food but I love cleaner shrimp. They're cute and will come up and clean your finger nails. Since the Scarlet Skunk cleaner shrimp is a reef invertebrate, it needs are nearly the same as most reef species; a temperature between 72 and 78 degrees Fahrenheit, a dKH of , pH between 8.

Like all shrimps, specific gravity is especially important, as these shrimps cannot tolerate as wide a range of salinity as most fish. Owners who are lax about monitoring levels, or aquarium setups prone to swings in parameters may not do well with a skunk cleaner shrimp or any crustaceans for that matter. How often do you floss? With its yellow body, bright red and white stripes, and long, stark white antennae, this shrimp is a walking advertisement for its fish scrubbing service, and fish happily seek out this shrimp for a cleaning.

Also, in exchange for this cleaning, fish generally do not prey on the skunk cleaner shrimp, although it would make an easy meal; its service has earned it virtual immunity from the food chain on the reef. The scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp and its fish customers make up one of the most iconic examples of symbiosis on the reef, and in the whole animal kingdom, for that matter.

And this is one of a few amazing symbiotic relationships that you can easily keep and observe in your home aquarium. A long-lived invertebrate, a skunk cleaner fish may live three years or more.

When you first bring home a scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp, you will need to be very careful to slowly acclimate the shrimp to the conditions of your aquarium. Scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp are very susceptible to shock, so it is recommended that the shrimp be acclimated very slowly by the drip acclimation technique, and this should be executed over the course of an hour or longer.

They are certainly reef safe. While they have been known to occasionally nip at corals, this is very rare in this particular species. Unlike other reef aquarium species that can be aggressive and territorial when kept with other members of the same or similar species, you can certainly keep more than one skunk cleaner shrimp in your tank, as long as you provide sufficient food.

So no hawkfish, pufferfish , flame cardinalfish I found that out the hard way. You could certainly have a reef aquarium without adding a skunk cleaner shrimp, but there are a few reasons to add a skunk cleaner shrimp to your tank today:. However, if you place more than two cleaner shrimps in the same tank, the situation can get ugly. Researcher Janine Wong and Professor Nico Michiels University of Tubingen placed cleaner shrimps in multiple groups of two, three or four in separate small tanks.

Within 42 days, all tanks only had a pair of shrimps still alive. The dominant pair simply killed off the other shrimps in their tank. The researchers hypothesize this aggression is motivated by reducing competition for clients and subsequently food source within their cleaning station area. The big question that lingers: How large of a cleaning station area e. Exactly one individual in each triplet and exactly two individuals in each quartet were killed in aggressive interactions, resulting in group sizes of two individuals.

All killed individuals had just moulted. No mortality occurred in single and pair treatments. The number of moults in the surviving shrimp increased significantly after changing from triplets and quartets to pairs.