Cleaner shrimp first year anniversary

Past Sunday the Cleaner shrimp celebrated his first year anniversary in the Red Sea Max. He is currently the oldest Invertebrate in the aquarium and therefore the first to celebrate his first year anniversary.

In the early days he could be found a lot near the big toadstool we had back then, the cave behind it was his hideout, but also the toadstool was used as a hideout often. After the rebuild he found a new cave where we could see him all day, but unfortunately we had to rebuild again after that and the cave was gone. Now he hides somewhere underneath all the rocks far out of sight. Last few days he shows more often during feeding time but mostly we see him during the night.

His biggest hobby, harassing fish (cleaning actually), wasn’t very successful in the beginning. None of the fish wanted him to clean them. After some months couple of fish sometimes just let it happen (didn’t seem too fond of it though). Some time ago when we appeared to have white spot the Blue Tang offered herself voluntarily to the cleaner shrimp for a cleaning job.

He is a good cleaner, dead organism are his main priority. When I unfortunately damaged the Blue Sea Star he was the first to get hold of the lost leg/arm.

We hope to see him more often in the future and enjoy his fun behaviour, he is much fun to watch (as are most shrimps).