Scarlet Cleaner Shrimp

Description

This is the scarlet cleaner shrimp, Lysmata grabhami from the Caribbean.  These are beautiful red and white striped shrimp that have long wavy white antenna that are used to flag down passing fish for cleanings.  In the wild they prefer to be hidden up under big ledges or large corals heads, which happen to be where large predator fish like to hang out during the day, so while the predator fish snoozes, the shrimp dance all over them cleaning ectoparasites from them.  They are often part of big cleaning stations that may involve neon gobies, wrasses, and other cleaner shrimp such as banded coral shrimp and anemone shrimp.  They do not host with sea anemones, but seem to be partial to moray eels.  They are quite animated in an aquarium and will rock back and forth bouncing their antenna trying to attract the attention of the larger fish so they can check them for parasites.

Although these shrimp do like to nibble the ectoparasites off larger fish in the wild, they do not depend on them for their sole source of food and will easily thrive on almost any kind of food available to them.  During feeding times they will actively swim to the surface and take food from your hand, so they are a lot of fun to care for once they get settled into your routine.

These shrimp are fairly small but can grow to about 2” long.  If you have aggressive fish such as triggerfish, groupers, wrasses, and snappers, they will probably get eaten so I would not recommend adding them to systems with that type of fish.  They are reef safe and would be a great addition to any reef tank, especially a nano tank that has limited space.

We don’t list these very often, so this item will usually only last a day or two.  It’s possible we will sell out before I can disable the item, so don’t be too surprised if you get an email back saying we’re sold out.