Skittish cleaner shrimp

[joecon]

Hello everyone, I bought a cleaner shrimp about 3 weeks ago and it seems very afraid of the fishes. He has been hiding in the crevices of my LR and everytime any fish swims by, he disappears into the rocks. Is this normal behavior? The reason I bought the cleaner shrimp in the 1st place is that I have read they are one of the few shrimps that are pretty hardy, fairly active in the daytime and very fun to watch. So far all I see are its antennas sticking out of the crevices and not much more.

Fishes I have:
Yelow tang, Naso tang, cream angel, flame angel, blue-yellow tail damsel, green chromis and an Ocellaris Clown. Tank is about 3 years old.

[Ninong]

The reason I bought the cleaner shrimp in the 1st place is that I have read they are one of the few shrimps that are pretty hardy, fairly active in the daytime and very fun to watch. So far all I see are its antennas sticking out of the crevices and not much more.

Which "cleaner shrimp" do you have? My experience with Lysmata amboinensis is that they almost never come out if the metal halides are on. They will come out if just the actinics are on.

Mine liked to set up cleaning stations inside a large cave in the live rock structure. Some fish will allow themselves to be cleaned and others can't be bothered.

Why not get two of the same species so that you can observe mating behavior?

[joecon]

Thanks for the info, Ninong. Now at least I know this is not an area of concern I got the skunk cleaner shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis). I will go back to my LFS and get another one

[Ninong]

Interesting article on L. amboinensis.