How long do cleaner shrimp live

Mine has pitch black eyes I thought on average they live about 2 years, but that is what I learned years ago. I thought that my skunk cleaner died the first time it molted. I just lost my cleaner shrimp also. The culpret was a rock crab. It also killed a snail and a peperment shrimp, GRR!!!! Any ways, if that crab is yellow and looks spikey or fuzzy, that's the problem. They eat corals and crustations.

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Paste as plain text instead. Only 75 emoji are allowed. Display as a link instead. Clear editor. Upload or insert images from URL. Invertebrate Forum. Search In. Cleaner shrimp death troubleshooting and lifespan? Reply to this topic Start new topic. Recommended Posts. Posted May 26, Hi all, I was just wondering how long does the skunk cleaner shrimp live on average?

They will probe all over the fish, along the gills and sometimes even inside the mouth of the fish removing the parasites and dead tissues. The Skunk Cleaner Shrimp should do fine if you want to keep them in multiples but they should not be kept with more aggressive fish species such as Hawkfish , Lionfish and Triggerfish who may go after them.

Feeding them is relatively easy because they will eat nearly any meaty type of fish food that you put in the tank. You just need to ensure that they are getting their fair share. They may even take flake foods once they realize they can eat flakes. The Skunk Cleaner shrimp is usually very hardy if they have been acclimated slowly. It's recommended to acclimate them to your aquarium water over a period of an hour or more to avoid pH shock.

Don't be alarmed if you look in your tank one day and see what appears to be a dead shrimp. Look around the tank and if you see that the shrimp is indeed still alive, then what you're looking at is the exo-skeleton that they shed every once in a while. You will need to periodically add an iodine supplement to the water because they use iodine in building their new exo-skeleton.

A cleaner shrimp that actually does a decent job of keeping tank mates clean. Care Level : Easy, needs to be slowly acclimated to the tank. Take an hour or longer and use a slow drip acclimation. Watch them closely in reef tanks because they may sometimes pick at corals and may even take food from your corals. Also, I have not added any new fish in the past year, so I doubt he was eaten.

I bought mine over a year ago and he's still alive. And he was NO baby when I got him. He's gotten a BIT larger since then. But he's a very large cleaner shrimp now. I don't know how long he's got, but I'll miss him when he's gone. If I can get another year out of him before he goes, so he can live in my larger upgrade for awhile, I'll be happy.

Find More Posts by Teremei. I am on year 3. Find More Posts by hogpark View Blog. I remember a thread a few months or maybe a year ago and most lived about a year some more and some less but a year was average.

I beleive that is an average. I find it ammusing when people are always looking for "large" cleaners, or "large" pepermints to eat their aiptasia.

Current Tank Info: many. Find More Posts by Rod Buehler.