My Cleaner Shrimp is my hero!

[Connie]

I have never heard of this and wouldn't have believed it until I saw it with my own eyes!

I have a lot of bristle worms. Over the months I have purchased a Coral Banded Shrimp, Sixline Wrasse and Long Nosed Hawkfish. All three are alive and well, but I have never witnessed any of them eating a bristleworm. So....last night after lights out I decided to do some fishing. I use my large baster and go to crevices in the rocks and blow them out and suck them up. One of my cleaner shrimp started following me around (He associates the baster with food) and as I blew out the worms, he was catching them and eating them! There was one that was way too big for him to handle, so I pinched off a piece and he grabbed it. It was funny too because he looked like he was holding a hot potato. lol
I just thought that was so cool. We teamed up on those boogers! I wish I had recorded it, but I didn't even think about it at the time.

 

[smadascott]

Haha that's great! I love watching those guys! I sometimes let mine clean out cuts on my hand. They are better then a doctor!

 

[wrasseluver]

I have a clean shrimp that does the same thing when I feed bristle worms to my rhyzo. He'll steal them and from the rhyzo and he'll hunt them when the lights go out. This is the 1st cleaner that I've owned that eats and hunts bristle worms.