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cleaner and fire shimp together?

Can I keep the two species together in a 24 nano cube DX.

currently have perc clown, 6 line wrasse, bi color blenny, yellow clown goby, 20 snails of diff types. The fire shrimp i have doesnt do much cleaning and ever since he stuck his pinchers in unhardened reef glue has not been going near other fish. He still eats flakes and scavenges but has glue residue on each claw. WIll he attack or be bothered with a cleaner?
 

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
You can keep those two different species together. We had a 20g with a pair of cleaner, pair of fire, and a pair of peppermints. Fires and cleaners will be more active and outgoing when kept in pairs so if you can get two it is nice. The only ornamental shrimp that has ever attacked our other shrimp was a coral banded. Some people have no problems with coral banded, but ours would just molt, get bigger, eat anything smaller than him.
 
i have a pair of Cleaners and a single for now Fire Shrimp. Allbeit in a big tank but they hang near one another most of the time
 
Seems like you guys have pairs of shrimp....II hope having a single of each species doesn't cause problems between the two. My tank has a pretty good amount of rock and will have alot of corals for the to hide near so hopefully everything works out.
 

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
Having a sinlge specimen will not incite them to fight. The shrimp tend to be more active and visible when you have them in pairs. They are hermaphoditic so you don't need to worry about sexing the shrimp. Mine are constantly pregnant which is nice and adds a different source of food for everything else in my tank.
 
If I were to get another fire shrimp would they pair up? The one I have now is almost full grown, so should I get a small one or one the same size?
 
I have 3 peppermint a cleaner and a coral banded in my 125.

No major issues ....the coral banded is temperamental with everything in the tank be it fish or inverts. It has its own area and the only one who crosses it is the cleaner and then it does it swiftly to get where it is going.

I see all of them at feeding time...the peppermint are a bit tougher to spot at times but if I put my hand in the tank esp at night it is gonna get grabbed and cleaned by one of the peppermint shrimp. They just have a thing for fingers in the dark for some reason.

I have never had any luck with fire shrimp....the last one must have had a bad molt or the coral banded nabbed it during a molt. I am not sure which it was but it was my favorite of the bunch of them. Would love to get another one but hate to spend the money and lose it.
 
Shrimp have both se organs and t does not matter when you get them .. As for the size the only thing gettng a smaller one is if it might not be mature enough to spawn. My peps used to spawn constantly not my cleaners do since they are a pair
 
I have a 55 gallon with a coral banded, two cleaners, a fire shrimp, and a pistol shrimp....if you divide the tank in half, the fire shrimp tends to hang out on the left side with the cleaner shrimp (though the cleaners will move all over the tank)...the coral banded hangs out in the middle and on the back right and jabs at anything that gets too close, but so far is well behaved and hasn't eaten anyone...the pistol is on the bottom in the front on the right side...everyone gets along...but, I do keep everything very well fed...I probably overfeed
 
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