Skunk Cleaner Shrimp

Scarlet back stripes edged in white, long white antennae waving from a rock ledge: the skunk cleaner shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis) is one of the few aquarium animals that actively invites fish over. In the wild it runs cleaning stations on Indo-Pacific reefs, picking parasites and dead tissue from visiting fish, and it will do the same thing in a home tank.

Aquarium care

• Keep it in an established marine aquarium with stable salinity, and drip acclimate slowly, as shrimp are sensitive to sudden change.
• No copper-based medication can be used in a tank holding this shrimp.
• It takes prepared food readily, including mysis, pellets and small pieces of seafood, alongside whatever it cleans.
• Rockwork with overhangs and caves gives it a station to work from and cover while moulting.
• Usually kept singly or in pairs, and this species tolerates its own kind better than most cleaner shrimp.
• It does not harm corals, but large predatory fish such as hawkfish, lionfish and big wrasses treat cleaner shrimp as food.

Well suited to a peaceful reef with tangs, clownfish, gobies and small wrasses, where its cleaning behaviour is genuinely useful and easy to watch.

Stock rotates between marine orders. Local pickup at our Lethbridge store; see more in saltwater fish.