When will my Cleaner shrimP clean my fish?

[Beginnerreeftanker]

Hey everyone, I just got a cleaner shrimp yesterday and had a few questions. First of all, when will it clean my fish?  Both were breed in captivity and have never seen a cleaner before, so how will they know?  Is there something I should do to help, or is it just instinctual?  Second, my cleaner shrimp seems to have stationed itself right next to my pulsing Xenia, which is in the sand.  A couple times now I’ve seen my cleaner shrimp go over and start stepping all over it and swinging it’s antenna over the polyps.  Is this normal, or is my cleaner just being a bully?  Thanks, 

  Nate 

[Clown79]

They may never clean the fish. Some fish simply won't accept the shrimps cleaning.

 

There isn't anything you can do force behaviour.

 

What the shrimp is doing with your xenia is normal. 

[j.falk]

[Thrassian Atoll]

My fish don’t let the skunk or fire shrimp touch them.

[Tired]

Some fish don't like cleaner shrimp. Even if it has benefits, there's a lot of poking going on in a cleaning! 

 

It's instinctive. They see the antennae and recognize the "hello I am a cleaner" signal.

 

Oh, and one important thing: you shouldn't rely on the cleaner shrimp to remove any sort of disease. They can't cure any disease, and can't help a lot of them. Cleaner shrimp cleaning is a novelty in the aquarium, not really useful for anything. Except possibly a minor reduction in certain parasites that you should really be treating with antiparasitics anyway.

[mndfreeze]

It also may have to do with region.  If you have fish that are native to the gulf of mexico they may not allow or recognize the cleaner as a cleaner species.  Cleaner shrimp are indo-pacific.  It generally also tends to be fish species that get bigger.   Tangs or Angels for example.

[Brewer]

On 8/1/2020 at 6:59 AM, Beginnerreeftanker said:

Second, my cleaner shrimp seems to have stationed itself right next to my pulsing Xenia

My cleaner just sits on my new xenia frag for lengths of time. Xenia was struggling in arrival, but its opening up more now. Maybe cleaner helped him?! Lol