Was my cleaner shrimp eaten?

[Cubeguy11]

Hello, this is my first reef tank, it’s 20g and currently has a pair of ocellaris clownfish (male: ~1 inch, female ~2 inches). I just went on a 4 day vacation and my friend was feeding the tank. When I got back I realized my cleaner shrimp was missing and my friend said that it was there the day before. I eventually decided to squeeze out my filter sponge  to see if it somehow was eaten and pieces ended up in there and I found antenas and claws. The shrimp was around 1 inch long. I have had it for 3 weeks without an issue. My clownfish have been aggressive towards anything I try to put in the tank (I tried to add a few firefish but ended up having to take them out and return them). However they have never shown any aggression towards the shrimp. Could they have done it, or could something else have happened? Also I really want to have a shrimp but I’m not sure what kind would work with aggressive fish, any suggestions?

[DevilDuck]

It's likely it may have just died over your vacation. Have you ever seen your clowns attacking the shrimp?

Keep an eye out, what you found may just have been a molted exoskeleton and the shrimp may just reappear.

 

[Cubeguy11]

19 minutes ago, DevilDuck said:

It's likely it may have just died over your vacation. Have you ever seen your clowns attacking the shrimp?

Keep an eye out, what you found may just have been a molted exoskeleton and the shrimp may just reappear.

 

No the clowns haven’t attacked it at all. There aren’t really many places to hide for a shrimp in my tank and I think I’ve checked all of them unless I missed somewhere.

[Tired]

Fish don't normally attack cleaner shrimp that are too large to snatch up in one gulp. Even then, they sometimes leave cleaners alone. I'd guess it died of something unrelated, maybe a parameter swing. The fish might have picked it apart after it died. 

[Cubeguy11]

1 hour ago, Tired said:

 I'd guess it died of something unrelated

Interesting, something I forgot to mention was that I have a favia. Is it possible that the sweeper tentacles got it and killed it?

[DevilDuck]

Unlikely, my both my clean shrimps literally walks over half a dozen rock flower anemones with no effect.

They naturally avoid the sticker anemones like my maxi mini and the bubble tip.

 

If you replace it, try to get a larger, fatter cleaner. I had better luck with larger examples than smaller ones.

[Cubeguy11]

Ok, I’ll probably replace it soon, I don’t have a copper test kit so Im gonna take the water to my LFS to test it but once I know it’s safe I’ll add an new one.

[Tired]

If the favia was angry at something else, the cleaner might bump into and not like the sweeper tentacles, but their exoskeleton protects them from many stings. Might be some damage to the shrimp if it sat right up against the sweeper for an hour, but it's not gonna do that. 

[debbeach13]

The shrimp might have died from a bad molt.

[jservedio]

If you've got hermits and/or nassarius snails they would have totally disappeared the cleaner shrimp overnight if it died minus the claws, legs, and antennae.