The skunk cleaner shrimp is the white-striped, antennae-waving shrimp of nature documentaries, famous for picking parasites and dead tissue from fish at cleaning stations.
In aquariums it does the same, with fish queueing and even opening their gills for service.
It is peaceful, reef-safe, and genuinely useful — but it is an invertebrate, and inverts play by stricter water-chemistry rules than fish.
Housing
Provide a stable, mature reef of 75 litres (20 gallons) or more with rockwork ledges and overhangs where the shrimp sets up shop.
Singles and pairs both work; skunk cleaners are simultaneous hermaphrodites, so any two adults form a pair.
Keep salinity rock-steady at 1.024-1.026 and temperature at 24-26C.
Sudden salinity or pH swings — including sloppy top-offs — are the main killer of healthy specimens.
Diet
Cleaning service plus scavenging covers part of the menu, but feed directly: sinking pellets, frozen mysis, and bits of meaty seafood.
A fed cleaner is a bold cleaner.
Expect shameless theft of food intended for corals and fish; many keepers feed the shrimp first so target-fed corals stand a chance.
Health
Acclimation is the make-or-break moment: drip-acclimate over at least an hour, because osmotic shock from quick transfers kills more cleaner shrimp than anything else.
Never expose them to copper-based medications.
Regular moulting is normal — a perfect, ghostly shell on the sand and a hiding shrimp for a day or two.
Failed moults point to unstable parameters or iodine-poor water; steady reef-standard maintenance prevents them.
Temperament
Completely peaceful and impressively bold, a settled cleaner shrimp rides hands during tank maintenance and inspects anything new.
The cleaning interactions with fish are mesmerising and genuinely beneficial.
It coexists with corals, snails, other shrimp species, and almost all reef fish.
Predatory exceptions — hawkfish, large wrasses, triggers, puffers — see it as lunch, so check the stocking list both ways.
Intermediate
Intermediate
Intermediate
Intermediate
Intermediate
Intermediate