Murderous Cleaner Shrimp

[Nano]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I did see that. I'm actually a little puzzled by the results because they observed that ALL tanks that had housed more than a pair of shrimp had had at least one mortality.

I can think of at least 3 occasions in the past decade within a tank of my own where I housed 4 or 5 cleaner shrimp and never had any mortality like that.

In my current 280g I have 4, and we're coming up on month 12. There is an interesting group dynamic to the 4, in that 3 are always together and one is a lone wolf. If one molts however then it is a veritable orgy (I can think of another term to describe it however it is not for polite company .. )

It makes me wonder if territory size could play a role. I haven't read the actual study itself but in no synopsis or blog where it's talked about does it list the number or size of tanks used for each data sample. If for example they used 10g tanks for all the setups then yes I would absolutely believe that more than a pair is an absolute no-no. In fact maybe even a pair is too much for 10g.

I would also hope that they used a large enough sampling of tanks (ie. more than 1 of each setup).

Nevertheless, it is an interesting study. I have always believed that there was more going on with shrimp than we think, for bugs, they're remarkably social creatures.

I agree. I have one in my 20 and he is always taking care of the other critters cleaning them off. Especially our ocellaris, those 2 are attached at the hip