Cleaner.......Angels???

[pookstreet]

I've seen this twice now with completely different angels. In both cases, the smaller angel, both Holacanthus species, was cleaning the body of a much bigger angel. The larger angel would sidle up to the smaller one just like they would do with cleaner shrimp. It was definitely something I've never observed before but very interesting to see in person. Gotta love them angels

 

[snorvich]

I have seen it many times in nature. They also will clean manta rays.

 

[pookstreet]

I don't get out much so I have to rely on the tank :lol2:

 

[dflad]

My golden pygmy cleans most of the other fish in my tank, but especially my burgess. Pretty neat thing to watch. It has not subsided even though I have a small neon goby in the tank too that cleans some of the fish (including the burgess...what a cleaner whore)

 

[ccampbell57]

My bandit used to do it all the time to all my fish. My large queen also does this once in a while to the tangs.

 

[pookstreet]

Interesting. Before my current angel binge, I've only know cleaner wrasses to do that. None of my Genicanthus angels displayed the behavior at all. So a large queen would actually clean a smaller fish or are the tangs still much bigger?

 

[Sheol]

Absolutely! In the pacific, adult Passer's clean sharks, especially Hammerheads. Also Mantas as noted.
Rock beauties also are known cleaners as juveniles. In fact, they can pester fish obsessively in an aquarium trying to clean them.
Holcanthus do INDEED act as cleaners in the wild. And I bet other angel Genera do to.

Matthew

 

[philter4]

All over the place here you can find juv french angels actually set up cleaning stations, they sort of "waggle" and dart in and out, and bigger fish will come up and be cleaned. I have also seen other angels cleaning, juv queens and rock beauties, and in HI I've seen small bandits picking over a butterfly, in Mexico I've seen passers clean many species of fish.

 

[TRBOFISH]

They have also been documented cleaning see turtles. I think I actually saw some footage of the behavior on Blue Planet.

 

[pookstreet]

Awesome. I wished I had the opportunities to visit all those natural environments and see it firsthand. Must be an awesome sight.

 

[Beaun]

I thought the Juv. angels that have blue w/white stripes is beacuse they are cleaners and it shows that they are cleaners, or at least this is a thought/hypothesis.

 

[Creetin]

Emps are alledged to do this too.

I see my convict tang cleaning as well.

 

[Sheol]

I think the Juvi colors in Pomocanthus protect the small fry (pardon the semi-pun!) from the adults.

Matthew

 

[AquaKnight]

My small Rock Beauty has the best intentions, but the poor Burrfish. The Rock Beauty doesn't realize that those aren't parasites, they're his spikes

 

[ShrimpChipGal]

My small Rock Beauty has the best intentions, but the poor Burrfish. The Rock Beauty doesn't realize that those aren't parasites, they're his spikes

Aww... ouch.

I wonder if there are some angels that are safe with SPS but act as cleaners as well. Just out of curiosity, is it observed only small/juvi angels clean not the adults?

 

[Creetin]

I have seen adult emps clean on video, But what they were cleaning was much larger than them.