coral banded shrimp exhibiting cleaning behavior?

[loyalty]

earlier tonight i swear i saw my coral banded shrimp cleaning my recently added copperbanded butterfly. the butterfly even seemed to be docile and was just letting it happen until it saw me and hid.

could this be? or was my shrimp about to snag a sleeping snack?

 

[rcmike]

Yep, they are actually a cleaner shrimp. Most of them in aquariums don't do that though.

 

[DMBillies]

I believe the white tentacles are generally considered a sign to the fish that they are a cleaner... as in, "Don't eat me, you need me!" That said, I'm sure a few non-cleaner species mimic this to avoid getting eaten as well.

I have heard of them cleaning rarely before. I've also seen a fire shrimp clean, but they spend a very significant amount of their time hiding (unlike skunk cleaner shrimp).

 

[Mikeyjer]

My Shrimps (Coral Banded and Cleaner Shrimp) doesn't play nice with the fish at all, they stay away from each other..... Now the Coral Banded is getting bigger and bad too after it snatched my two long time Green Chromis that are huge. They became his snack........ Such a beautiful shrimp with such bad behavior...... May have to snatch it out of my tank if it tries anything else.....