fire or blood shrimp and clownfish

[markhilken]

Hello all

I have a 20 gallon currently fish only, been cycling for 8 weeks and everything seems fine water quality wise. Last wed I went and purchased my first inhabitants those being two clown fish and a blood shrimp. Acclimation went well, clownfish happily swimming around and the blood shrimp finding a nice hole amongst the rockwork.

Today for the first time I noticed the shrimp grab one of the clowns and drag him in his hole, the clown almost looks like he's playing dead. The shrimp does his thing with the clown fish and then lets him go, clown fish swims away but never from the entrance to the shrimps hole, then the process repeats itself. At first it was discerning because I thought that the clown had died and the shrimp was opportunistic in feeding. But after watching this play out at least a dozen times so far it seems rather comical as the clown doesn't seem to be in any stress at all and never ventures away from the shrimps hole,cavern,lair.

Is this normal Clown behaviour? By the way it's an Ocellaris Clown

 

[Betta132]

Blood shrimp is a cleaner. Clownfish apparently enjoys the cleaning.

 

[snorvich]

Most clownfish will not allow cleaning.

 

[Cole.97]

That is awesome! Neither of my ocellaris clownfish will let my fire cleaner shrimp touch them, although my shrimp are tank bred and don't really express a desire to clean fish. So, I don't know if the behavior is normal, but it's certainly cool!