aggressive cleaner shrimp behavior towards sulphur goby

[Volarix]

I've had my sulphur goby for over a week now and it's becoming more confident, venturing out its cave more often, not just for food like it did initially.

Today I observed the cleaner shrimp going after it whenever it leaves the cave, even trying to follow it in. I'm stumped as to why this is happening - I thought they'd coexist peacefully.

Any ideas, fluxx?

[nixora]

To be honest, seems a bit odd to me, could be a rogue cleaner shrimp, I mean they can be a bit much for some fish, like coflakes, but mine's always been fine with my fish. Not sure what to suggest, other than giving it a week to see if the shrimp loses interest, if not, might be worth catching it and swapping for another, or maybe a blood shrimp. One thing that did cross my mind, is the shrimp actually trying to clean the goby, or is it just being aggressive?

[coral8]

Are you positive he's not trying to clean the goby? I've seen this before, my cleaner shrimp are super persistent when it comes to my hawkfish, they're always jumping on him and trying to pry his mouth open to get in there and clean it out.

[Volarix]

Thanks for the input guys. Keeping a close eye on them now, hoping it's just the cleaner shrimp doing its thing. Don't really want an aggressive shrimp in my tank, that's the last thing I need.