Angry Cleaner Shrimp

[Deano1956]

I bought a cleaner shrimp (scarlet skunk) a week and a half ago and put it in with the Ray as to take care of any Parasites on him and was taking care of buissness cleaning the Ray. My wife and I went to St. Louis last fri. and sat. and when we came home I looked into the pond and saw that the Rays tail by its stinger was red so i thought the Sailfin Tang was picking on it but never saw it happening. Today when I came down to check things out I saw the cleaner shrimp pulling at the Rays tail while it was under the sand, when I said pulling I couldnt believe that that little 2 1/2" shrimp could pull that hard. Now its kind of tore up but not real deep so hopefully he will heal. Any ideas why a shrimp would do that?

 

[Zoodiver]

The sheath around the barb is being seen by the shrimp as something that needs to be cleaned off. I'd pull the shrimp out (I'm actually surprised the ray didn't eat the shrimp).

 

[Deano1956]

I took it out earlier tonight. In one way it was kind of funny watching that shrimp pull so hard but on the other hand dont want the ray to get hurt either. The shrimp was doing its job untill this all happened, oh well