Cleaner shrimp with lawnmower blenny - weird, what does this mean?

[jfarris]

My cleaner shrimp is cleaning my lawnmower blenny INSIDE of his gills. It is the wierdest thing I have ever seen. His two short little cleaner pincher looking things are actually going inside the blenny's gills. And the blenny is not acting sick, he's able to move around and has been eating today. Is this normal??? What does it mean?

 

[bseth90]

Perfectly normal...that is what they are supposed to do. Probably little parasites or something there the cleaner likes. Mine used to clean my arm when I cleaned the tank. It was pretty strange feeling.

 

[jfarris]

I know that they clean parasites, but I didn't know that it's normal for them to be inside the gills of the fish!! I don't know much. So, if the parasites are in the fish, could they be in the tank and if they are, what do I do?

 

[stanlalee]

whats weird, my LMB is the only fish that allows my fire shrimp to clean it. The Gills are one of the more common areas cleaned because that is often where parasites target (and easy place to access the bloodstream). I guess with smaller fish its not so commonly seen but with big fish you always see the gills getting cleaned.