My cleaners don’t clean!

[ek]

I have 2 cleaner shrimps that stay in one place a whole day except when I put in food they run to catch some and at night. All the fish (Queen angel lemon peel angel sohal & purple tang) come to them and stand there to be cleaned but the shrimps just ignore them, Why?? <img src="graemlins//eek.gif" border="0" alt="[eek]" />

 

[ek]

so why do the fish stand there?

 

[stupid_naso]

I wouldn't think that there is nothing on your fishes for the shrimp, because like you said why would they go near the cleaner? Most of the time whatever can be picked by cleaner shrimp is not visible to human eyes, so when you see nothing doesn't mean there is nothing.
What I have learned is the size of the fish and the size of the shrimp matter towards the relationship between your cleaner and your shrimp. My guess is your fishes are bigger than your cleaner shrimp. Consequently your shrimps are a little intimidated by the size of your fishes. That's what happened to me. Once I had a big shrimp with small fish, one always run after the other. I also had one smaller shrimp and bigger fish, and of course the shrimp hides from the fish. That might be the case for you.
All you can do is just wait until your cleaner shrimps grow bigger. Once they have grown bigger and more used to their environment, your fishes will have a pair of nice doctors , and ocassional alive food (the eggs of your cleaner shrimp).
Good luck and I hope that helps.
stupid_naso

 

[marine fanatic]

I read that if you feed your cleaner shrimp often enough, they will actually lose interest in cleaning fish. They get addicted to "fast food" and don't want to work like they normally would....not sure if this is true but just passing on what I read about them.