Cleaner shrimp won't clean

I got a coral banded shrimp about a month ago and all the fish wanted him to clean them.... It never happened (never thought it would) and I brought him back to the Lfs since the shrimp was tearing the fishes fins left and right.

So I got a cleaner shrimp thinking that would be good for the fish.... And he won't clean them either will it come with time ? Or is there something I should be doing?

 

What type of "cleaner" shrimp did you get?

A peppermint shrimp? or a scarlet/skunk cleaner shrimp?

They may be no parasites for him to "clean"

 

I have a skunk cleaner shrimp. When I got a hippo tang a few weeks later, I turned on the lights to find the cleaner cleaning the mouth and gills. Have you tried a cleaner wrasse?

 

They get lazy once they get a taste of food.mine wont clean either they are so used to eating what I feed the fish. I have fish that near them and they dont even try to jump on the fish.

 

Its not a guarantee that all cleaner shrimp will actually clean fish. You really need to have a group, that way you increase the likelihood of one or several of them actually doing it.

 

there are two points of failure,
one is the shrimp the other is the fish.

if your shrimp will jump on your arm its not the shrimps failure it is the fish.

fish must present for the shrimp to clean. a lot of fish won't do it unless they are heavily infected or see other fish doing it.

funny story I have had fish present to damsels before, the damsel will oblige and get the ich along with a fairly big chunk of skin.

 

Cleaner wrasses are best left in the ocean. Not only do they have poor survivability in closed systems, but their collection hurts the ecosystem of a wild reef.