cleaners vs. disease

So at the movie store in st. louis I find a 5 disc set on marine life made by stoneman for 10 bucks. These are old films (70's) but figure they are research films so much still must hold true. I have only made it through the first disc when to my astonshment I came across a section on clean fish and disease or parasites. What stoneman and his team did was take a secton of the reef that was known to have lots of cleaners such as skunk shrimp and neon gobies and cleaner wrasses, and remove them. They waited a number of days then returned to the site to notice most of the fish had left. The fish that remained were slowly dieing or diseased or covered with isopods that were feeding off the fish.
So this had me thinking that many of us that have problems with our fish may not have any or enough cleaners in our tanks. I have had my battle with ick and didn't win so now I think I am going to get my fish cleaning up and going before I get bigger fish.
please list weather you have a problem with disease and if you have fish cleaners or not. I would just like to compair peoples tanks and problems. thanks in advance. k+ to all that list

 

i have a cleaner shrimp (3 fish dead from ich). The only one of the three that really let him clean was the gramma...the clowns wanted nothing to do with him. I think it depends on where the respective fish and cleaners are from and if they will "recognize" each other. Note the gramma still perished, but perhaps if I had more than one?

 

I have a rather large (according to some folks here) cleaning crew of snails and hermits and so far have been disease free.


Of note, I can't keep shrimp (cleaner and peppermint tried). It turns out my Royal Gramma is eating them!!!!!! GAH! I don't know if I want shrimp or the RG more... haven't decided still...


I notice no more shrimp, then I notice little antennae sticking out of RG's mouth.

 

I do have a cleaner shrimp, but the only fish that will allow it to clean is my blenny. I have never had a major problem with any disease. My mandarin had a few spots of ich when I first got it, and my hippo tang had a fairly infected fin not too long ago after an injury. In both cases the problem went away quickly by itself with no treatment what so ever. IMHO the best way to combat ich/parasites/infection is to have a good, stable enviroment while feeding a highly nutritious diet.

 

i have no problems with ick knock on wood i keep N/gobies. i had a coral banded shrimp after he got big and he was always reaching out looking like he was trying to catch my fish. i thought he was going to eat them. i took it to my son's 180 thinking he probley wont make it in his tank. he droped it in and made it to the bottom and a niger witch is large started to slowly approach it the shrimp backed into the rock and the niger followed and layed on its side to get to get under the rock we thought the shrimp was going to be a gonner two days later my son calls me and tells me the shrimp is cleaning the niger's mouth and sure enough he was and any other fish that would get close the trigger would chase it off but months down the road something got to it and the shrimp was gone. we thought the niger new and was around a shrimp in the wild to be that quickly attracted to it.

 

I have a skunk cleaner shrimp and now a Blood/Fire Shrimp and have never had a disease problem since they went in the tank. I've had a small case of ick on a tang before when he was introduced, but the cleaner cleaned him constantly. With that and garlic added i've never had a problem since.

 

That was part of this experiment was taking all cleaners not just one type. maybe the type of cleaner needed was diffrent in your case. cant say thanks for the imput.

 

Thanks was thinking of getting a royal gamma and a shrimp glad I read this first.

 

Think cleaner shrimp may eat parasites before they attack fish. just a thought.

 

bump