← All groups · Invertebrates & cleanup crew
Cleaners and jewels of the reef
Shrimp
Ornamental shrimp are peaceful, useful and genuinely charming — cleaner shrimp pick parasites, peppermints hunt Aiptasia. Like all inverts they have no tolerance for copper and must be drip-acclimated slowly, and a shed exoskeleton is a moult, not a death.
5 in our library · 5 with a full care guide.
💧 The one thing to get right: Slow drip-acclimation into a cycled tank, zero copper ever, and don't panic at a moult (the empty shell).
- Fire Shrimp Lysmata debelius Beginner ✓ Care guide The blood-red jewel of the reef — a hardy cleaner shrimp that just wants a shady hideout.
- Skunk Cleaner Shrimp Lysmata amboinensis Beginner ✓ Care guide A hardworking reef-safe shrimp that "cleans" your fish — endlessly entertaining.
- Coral Banded Shrimp Stenopus hispidus Beginner ✓ Care guide The striking "boxer" shrimp — hardy and characterful, but territorial toward other shrimp.
- Peppermint Shrimp Lysmata wurdemanni Beginner ✓ Care guide The reef's natural pest-control — it eats nuisance Aiptasia anemones.
- Tiger Pistol Shrimp Alpheus bellulus Beginner–Intermediate ✓ Care guide The engineer of the goby-shrimp partnership — it builds the burrow, the goby keeps watch.
Plan a shrimp tank
Our free tools run on these species' real, sourced care data — no guessing:
Parameter targets →Salinity ⇄ SG converter →Tank volume calculator →Cleanup-crew calculator →