Cleaner fish facts for kids

The cleaner wrasse Labroides dimidiatus removing dead skin and external parasites from the grouper Epinephelus tukula.

Cleaner fish are amazing helpers in the ocean! They are a special type of fish that clean other fish. They remove tiny parasites and dead skin from their "clients." It's like a spa treatment for fish! This helpful relationship is called mutualism. It means both the cleaner fish and the client fish benefit.

Many different kinds of fish act as cleaners. These include wrasses, cichlids, catfish, and gobies. Some types of cleaner shrimp also do this job!

How Cleaner Fish Attract Clients

Cleaner fish often have bright, noticeable colors. They might have a brilliant blue stripe along their body. This special coloring helps them advertise their cleaning services. It's like a sign saying, "Open for business!" This helpful trait has developed on its own in different cleaner fish species. This is an example of convergent evolution. It means similar features evolve in different species.

Tricky Mimics

Some other fish are clever tricksters! They copy the look and behavior of cleaner fish. These "mimics" pretend to be cleaners to get close to other fish. But instead of cleaning, they might bite off pieces of fin! The sabre-toothed blenny is one such mimic. This is another example of convergent evolution.

Cleaner Fish in Aquaculture

Cleaner fish are also used to help fish farms. Aquaculture is the farming of fish and other water animals. In salmon farms, tiny sea lice can be a big problem. These lice attach to the salmon and cause harm.

Lumpfish to the Rescue

Farmers use cleaner fish like the lumpfish to eat these sea lice. Lumpfish are placed in the salmon pens. They swim around and pick the lice off the salmon. This helps keep the farmed salmon healthy. It's a natural way to control parasites. This method is used in places like Canada, Scotland, Iceland, and Norway.

Images for kids

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  Client Mulloidichthys flavolineatus at a cleaning station.

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  Protein structure of non-mammalian specific hormone, vasotocin, from the posterior pituitary.

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  The bluestriped fangblenny is an aggressive mimic of the cleaner wrasse.

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  An example of an outdoor aquaculture facility in Chile.

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  Sea lice causing morphological damage on cultured salmon in New Brunswick, Canada.

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  A disruptively patterned white-spotted puffer being cleaned by a conspicuously coloured Hawaiian cleaner wrasse.

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  Lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus), a cleaner fish employed in salmon farming in Atlantic Canada, Scotland, Iceland and Norway

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  A neon goby from the Western Atlantic.

See also

In Spanish: Peces limpiadores para niños