Sexy shrimp

Care at a glance

The sexy shrimp owes its name to its striking behaviour: it holds its abdomen up and rocks it back and forth without pause, as though dancing. It is barely two centimetres long, white with brown patches and white dots.

In the wild it lives among the tentacles of anemones and mushroom corals, where it finds protection. Keep it in a small group in a calm reef tank without shrimp eaters; gobies, hawkfish and wrasses make short work of it.

Best not combined with

• Flame hawkfishNeocirrhites armatus
• Falco hawkfishCirrhitichthys falco
• Harlequin tuskfishChoerodon fasciatus
• Zebra lionfishDendrochirus zebra
• Valentini pufferCanthigaster valentini
• Longnose hawkfishOxycirrhites typus
• Marine betta (comet)Calloplesiops altivelis
• Painted frogfishAntennarius pictus
• Fuzzy dwarf lionfishDendrochirus brachypterus
• Coral banded shrimpStenopus hispidus
• Green brittle starOphiarachna incrassata
• Arrow crabStenorhynchus seticornis
• Purple reef lobsterEnoplometopus daumi
• Sally lightfoot crabPercnon gibbesi

Related species

• Coral banded shrimpStenopus hispidus
• Peppermint shrimpLysmata wurdemanni
• Camel shrimpRhynchocinetes durbanensis
• Fire shrimpLysmata debelius
• Pistol shrimp (randalli)Alpheus randalli
• Turbo snailTurbo fluctuosus