skunk cleaner shrimp missing/dead

[icethisnice]

After 2 years one of our skunk cleaners is missing
we have hermits and a serpant star so I am sure that he died and has recirculated back into the aquarium food chain
my question is how long to these guys live?
I never saw anything wrong with them
him/her and him/her partner spawned about once a month and I often worried about whether all this spawning with no raising young could shorten their life span
ya know I'm not crushed by this loss but it does cut deep these guys were the center stage of our little reef
not only that but I have heard that with a mated pair of clowns if one dies the other soon follows from missing his/her partner
I am afraid that is going to happen to our remaining Skunk
any body out there know how long these guys live on average in aquarium?

 

[reefrunner69]

I don't know the life span, but shrimp (and other mobile inverts) are very sensitive to changes in salinity, ph and temp. If this happened shortly after a waterchange, I would not be surprised if you nudged one of those levels a little to much for the shrimp. Was it eating? Were there any new additions to the tank anytime within a month or two before it's disappearance?

 

[icethisnice]

oh did these guys eat
they would rush out and grab everything they could get there claws on
they would even swim upsidedown in the water surface grabbing food
the temp and the salinity never move more than a mark or two sometimes
the ph we dont check all the time cause the tests are so expensive but I use Kent Reef Reactor for that and calcium and all the other stuff it is good for bout twice a month with a two or three gallon water change and a good vaccuming
on a 20gal high I even top off with R/O water every other day
We havent added any fish to this tank in over a year
The only thing out of the ordinary is that I was moving some rubble pieces around our green star polyps so it would spread onto them (hopefully}
and both of the shrimp were pickin at my arm
I usually won't let them but I couldn't seem to shake them this particular day
do you think it could have ingested some of my dead skin that may have killed it?
I alway rinse my hands really well with warm water up to my elbow before entering the tank however I have always been a little weary about whether I was actually clean enough
where do you think I could get info about the life span of these animals?

 

[reefrunner69]

do you think it could have ingested some of my dead skin that may have killed it?

No

http://reefrock.com/site/article40.html

http://www.aquahobby.com/marine/amboinensis.html

If you do a google search using the scientific name, you should find more