Cleaning stations are an incredible, natural phenomenon that occur on coral reefs. During its day to day life, a fish will build up parasites, dead skin, and mucus on it’s body. To clean themselves fish, like a Nassau grouper, will pull up to a cleaning station where smaller fish like gobies, wrasses, shrimp and other small marine life literally eat these parasites and dead skin off the body of a larger fish. It is a lot like a car wash! This is an amazing example of a mutualistic relationship where all species involved benefit. The larger fish gets cleaned while the smaller organisms get a meal. Cleaning stations can be found just about anywhere on a coral reef, but on the spawning aggregation, they are often found in and around large barrel sponges. Click on this link to see some video of a cleaning station that was taken just yesterday on Little Cayman: Cleaning Station