What has eaten my cherries?

[Kyle Lambert]

So in my tank i had 4 cherry shrimps (one i thought was a crystal but his colour came in) and 1 blue rilli (a stowaway on so cabomba i had bought). In the tank i also have 4 assasin snails, 10 neon tetras, 3 panda corys and 3 dwarf otos. The other morning i saw the tail of one of my cherries sitting on the sand. At first i assumed this was from the shrimp out growing its exoskeleton and having to shed it. However i have this morning seen a shed shell and its completely clear.

I had read up on my stock and cant see anything about any of the critters being hunters of inverts but i was wondering if any one else could shed some light on it? I have a difficult time seeing my shrimp in amongst the plants but im pretty sure the other shrimps are all still remaining. In fact as i write this i can only count 2 cherries.

appreciate the help.

 

[nduli]

Out of the fish most likely to be tetras. However they could have died for a variety of reasons and cleaned up by the fish and other shrimp. The shrimp will consume dead shrimp very quickly. I'd look at other factors first like stress, bacterial infection or water quality issues.

 

[mafoo]

as nduli said, it most likely died as opposed to being killed and then got scoffed by the remaining shrimp and snails.

 

[saffaboi]

Small likelyhood of a neon taking on a full size shrimp

 

[Michael W]

Bacterial infections can be a problem around this time of the year with all the heat causing bacterial blooms sometimes making it hard for shrimps to shed their shell. Almond leaves, alder cones and water changes will help.

As for livestock wise its usually adviced not to keep shrimps with fish but I've kept them with ottos with no problem. The Neons and Pandas will get the new born shrimps but should pose little to no threat to older shrimps. Assassin snails are known to eat shrimps but they won't purposefully hunt shrimps like they would for other snails in my opinion only if they stumble across one.

 

[Kyle Lambert]

OK cheers for the info guys. Only one of the cherries was a tiddler and the others grew rather large very quickly. If it turns out that theyre just becoming food for the fish then i might set up a small shrimp tank to save the rest of them.