Disaster

Well my pygmy corys arrived today and they are adorable. However, they had been in the tank less than half an hour and already two inhabitants had tried to eat them! Firstly my male betta (who had previously been a model community fish) took a bite out of one tail, and then just as I had dealt with him, I saw one of my shrimp (I think they are amano or glass from pictures) stalk and pluck one of the corys from the sand! Fortunately I still had my net in my hand from separating the betta and managed to save the pygmy. It was scary how fast it struck! All three shrimp have been removed and the betta is temporarily in a floating breeding trap.

Gutted. Am taking the shrimp straight to the lfs now. I love my betta, he's gorgeous, but he's gonna have to go too. Can't believe it. All the corys are exploring the tank quite happily now, and even schooling with the cardinal tetra. And taunting my poor betta in his temporary jail. Feeling extremely stupid, will never treat a betta as a community fish again

What can I replace him with? Not necessarily going to straight away, have had enough fishy trauma for today. I had been considering some sort of gourami somewhere down the line, are they safe to keep with cardinal tetra and pygmy corydoras?

I can't quite believe it of the shrimp - certainly my amanos back away from any fish. THey are currently sharing a tank with some Limia Tridens, which are pretty small, and they go and grab pellet food from the shrimps' jaws.

As I understand it, ghost shrimp (glass shrimp) are if anything even more timid, to the point of relinquishing food voluntarily.

How sure are you of the ID of the shrimp?

the_lock_man said:

How sure are you of the ID of the shrimp?

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TBH I'm not, they were sold simply as freshwater shrimp (bought them when I was an extreme newbie), and the pictures of amano and glass are the only ones that seemed to match. After that i didn't give it too much thought as I've never had any problems with them - presumably because they had the substrate to themselves and all the other fish are at least twice the size of the corys. Stupidly I thought they'd be safe with all fish

there are plenty of transparent shrimp that can be quite aggressive. If they have elongated claws/pincers then that would be the first sign that they are not glass or amano shrimp.

ZoddyZod said:

there are plenty of transparent shrimp that can be quite aggressive. If they have elongated claws/pincers then that would be the first sign that they are not glass or amano shrimp.

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That's where I was coming from.

Hang on, i'll take some pictures...

Just uploading and resizing... now I can get a good look at them in shallow water, two are transparent and the culprit actually has quite a bit of blue in his tail and orange on his joints.

Here's the big one next to one of the two clearer ones


The two clearer ones on their own


And the big evil one (looks a bit darker than he is, probably because of my shadow)

The big evil one is not an amano, for sure. I wwould say it's not a ghost either.

A quick Google confirms that Ghost Shrimp do not have those big limbs, and I know from experience that Amanos don't.

Frehswater Shrimp seems to be used as a Catch-all term, if the LFS isn't entirely certain what they've got. The other two look like Amanos, it's quite difficult to see on a small photo (pity about the site limit of 100Kb!) - assuming I'm right, those two can go back in the tank - but I would take that other one back to the LFS.

the_lock_man said:

The big evil one is not an amano, for sure. I wwould say it's not a ghost either.

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+1 - those long pincers are a dead giveaway. Don't know what species, but it looks like a predator.

Any idea what the other two are? Are they safe to go back in the tank?

the other two could be ghost or amano, but it's difficult to tell from those small pics.

Ok i'll put them up one post at a time so I can use larger images. Here are the non evil two


And the defendant

The good two, I reckon, are Amanos, just because they're that little bit darker than Ghosts, and they don't seem to have the hump on the back of the Ghost.

The evil one - I'm no expert on predatory shrimp (or indeed anything!), and it doesn't really matter - you don't want it!

Believe me I'm getting rid of him asap, he's even started attacking the other two now! Quite interesting to look at him now I can see him clearly, nice colouring. Still evil though. So do you think I can return the other two to my main tank?