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Are these ghost shrimp or amanos?

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Divinityinlove

Divinityinlove

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Sadly, despite my research on shrimp care, I did not come across ANY warnings of aggressive shrimp to fish only vice versa.

I ordered 5 large AMANOS from an eBay aquatics seller.

Today I discovered one, then two munching on a dead young guppy. Who I had raised from a tiny fry. VERY SAD for me. I then discovered, 2 other young guppies were missing. Are these shrimps killing my guppies??

I found a thread on another forum about this issue, apparently they can be aggressive ghost shrimp, whisker shrimp or some other types...

How likely is it amanos would do this anyway? I had two, 1 died and 1 remaining, never saw this happen even when there was fish deaths and they were lying on the ground dissolving until I found them. Not once from my original amanos from Pets at home.

The shrimp are not underfed although I admit water temp shock from large water changes is a possible factor. I turn heater off, water goes cold as I drain, maybe I put water back in too fast too. Guppies could have had a shock and been vulnerable, apparently this is when shrimp attack.

I read ghost shrimp as mainly raised as feeders, so I'll feed these to my goldfish if they are the issue.

How likely they're amanos but attacking due to having a larger group where as mabye before there was only two so didn't?

Either way, amanos which are aggressive will also get fed to my goldfish I think.

Please help identify them as I'd love your experienced opinions whilst I continue my independent research.

Warning: GRAPHIC CONTENT, but do refer to video for CLEAR image of shrimp-

Otherwise, photos here but my phone isn't best for close
 

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They're amanos but I doubt they killed your guppy...I'm not saying it doesn't happen but I've never come across it in my many years of keeping amanos
 
CaptainBarnicles said:
They're amanos but I doubt they killed your guppy...I'm not saying it doesn't happen but I've never come across it in my many years of keeping amanos
Click to expand...
Are they way more active because they've got a group then?

Other thing I read is ghosts and whiskers spend more time in the water column, amanos more on the gravel and ornaments. This was true for my originals, these lot swim constantly and are on the surface too a lot.

Also, just noticed my originals from Pets at home have white stripe across the back, these don't.

I've now read a thread saying amanos only have a white stripe. Another google article saying ghosts are NOT aggressive.

Another saying Amanos are aggressive and evil, on the same thread others saying their amanos never attack anyone and the poster's must be ghosts....

When I look up ghosts, as oppose to whiskers, ghosts are also called glass shrimp, and have zero spots or stripes.

Original thread I found on another forum people said ghosr shrimp is a generic term for a wide range of transparent shrimp.

Another article saying amanos have more colour, are bred for their colour, whilst photos shows them as kind of yellowish?

I am..... SOOO Confused.
 
What you have in your tank there are definitely amano...ghost and whisker shrimp look more angular with a little hump in the back. Amano have a straight back with brown dots or stripes down the side with a white stripe along the top of the back
 
amano's will kill a dying/sick fish so regardless if your fish was killed by them or died before...it was dead/dying when the amano's got to it
I have amano's and I've seen amano's go for fish but as soon as the fish moves they jump off right away...
I've never seen an amano being agressive enough to actually kill a moving fish
I'd worry more about the reason on why your fish are dying vs the amanos eating them after...
as for water changes...I always tell people 10-15% water changes
there won't be drastic changes in a single w.c and you don't need to chase/fix water parameters
and if you're changing the water for the sake of changing water...stop
when the filter media starts to darken specially filter floss thats when you do water changes...
---> filter floss will literally show you when by its color...
change the water 10%
wait 2 days do another water change and change the filter media...
 
kiko said:
amano's will kill a dying/sick fish so regardless if your fish was killed by them or died before...it was dead/dying when the amano's got to it
I have amano's and I've seen amano's go for fish but as soon as the fish moves they jump off right away...
I've never seen an amano being agressive enough to actually kill a moving fish
I'd worry more about the reason on why your fish are dying vs the amanos eating them after...
as for water changes...I always tell people 10-15% water changes
there won't be drastic changes in a single w.c and you don't need to chase/fix water parameters
and if you're changing the water for the sake of changing water...stop
when the filter media starts to darken specially filter floss thats when you do water changes...
---> filter floss will literally show you when by its color...
change the water 10%
wait 2 days do another water change and change the filter media...
Click to expand...
I started doing large water changes based on a majority response on this forum on a thread months ago. Multiple people said they had no issues with 90% water changes weekly, one person insisted fresh water flow is necessary as is in nature. Its hard to know with so many differing opinions what is best and who is "right" as obviously everyone suggests what works for their own.

I've never had guppies dying like this randomly. The only new thing is the amanos.

I've read they can attack "sleeping" fish, as in when they are resting and are not moving and can look the same as when vulnerable.

I'll just have to wait and see as I'm afraid to move the shrimp into the shrimp tank incase they kill my smaller cherry and blue dreams.
 
the water changes are most likely the reason your fish are dying...
many people have different opinions based on what works for them...
water changes are mostly done for our viewing pleasure of having crystal clear water...
no such thing in nature...there's gunk and whatever in ocean water
freshwater rivers in the amazon literally look brown...
when you do a 50-90% water change you become a "water chaser" as I call them
you basically replacing a volume of water so big in the tank that you have to now "fix" the water so your fish won't die
that's when prime and so on comes into effect for dechlorination and so on...and if you're using RO water then you also have to remineralize the water
my advice? simply stop doing it....
me personally I got 2 tanks one 45gal community tank and a 10gal (shrimps and oto's)
the 45gal has black bar endlers which are similar to guppies...neon tetras, rasboras, zebra plecos, pea puffers, shrimp (amano,crystal black, fire red), hillstream loaches, otos and forktail rainbow
it's a planted tank with root tabs in the soil and no use of prime or anything like that...
when my filter floss gets brown I simply vacuum the soil until the water almost reaches the water pump...
let everything settle down then I change the filter floss and rinse the coarse sponges....
then fill it back up using a shower-head filter which filters most of the chlorine and I get some minerals this way...
I don't add anything be it dechlorinators or prime or Dr something...or whatever they're selling these days to "make your water the best it can be"
mine's about a 10-15% w.c and is only done around every 3 weeks
anybody that tells you to do a 50% is either suggesting it because you have a problem with your water like diseases algae or whatever so you can clear large volumes at once
and anyone that tells you to do a 90% water change is just a plain idiot
also...if you want a careless free water change...drill your tank and put an overflow straight into the drain
and put a drip system into the tank which will switch the 10% weekly
I see you have 1 dying plant in the tank...
I suggest you add more...grab some root tabs and shove them into the gravel or grab real soil at the park and put it inside small mesh bags and put them in the gravel
 
kiko said:
don't add anything be it dechlorinators or prime
Click to expand...
Terrible advice! If the water you're using comes out of a tap and contains chlorine then absolutely DO use dechlorinater...

kiko said:
water changes are mostly done for our viewing pleasure of having crystal clear water...
no such thing in nature...there's gunk and whatever in ocean water
freshwater rivers in the amazon literally look brown...
Click to expand...
I can't even 🤯 someone help!

I'm not suggesting that 90% water changes are what we should be doing to maintain, but you should be changing some out each week. I personally do between 25- 50% and 75% if there's a problem.
 
I don't promote usage of products if things can be done in a more natural way...chlorine? there's tap filters for that...
higher than 50% water changes? its just stupid...
the only reason you should ever do a 50% is if you have some affecting your water...
why do we bother cycling then? we might as well do a fish in cycle then...
if the purpose is to water chase...no point in cycling a tank...
and anyone that suggests doing so it's another water chaser that has killed many fish to get enough experience to have his water parameters dead on when doing water changes
suggesting other people do the same to me its just plain stupidity...
if people want to play scientists with their fish tank it's cool...
but don't spread extreme advice around as something that should be done on a regular basis such as 50-90% water changes
water will evaporate and as such it'll need to be replenished...that's around 5% bi-weekly
water quality isn't great? get better filtration...
water changes?!? do a gravel vac instead...it'll get rid of leftovers plus whatever water you want to replace anyhow...
everytime I see someone say do a 75% water change I just cringe inside...much less a 90...that's just idiotic to me
no offense to anybody that chooses to do so...
but that should never be passed on as good advice to anybody
1661162206261.png

this is how green my tank looks without any of those products...should I start using them and do 50% water changes? xD
 
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kiko said:
I don't promote usage of products if things can be done in a more natural way...chlorine? there's tap filters for that...
higher than 50% water changes? its just stupid...
the only reason you should ever do a 50% is if you have some affecting your water...
why do we bother cycling then? we might as well do a fish in cycle then...
if the purpose is to water chase...no point in cycling a tank...
and anyone that suggests doing so it's another water chaser that has killed many fish to get enough experience to have his water parameters dead on when doing water changes
suggesting other people do the same to me its just plain stupidity...
if people want to play scientists with their fish tank it's cool...
but don't spread extreme advice around as something that should be done on a regular basis such as 50-90% water changes
water will evaporate and as such it'll need to be replenished...that's around 5% bi-weekly
water quality isn't great? get better filtration...
water changes?!? do a gravel vac instead...it'll get rid of leftovers plus whatever water you want to replace anyhow...
everytime I see someone say do a 75% water change I just cringe inside...much less a 90...that's just idiotic to me
no offense to anybody that chooses to do so...
but that should never be passed on as good advice to anybody
View attachment 165224
this is how green my tank looks without any of those products...should I start using them and do 50% water changes? xD
Click to expand...
a10265b34601e8eaf774656c6ec4e855.jpg
 
@AbbeysDad please help a Captain out here, I know you're a huge advocate of a good water change and can explain and educate much better than I can
 
I'd love to hear how stressing out fish doing a 50-90% is good for fish xD
there's no education needed regarding water changes...fish crap...build up ammonia...nitrates...reduce them with water changes...nothing more nothing less
telling someone they should do up to 90% water changes as the OP mentioned from a previous thread...
you could ask the biggest advocate on water changes in the world and unless they are crazy about having crystal clear water
want better water? get better filtration...
there's no reason for people to do such big water changes and stress out fish even killing them by not matching something perfectly like temp or hardness/ph unless there's a problem with the water itself or his fish are sick and you need to replace big volumes of water to dilute and replace whatever is still in the water making them sick
fish tanks are toilets...so we get plants to help out absorb some of the stuff...
people use prime because they're lazy of leaving water in a bucket for a couple days so it's a fast fix...
huge water changes so it's done less...but the thing is...how do you know when you need a water change? xD
or people just do it because it's sunday and they got nothing else to do?
filter floss will tell you when to do a water change...
ammonia? there's stick monitors...
hardness? liquid monitors
ph? co2 controllers...
water changes should be done as needed and not because it's saturday or sunday...
and advising someone to do weekly 90% changes to me is insane and bad advice
heck he came back to the forum now his fish dying thinking his amanos did it...
it wasn't the amanos...
---> it was bad advice
and no matter your preference as a water chaser...telling someone to follow water chasing with such big changes is just as bad to me as advising someone to do a fish in cycle
 
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Leaving water in buckets to naturally dechlorinate/dechlorimine is not always convenient or possible to do.

Not everyone has the space to leave buckets of water for a couple of days......bathroom perhaps but then you have the danger of deodorants etc contaminating the water. Not everyone has room in their house or flat to leave buckets of water all over the place.

Doing 90% water changes is an almost essential part of fishkeeping when an issue is indicating with the water in the aquarium. Whether it be bacterial or parasite or illness or contamination, a 90% water change actually assists in getting rid of whatever it might be. No-one has said it has to be every single water change, usually bigger ones are done for maybe a couple of weeks to get rid of an issue either discovered by testing or if fish are visibly unwell or deceased.

Yes you can use something like a UV to get rid of bacterial bloom, algae bloom etc but they are expensive. Water comes from the tap (or in my case bottles) and its is cheap and readily available compared to a UV.

@kiko I think you are wrong to pick fault with other people's methods so vociferously simply cos what works for you might not work or be convenient for other people. @CaptainBarnicles is experienced just as you are but it is not helpful if you argue with them or anyone else just cos you do things your own way and any other way is wrong.

Fishkeeping is not an exact science, never has been, never will be. Fishkeeping varies from person to person, state to state, country to country...one size does not fit all. Water companies add all sorts of stuff to the water supplies and not all of it is healthy for fish/shrimp and that in turn means you have to adapt your methods to deal with every potential problem and if that means heavy water changes then so be it.

Trying to get your own method across if fine but you shouldn't force your methods onto others cos you do not know what they are dealing with in regard to tapwater quality or anything else cos no two places or suppliers are the same.
 
yep and I mentioned that previously about 50% water changes as a means to replace big volumes in case you have a problem affecting your water...
but why would anybody advise a newcomer to do 50-90% water changes on a weekly basis...
water chasing takes time, patience and lots of observation and it's not something that should be taken lightly or fish will simply die if done improperly
people want to play scientists it's cool by me...want to have crystal clear water all the time...their choice
but if they're passing on advice like this they should also explain that it CAN kill their fish if done wrong
it shouldn't be passed on as something that should be done ALL the time
 
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