Are The Really Ghost Shrimp?

[Sparkles13]

Before I moved, i had a 10 gallon aquarium with a male betta, 8 neon tetras, and 5 ghost shrimp. My tanks was set up for about 2 months (after cycling). a few weeks after i had added the shrimp (which were the last), i noticed that some of my tetras had gone missing. I assumed that Sparkles, the betta, had gotten annoyed and decided to eat them. Then i happened to catch one of the ghost shrimp eating a live tetra. I rescued the little guy and put him out of his misery seeing as how is back fin was completely gone. I got the ghost shrimp out of the tank and put him into a smaller bowl that i kept on hand to examine him. After much consulting from the internet and a failed attemt at getting information from the pet store i bought the little guys at, i figured out that 3 of my ghost shrimp were in fact macrobrachium shrimp. The pet store told me that there was no way that they had sold me the macrobrachium shrimp. I was wondering if anyone else had any problems with this or knew anyway to prevent these problems because i really like what the ghost shrimp did for my tank, just not for my tetras. 

 

[Robbo89]

Try larger tetra species maybe? I know this really doesn't solve your problem, however some types such as the Black Widow/Phantom are exceptionally attractive and sizeably larger than the size of your average ghost/killer shrimp. 

 

[Baccus]

Macrobachium species of shrimp are easily mistaken for the more desirable ghost shrimp. The easiest way to hopefully tell a macrobachium is by looking at their front nippers, long and waving all over the place generally means a macro short and just reaches their mouths means most other generally fish safe shrimp.