Killer feeder shrimp

[BoomerXIV]

Hi Guys,

I Just wanna share my experience and i hope to get some advice too.

so i had algae problem in my planted betta tank, and i had this stupid idea to place some feeder shrimp there since they are cheap and i think they eat everything including algae. So i bought some of them and put them in my tank, and to my surprise they cleaned the tank in 1 day. However, after i put them one of my fish disappeared one by one (i had several ember tetra beside my betta) and finally 2 days ago my betta is disappeared too. My first thought was there must be some disease or infection in my tank so the first thing i do was doing 50% water change (at this point i dont have any fish in the tank anymore). After doing water change yesterday i put 5 guppy there aaaaaaand one of them is disappeared today.

After doing some research i come to a conclusion that the feeder shrimp i bought is Macrobrachium species and they are known to attack fish. So i tried to remove all of them from my tank, the problem is its so hard to catch them in a planted tank. Until now i think there's several shrimp left in my tank. My question is do you guys have any idea how to catch all of them ? or do you guys think my shrimp is not macrobrachium species and its ok to leave them in the tank ?

by the way im sorry if my post is too long, this is my first post so i dont know how to write this properly, any help is appreciated and thanks for your time
.

 

[utahfish]

I think you bought a feeder shrimp for humans. Those prawn get pretty big and will eat all your fish so if you want to raise prawn then keep them your fish will be good food for them.

 

[BoomerXIV]

I think you bought a feeder shrimp for humans. Those prawn get pretty big and will eat all your fish so if you want to raise prawn then keep them your fish will be good food for them.

maybe, all i know is my LFS is selling those as a feeder for predator fish, and i dont plan to raise them so i guess i have to remove all of them from my tank, anyway thanks for the reply

 

[PheonixKingZ]

I’m sorry for your loss...

Maybe they got stuck in the filter? It is very unlikely that the shrimp actually killed them. More like, the shrimp ate them after they died.

 

[JuiceBox52]

I’m sorry for your loss...

Maybe they got stuck in the filter? It is very unlikely that the shrimp actually killed them. More like, the shrimp ate them after they died.

These shrimp eat and catch fish, you are correct most shrimp dont catch fish, but these ones do

 

[PheonixKingZ]

These shrimp eat and catch fish, you are correct most shrimp dont catch fish, but these ones do

Interesting. My bad!

 

[CassCats]

Yes they look like whisker shrimp, which will even eat other shrimp. They look similar to ghost shrimp, but have massive long front claws and no orange marks on them.

Im sorry for your loss, this is an easy mistake ad they do look very similar

 

[Retired Viking]

Not long ago someone else complained about the same problem and the shrimp did look like ghost shrimp. I had ghost srimp in with guppies for 2 months and I never lost any guppies in fact they had fry and the shrimp seemed to leave them alone too.

 

[JuiceBox52]

I had a "ghost shrimp" that attacked and killed all of the others and a few of my fish

 

[Retired Viking]

Looking at the pictures I think these are prawn also look at the front claws

 

[BoomerXIV]

hi all,

Thanks for your reply, it has been 2 days since i remove most of the shrimp and now i dont have any missing fish case again, i almost certain they are the culprit, the only thing i dont have is the evidence.

well i hope no one make the same mistake as i do.

 

[BoomerXIV]

Yes they look like whisker shrimp, which will even eat other shrimp. They look similar to ghost shrimp, but have massive long front claws and no orange marks on them.

Im sorry for your loss, this is an easy mistake ad they do look very similar

just googled whisker shrimp, i think you are correct, im pretty sure they are whisker shrimp, thanks for the info !

 

[Retired Viking]

hi all,

Thanks for your reply, it has been 2 days since i remove most of the shrimp and now i dont have any missing fish case again, i almost certain they are the culprit, the only thing i dont have is the evidence.

well i hope no one make the same mistake as i do.

It is easy to make a mistake, we all make them, hope the rest of your fish will be fine. There are several types of shrimp that look like ghost shrimp. I was just doing a water change in my shrimp tank and found another baby shrimp so now I have two