Sweet little boy...

[3fsh]

The other day I was talking to my trombone teacher, telling him about the betta that he is *hopefully* going to adopt from me... and I told him proudly how Popeye happily shares his little 1g tank with two ghost shrimp and that they are best buds. Of course, I come home and what do I find? Half of a ghost shrimp hanging out of his mouth with this look on his face that says, "What?! I got hungry, okay?!" I don't understand... he has lived peacefully with these 2 shrimp for over a month now. Why would he all of a sudden eat one of them?

*edit*: Now that I think of it, I bet the evil Mr. Spike next door to him is being a bad influence...

 

[AlexsDaddy]

Hey, he's a carnivore. Bettas are just like that though. Things can be good for a while, then bam! He don't like it anymore. I had to take one of my frogs out of a 2.5 cause the betta he was in with at the time started attacking him all the time. They were together for a couple months as well.

 

[BettaMomma]

Poor Mr. Shrimpy. heh heh

I'm sure Popeye was swimming around and stopped and thought... "Hmm - that thing is cute and fun to play with and all, but I wonder what he tastes like...."

hee hee hee!

 

[abstract]

same exact thing happened in my 10 gallon w/ my metallic plakat.....over a month and a half went by and all 3 ghost shrimp were fine...he would try to get them but they had plenty of hiding spaces....came home one day to legs sticking out of his mouth and all 3missing....i think once they figure out how to catch something, its all over...if they never figure that out, they can live together relatively peacefully

 

[Synirr]

Haha, Mini does the same thing! She leaves the shrimp alone forever, then all of a sudden I'll see her attacking one. She waits until they shed their exoskeletons to go in for the kill, the sneaky little devil

 

[snowyangel]

Same thing here except with a good sized snail. Pheonix(my red betta) never touched the juicy snail for months then during one water change i saw.....*dun dun dun* ....an empty snail shell. )

 

[3fsh]

Lol... so I guess it's a common thing. It's so bizzare... he's just ignoring the other shrimp in there. Maybe friends are only tolerated when they don't have a craving for shrimp or escargo...