kardosrobertkh Posted August 24, 2016 Report Share Posted August 24, 2016 Hi! So I've just witnessed actual cannibalism in my tank. I saw 1 RCS under about 5-6 others who went completely mental. The guy wasn't dead, it wasn't just a mold, and I'm relatively sure I wasn't just misinterpreting their playful wrestling. I've started to fight them off with a chopstick which I use only to manage my shrimp tank, and the victim was limping around, head heavily beaten up. When I stopped guarding him and fending off the others, they've just jumped back at him. Prior to this, I was brushing some brown algae on the glass with a tooth brush, which I also use only in my tank, and it was well rinsed before first use. A few minutes after the brushing, they've started to crowd up around the wall which I was cleaning, and about 15-30 minutes later I saw them ganging up on 1 shrimp. Did I just invent a way to trigger some sort of battle-royal-reflex on my shrimps? Is it possible that the scraped brown algae started to stick on that one shrimp in particularly large quanities and he became pretty much a walking sandwich for the others? It's a 34cm x 24cm x 17cm tank. I've got around 10 adults, 8-10 medium ones and at least 10 S-XS sized ones, though who knows actually how many of them are there... Any ideas? Thanks, Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimple minded Posted August 24, 2016 Report Share Posted August 24, 2016 I witnessed the exact same behavior in one of my tanks last night. My guess is that your situation is similar, namely that a female freshly molted and didn't survive the ensuing carnage of several males. I watched her make several attempts to hide only to be chased down repeatedly, and a few minutes later I checked back and they were all eating her alive. The strangest thing to me about the ordeal is how all of the other shrimp "got the message" simultaneously that the party turned from sexy-time to eating-time. I have other berried females in the same tank, so right now I'm chalking this up to "survival of the fittest". I know this was an older shrimp, and I guess she didn't have the energy/strength to endure the "rough" shrimp mating process. Not fun watching fat females get devoured, but who knows what else goes on the other 23 hours of the day I'm not looking at my shrimp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
35ppt Posted August 25, 2016 Report Share Posted August 25, 2016 In general, a freshly molted decapod (shrimp) is vulnerable. Or, it could be less mobile while in the process of molting (ecdysis). I think if you make sure they are getting sufficient protein, it is supposed to reduce their desire to go after the freshly molted shrimp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uslanja Posted August 25, 2016 Report Share Posted August 25, 2016 I thought Red Cherry Shrimp were strictly herbovouirs? Mine did not show any interest in daphnea or brine shrimp but sure did gang up on an algae wafer. That sure does make me see these not so harmless shrimp in another light! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kardosrobertkh Posted August 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 25, 2016 So when they find one that's either molting or molted very recently, they just beat them up? Wat. BTW they have lots of places to hide so I don't understand why she was out in the open like that. Maybe the freshly scraped algae lured her out... But then it means that I can continue brushing the brown algae from my glass with a shrimp tank-only toothbrush and it won't trigger another random shanking session on the citizens, right? They do get some protein sometimes in the form of... well either eating each other, or sometimes a few bugs drown themselves in the water and after a few days I just see something in the water that looks like the shell of some bug. Also, one of my colleagues had a swarm of malaysian trumpet snails so he gave me like 15 of them and I've put them in a separate tank that was only gravel, a few rocks and plants in an about 5L tank that looked like a giant wine glass. The started to die out so I've put them in with the shrimps since there are other snails who look OK, but they just died out anyways, so the shrimps have had a few snails to eat. I guess that counts as protein. My flatmate had an axolotl and he gave him frozen bloodworms. Should I serve it to the red cherries? I'm guessing just in tiny pieces, and waiting for it to thaw to room temperature. Maybe it will sate their bloodlust. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimple minded Posted August 25, 2016 Report Share Posted August 25, 2016 20 hours ago, 35ppt said: In general, a freshly molted decapod (shrimp) is vulnerable. Or, it could be less mobile while in the process of molting (ecdysis). I think if you make sure they are getting sufficient protein, it is supposed to reduce their desire to go after the freshly molted shrimp. After seeing a couple instances of this 6+ months ago, I did start feeding SK Protein and very recently CSF Protein Powder. I hadn't seen this activity for some time, and figured I had addressed the situation, however the cull tank where this occurred had a semi-regular feeding of protein, so I don't think that protein can eliminate this altogether. I have to think that being a cull tank, it has a higher percentage of males, and those odds had to be a contributing factor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kardosrobertkh Posted August 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 25, 2016 I think the victim was a female, but it looked like most of the attackers were females as well. By the way, I was mistaken when I wrote "bloodworms", they are actually frozen cubes of tubifex. I've chipped one of them with a knife and after thawing I dripped it into the tank. They didn't appeared impressed.. Do they eat it, or is it just going to ruin the water quality, which I suspect isn't stellar at the moment already? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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