HELP!!!! My Shrimp EATING Each Other

[Acorn]

Hey All,

 

So I reduced the amount of food down that I was feeding my tank due to getting a small amount of worms in my tank. I was feeding two large pinches of fish flakes and 6 Shrimp pellets, with a small pinch of food at night.

 

I reduced it to one large pinch in the morning and 5 Shrimp Pellets

 

My stock is 2 x Platys, 1 x Hillstream Loach, 8 x Apple / Zebra Snail and 100+ Shrimp (Two Cherry and the rest are classed as Wild Shrimp so I have been told) Its a 15 Gallon Tank

 

I have just sat down to see how my tank was doing and noticed that the shrimp have started to eat each other.

 

Five shrimp were eating one of my original two cherry shrimps and the largest shrimp we have that measures about an inch and a half in length was eating one that was the same colour as him.

 

So whats going on? Is this normal behavior or am I not feeding them enough now?

 

All the shrimp were alive a couple of hours before.

 

My Shrimp look like this

 

[Vpier]

Could they have died? Shrimps will eat dead shrimps.  Also shrimps can be vulnerable after a molt, especially female's. If a female molts and you have to many males, they can kill the female trying to mate.

[Citycode01]

Yes Viper probably right, they eating dead shrimps, mine do this all the time, they can consume dead shrimp within a few hours and left only the shell with some colour left on the tail that's how you can say it was a dead shrimp and not the shell left from molt.