Cherry and Amano Compatibility

[sculligan]

Hi All,

I have been keeping Amano's for about two years, and intermittently trying to add Cherry shrimp. My Amano's always survive and flourish, whereas the cherries tend to dissappear two weeks or so after introduction.

I had always thought that the Cherries has been eaten by whatever I was stocking at the time (ranging from Ciclids, which I am sure would have eaten them, to tetra's, guppies and gourami's), but on reading through the forums see that Amano's could also be a potential culprit for the untimely demise of my Cherries.

My question to the forum is, would Amano's be responsible for eating my Cherries?

Thanks.

 

[Nick16]

there is a slight chance amanos might eat the tiny tiny cherry shrimp (babies), but they wont touch larger ones (imagine, teenagers and onwards in human terms)

if you start off with 10-12 cherry shrimp you will have doubled your numbers in probably 2-3 weeks.

what else do you have in the tank? are there any ornaments they could be under? shrimp will hide if threatened and will not come out.
have you checked your filter? they can get sucked into the inlets and end up (still alive) in the bottom of the filters under all the media. you might want to put sponges over the inlets if you have external filters.

 

[sculligan]

Cheers Nick,

I wasn't stocking babies, usually straight from LFS (between 2-3cm's). There was good cover for the shrimps, heavy growth of crypts, but on rescaping I am sure that they have not been hiding, and I check my filters regularly (weekly on water changes).

I am sure it is my other live stock that is enjoying an expensive meal then. I just wanted to make sure that the Amano's are not an issue, and thought to test the forum to allay my concerns.

Thanks for the quick response.

 

[stujo]

Hi - did you say you had tetras in your tank. I have read many times that if a shrimp is small enough to go into a fish's mouth it will end up as a meal. However, believe me when I say that tetras (well at least neon tetras) take great pleasure in attacking smallish (in my case 1cm) shrimps, even if they cant eat them in one go. It cost me 10 yellow shrimp at £4 each and a couple of CRS before I realised they were the culprits in my case. I have a quite heavily planted tank and became aware of my neons hovering intently above my low growing plants (cryps) and then swooping in. I then started to find part eaten shrimps. However, they ignored my amanos which are about 3cm. So I "destroyed" my nicely planted tank catching the 9 neons and relocated them to LFS, since then I havent lost any more shrimp and all my shrimps appear more frequently and are most certainly happier and full of confidence again. So in my case the neons were definitely the culprit, but of course mine might have been the exception. The amanos do sometimes try and boss my CRS out of the way to get to a piece of food, but never "attack" them and the CRS don't seem at all disturbed by the amanos, they lurk around close to the amanos waiting to nick a piece of food at an opportune moment - hope this help - Stuart

 

[sculligan]

Hi Stuart,

Thanks for the additional advice. I don't have neon's anymore, but when I was stocking them they didn't cause any problems, the Bolivian Rams on the other hand enjoyed my shrimp immensely.

Good to hear that your Amano's were not a real issue, and I have seen the same behaviour with mine and the CRS. I guess the trick is to buy large enough stock initially to prevent any issues, and hold no hopes on babies as these are likely to be eaten by my guppies.

Thanks,
Sean

 

[basil]

Sorry to say that I've witnessed Amano shrimp attack and kill one of my adult crs very recently. She was berried too. The Amano was hell bent on eating the eggs she was carrying. Every time he caught her, he would turn her upside down and start picking out the eggs.

Needless to say Amano now rehomed!

 

[mr. luke]

Havnt read all the advice given but my amanos used to take full sized crs......