# Can amano shrimps attack corrie catfish and any other bottom fitters ?



## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Hi

I have 10Gl planted tank for 8 months with fish and shrimp in it. I have 12 amano shrimps there (9 for about 5 months and 3 I introduced after BAs big sale recently) to handle my algae on my plants. Beside other fish I had (3 weeks ago) 2 ottos (for 5 months) and 3 corries (from the beginning). 3 weeks ago I found one corrie dining with damaged stomach. A week ago I lost 1 Otto without any trace of body. Yesterday and today I'm finding one of my remaining corries in the morning on the side or upside-down . Although when I try to catch him, he is swimming perfectly and trying to swim away from me. And whole day he behaving perfectly. Is it possible that shrimps bothering / attacking him at night ? Any help is appreciated.


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

Have you tested the water recently with a test kit, or had it tested by a store?

I wouldn't think they would be able to bother your fish but they would definitely might try to take advantage of any ill or dead fish..

Sorry about the losses :/


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## Y2KGT (Jul 20, 2009)

I agree with Cid about having your water tested however it sounds like your problems started around the time you added fish and shrimp to your tank 3 weeks ago. Perhaps one of the new additions brought with it a parasite or some sort of disease.
I hope you don't lose any more fish.
--
Paul


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Yes watter tested;

GH - 180
KH - 40
PH - 7
Ammonia - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 30
Problems started 3 weeks ago but I added new shrimp 1 week ago. From my expirience shrimps don't carry disease.


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## ShrimpieLove (Apr 26, 2010)

Heres my experience: 
I had 2 large amanos in a tank with guppies, a molly and also some long fin panda cory cats. The amanos were never interested in the fish- fish could swim right by them and the amanos ignored them. When the molly was added he seemed a bit skinny but swam around fine... The next day my molly wasnt lookin too good and obviously had some illness that I didnt see when I purchased him. The amanos seemed to take notice of that right away and started following him around the tank, as he was swimming slowly and hanging around the bottom. Then the amano came up behind the molly and grabbed onto his tail and took off with him up into a plant... 
The cory cats seemed to be a much easier target for the amanos since they are sitting quietly on the bottom alot... One of my cory cats long fin had got a tear in it and he was not swimming around like normal and right away the amanos started following him around the tank, trying to grab onto his tail ... Eventually they got a hold of him during the night... 
So it seems they are completely fine with fish except if any fish shows signs of illness, like ripped fins or swimming weird/slow or anything that alerts the amanos to an easy target, they may take the opportunity...


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

GuppyLove said:


> Heres my experience:
> I had 2 large amanos in a tank with guppies, a molly and also some long fin panda cory cats. The amanos were never interested in the fish- fish could swim right by them and the amanos ignored them. When the molly was added he seemed a bit skinny but swam around fine... The next day my molly wasnt lookin too good and obviously had some illness that I didnt see when I purchased him. The amanos seemed to take notice of that right away and started following him around the tank, as he was swimming slowly and hanging around the bottom. Then the amano came up behind the molly and grabbed onto his tail and took off with him up into a plant...
> The cory cats seemed to be a much easier target for the amanos since they are sitting quietly on the bottom alot... One of my cory cats long fin had got a tear in it and he was not swimming around like normal and right away the amanos started following him around the tank, trying to grab onto his tail ... Eventually they got a hold of him during the night...
> So it seems they are completely fine with fish except if any fish shows signs of illness, like ripped fins or swimming weird/slow or anything that alerts the amanos to an easy target, they may take the opportunity...


Are you sure they were amanos? They sound more like macrobrachium ghost shrimp to me. I have 6 amanos in my tank, and I can't imagine them attacking anything: for one thing, they don't even have pincers!


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## ShrimpieLove (Apr 26, 2010)

Yes they were amanos I got from menagerie, not ghost shrimp. Igor has them now actually, we traded  they were pretty big so it was no problem for them to grab a fish that was ill 
They ONLY went for fish that had some obvious illness/damage... All other fish were fine, the amanos wouldnt touch them at all... But if a fish was hanging near the bottom and not doing too well the amanos would sit right next to them waiting for their chance... 
Though the amanos were pretty bold and had no problem getting in a bunch of healthy feeding fish and stealing their food ...
They must see illness as opportunity for an easy meal


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Very interesting. My amanos (most of them) are big as well. But I never saw them to attack any fish (including sick) at all. They will try to still food from fish and fight between themselves for food, but usually my fish will nip on them if they try to still fish food. But this may be explains why I never found a body of one of my ottos.


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## AquaNekoMobile (Feb 26, 2010)

One thing I've learned over time is that if I ever get any livestock from the LBS and people to always put the livestock in quarntine.

The quantine time is 4 weeks if I get it from a LBS. ~1-2 weeks from a GTAA members. 2 weeks from unknown people.

Better to take caution with the quarntine then putting it in the main tank and having anything undetected happen.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

AquaNekoMobile said:


> One thing I've learned over time is that if I ever get any livestock from the LBS and people to always put the livestock in quarntine.
> 
> The quantine time is 4 weeks if I get it from a LBS. ~1-2 weeks from a GTAA members. 2 weeks from unknown people.
> 
> Better to take caution with the quarntine then putting it in the main tank and having anything undetected happen.


I'm not sure how your comment relevant to the issue as first Corrie I lost 2 weeks before I introduced any new live stock to my fish tank and otto on the same day. Most of my live stock is from BAs and I don't quarantine them and I did not loose that many fish yet. And the fish I lost so far has been in the tank for over 4 months or so. Anyway my second corrie is dead as well. I'm only left with 1 now. And they all have been in my tank almost from the beginning. I'm going to test the watter from the bottom of my tank (which I saved after yesterday's watter change) as something defiantly wrong with my bottom. In past two-3 months I lost 9 RCS, 2 CRS, 2 fire shrimps and now 2 corries and 1 otto.


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

Amanos don't attack fish. But if your fish is sick enough, they are food. It's a fair game, amanos are scavengers. Even cherries would eat off the dead if given a chance.
Your dead RCS and CRS is almost a given if you're going to house them in the same tank as the amonos shrimp. Every time a smaller shrimp molt, they are food. If they successfully hide well, they get to live until the next time they molt. So it'll be a slow process, but eventually, 1 year maybe 2 years it will be inevitable. The only reason why some people don't have this problem is because the RCS or CRS population grow faster than they get eaten.
Quarantine is a must, now you know why all the pros do it.
As for the sick and dead fish, I suspect poor water quality is a start. Up side down fish could only mean one thing, poor water quality that lead to internal bacterial infection most likely bladder infection. So now you need to fix your water quality and then treat your fish for bacterial problems. Melafix is a good remedy to stop the bacteria from spreading, but won't fix the ones that have internal problem. You might need a hospital tank for the affected ones and treat them with antibacterial meds.

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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Intersting advice regarding CRS and RCS - Zebrapl3co. Thank you very much for it. On that topic my question is that I found all my CRS and RCS looks like trying to molt but body was untouched and all intact not in peaces. So I'm not sure if amanos try-ed to eat them. Regarding my watter quality I posted earlier my watter test and BAs guys told me that according to test my watter is good. So I don't understand what to fix in there. Also could it be different watter quality on the top and bottom of the tank ? I probably agree with you on the bacteria issue as in the past week and half some of my plants has been attacked by unknown decease / bacteria and I lost more than half of my plants. Here is separate post on it http://www.gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19291
I'm not sure if the same bacteria / decease attacking my corries and ottos ? Also how to test watter from the bottom of my tank ??? Any help is appreciated !!!


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

Oh, is that the tank?
If the shrimp die whole then no, it won't be the amonos then.
The reason why I am thinking it's bacterial is because of the upside down cory.
If it was a virus, your fish would be OK in the morning and dead by night.
Bacteria strikes slower and it's hard test for both of these. You just get dead fish every couple of days. Try dosing melafix for a week to see if this can help.
I would have suspect it was an O2 problem, but since your cories are the first to go, then that can't be either.
So you turn off your CO2 at night.
As for multi layer water, I kind of doubt it. I know that in large models with thousands of gallons of water or when fresh water meets salt water in a big river, there will be mult layers of water, but not in small scale like a tank.

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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

I don't use / have CO2 system at all. And my first Corrie died before I started to put Excel in the tank. I only put it twice 2ml last week and 1ml yestarday as it looks like it helping to stop decease from spreading on the plants. The only fish which is dieing so far is a bottom fitters. All other fish is doing fine. And it not dieing every 2-3 days only every 10 days or so. Also where can I buy melafix, BAs ?


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## trailblazer295 (Mar 7, 2010)

I have about 18 amano in my 36g tank along with 2 L144 pleco. I haven't seen them take any notice in them at all. I have had fish dissppear without a trace but seeing as the live fish look healthy with no damage it is more likely I had one pass away and the clean up crew do what they do best.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Surprisingly my other corrie is still alive. It was swimming yesterday upside-down in coroutine container but today it's fine. When my BA friend looked on it originally he told me that my Corrie it too skinny. Since then I put a lot of pellets in the container and it looks like he is eating. The very possible that my problem was not a bacteria but not feeding enough my bottom feeders (including amanos) in hopes they will deal much better with algae on my plants. Since yesterday I started to put more bottom feeders food and looks like they are much happier right now !


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## AquaNekoMobile (Feb 26, 2010)

ppaskova said:


> Surprisingly my other corrie is still alive. It was swimming yesterday upside-down in coroutine container but today it's fine. When my BA friend looked on it originally he told me that my Corrie it too skinny. Since then I put a lot of pellets in the container and it looks like he is eating. The very possible that my problem was not a bacteria but not feeding enough my bottom feeders (including amanos) in hopes they will deal much better with algae on my plants. Since yesterday I started to put more bottom feeders food and looks like they are much happier right now !


Becareful not to put too much in. I normally break the algae flake into 2-4 so more then one livestock can feed on it without bumping heads if they get into a feeding frenzy or such. If you see that that say 4 broken pieces put in and 2 are done and some livestock is having a fight over the food then add 1-2 small broken pieces in. Helps keep the water less polluted and build up of ammonia/nitrites from the excess food. Hope the cory is doing ok.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

AquaNekoMobile said:


> Becareful not to put too much in. I normally break the algae flake into 2-4 so more then one livestock can feed on it without bumping heads if they get into a feeding frenzy or such. If you see that that say 4 broken pieces put in and 2 are done and some livestock is having a fight over the food then add 1-2 small broken pieces in. Helps keep the water less polluted and build up of ammonia/nitrites from the excess food. Hope the cory is doing ok.


Corrie is still in coronation but he is very active lately and eats all the food he gets. I may put him back to the tank today or tomorrow. As per algae waffles as they very big I only feed half of one per day per my tank and I usually break it to 6-8 peaces as a lot of bottom feeders pick on it (including amanos)


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