puzzling new inhabitants...
Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:58 pm
My RCS shrimp tank is humming along nicely, with the addition of some new stock I got from another hobbyist in my city, along with a very big handful of Christmas moss, which I'd been looking for unsuccessfully for ages. There's an assortment of generations, with some very little guys, berried females, and pregnant females.
But, mysteriously (i suspect they must somehow have come in with the moss, but the tank they all came from is a shrimp-only ten gallon), I am counting eight very small fish fry! They all have egg-bellies, so they did not come from livebearing fish. Some are showing a bit of greenish colour on top and silver hind ends. All so far are just nibbling the algae on the plants in the tank.
My worry: not knowing WHAT they are (I e-mailed the person I got the shrimp from, but haven't had a reply), should I attempt to net them and put them in a fry cage in my community tank, thus causing panic in the tank, I'm sure-- or would it be safe to leave them for a bit until they get a little bigger and easier to catch-- but also, presumably more likely to snack on new-hatched shrimp if they can?
So far, they don't seem to be carnivorous. They were not at all interested in picking at the body of one shrimp that died (don't know why, she was the only fatality so far...)
But, mysteriously (i suspect they must somehow have come in with the moss, but the tank they all came from is a shrimp-only ten gallon), I am counting eight very small fish fry! They all have egg-bellies, so they did not come from livebearing fish. Some are showing a bit of greenish colour on top and silver hind ends. All so far are just nibbling the algae on the plants in the tank.
My worry: not knowing WHAT they are (I e-mailed the person I got the shrimp from, but haven't had a reply), should I attempt to net them and put them in a fry cage in my community tank, thus causing panic in the tank, I'm sure-- or would it be safe to leave them for a bit until they get a little bigger and easier to catch-- but also, presumably more likely to snack on new-hatched shrimp if they can?
So far, they don't seem to be carnivorous. They were not at all interested in picking at the body of one shrimp that died (don't know why, she was the only fatality so far...)