Killer Amano shrimp...

[eclecticoldsod]

My LFS has a new shipment of Amano shrimp. All were about an inch long, fit and healthy-looking, each actively swimming around the tank, clutching a catfish pellet and jealously guarding it. I said I'd have six.
“Better watch these,” the guy said, “they're real killers!”
“Not Amano shrimp,” I laughed.
He explained that when they came out of quarantine, he put them in a tank with fifty large Cardinal tetras, and within minutes they had killed ten of them. “Feeding frenzy like a dead pig in a shark tank!” he said.
Now I don't claim to be an expert, but they looked 100% like Amanos to me.
Anyone ever heard of anything like this happening before, or can you suggest what they could be if not Amanos..?

[Mustafa]

Amanos don't have the ability to hold on to healthy fish/shrimp and chomp on them. Just because a shrimp is eating a fish does not mean that it killed the fish. Dealers' tanks are full of dead or dying/half-dead fish. People walking by and seeing amanos eat them may think that the shrimp killed them. In all these years of keeping and breeding shrimp I have never seen any atyid shrimp catch and kill another shrimp or fish.

[eclecticoldsod]

Thanks, Mustafa. I would have said the same thing myself, and did! The guy runs my LFS – part of a large chain – and is usually reliable. He said that he tipped the shrimps into the tank, was called away to deal with a customer, and when he got back ten previously healthy Cardinals were dead and being eaten by the shrimps. I can't believe that he was mistaken, and he surely wouldn't have lied about it – as it cost him a sale.
So what can these Amano look-alikes be, if not Amanos?
I don't want to buy them and test it out in my tanks, and I can hardly ask him to toss some hapless fish in so I can witness it myself. I'll go back tomorrow and see if they will let me take a photo of these shrimps...

[Neonshrimp]

The shrimp also need to be fed after a long shipment. If he has been feeding them regularly since then you should not see the sceen described above.

[Guba]

Did he say if the cardinals were just released into the tank too. If they were, then maybe they went into PH shock. They come from acidic water in the first place, and they aren't commercially bred, they are always caught wild.

[eclecticoldsod]

No, the shrimps had been on their own in the Q tank for two weeks, so were well fed. They were tipped into two established tanks containing the cardinals.

[mikedmatthews]

dude must be nuts. how's a shrimp supposed to be able to catch a cardinal tetra, much less hold it down long enough to kill it? sounds to me like the guy screwed something up and made up a story to cover it.

[Guba]

dude must be nuts.

I agree, but I can't help but wonder if he was trying to make them look vicious like pirranas. Don't let this leak out to Hollywood, I don't want to see a movie called "Attack of the killer Mysis"!

[mikedmatthews]

dude must be nuts.

I agree, but I can't help but wonder if he was trying to make them look vicious like pirranas. Don't let this leak out to Hollywood, I don't want to see a movie called "Attack of the killer Mysis"!

in the opening scene, a greenpeace boat is stopping a whaler. suddenly they notice the water boiling....wait, a swarm of blood-mad shrimp attacks!!!

i think i would actually watch that.

[Guba]

i think i would actually watch that.

I'm ashamed to admit that I would too. And I'd be cheerin' for the shrimp...unless there was a hot cutie, oh wait, they always die anyway, I'm cheerin' for the shrimp!