# Do amano shrimp hunt fish?



## fishsandwitch (Apr 20, 2008)

amano shrimp do not attack fish


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## crazie.eddie (May 31, 2004)

Amano shrimps are not predators, just scavengers. They will eat DEAD fish.


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## Midnkight (Jun 21, 2008)

well after moving some stuff around to search for them, no luck.  no dead fish part no dead anything. >_< and it not like i got a lot of things in my tanks. sigh, oh well. life moves on. i have a feeling a week from now, i am going to wake up and be back up to 5 neons haha


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## wayneside (Jun 17, 2008)

if the neon died or was a weakling...there is a good chance the amanos devoured him. i had some amanos in a tank with cardinal tetras and they never bothered the cardinals...so i doubt they just went after the neon.


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## Midnkight (Jun 21, 2008)

that my biggest guess too, i figure my otos would die before the neon since the neon have been in there a week longer.the otos and amano were new addictions yesterday. I hope the neon was just caught or weak, cause i have one neon which i isolated that might be sick and the syntoms are pointing towards Neon Tetra Disease which is why i am looking for the dead fish bits. Just trying to cover all the bases before i lose the entire tank.


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## stev0205 (Nov 5, 2007)

what more than likely happened is your baby neon died(of what cause i can't tell) and the amano's ate the remains overnight. I wouldn't doubt that they could eat the entire body in one night. At my lfs when we get in smaller neon's they go in the tank with our dwarf shrimp and if a tetra is dead when it comes in... the shrimp can eat the entire thing before my shift is over


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

What really probably happened was you dumped the water they where in in the tank, with some disease so the already stressed fish may have died from that. 

Or you could have a small machrobial species.

-Andrew


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## bulrush (May 7, 2007)

Neon tetras are a notoriously weak and inbred species in the fish trade. It is very likely it simply died and was consumed by shrimp when you put it in your tank. Even if you get the fish used to the water gradually neons can still die. Cardinal tetras, which look a lot like neon's, are more hardy.


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## wayneside (Jun 17, 2008)

bulrush said:


> Neon tetras are a notoriously weak and inbred species in the fish trade. It is very likely it simply died and was consumed by shrimp when you put it in your tank. Even if you get the fish used to the water gradually neons can still die. Cardinal tetras, which look a lot like neon's, are more hardy.


+1 for cardinals...


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## fishsandwitch (Apr 20, 2008)

are you sure they are amanos there are some macro (bigger) shrimp that look kinda like amanos as babys and then they grow big and can eat fish even as babys


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## JasX (Jan 18, 2016)

Midnkight said:


> that my biggest guess too, i figure my otos would die before the neon since the neon have been in there a week longer.the otos and amano were new addictions yesterday. I hope the neon was just caught or weak, cause i have one neon which i isolated that might be sick and the syntoms are pointing towards Neon Tetra Disease which is why i am looking for the dead fish bits. Just trying to cover all the bases before i lose the entire tank.


Hi, just to share my experience. Two days ago around 12am, i could not sleep and so wonder towards my fish tank. As I switch on the aquarium light, i witnessed one of my Amano Shrimp grabbing the tail of an adult male healthy guppy and eating the tail! My guppy is still alive and struggling to release itself but in vain. I had to use my net to break them up and saved my guppy.

And later in the day, i witnessed another attack by two amano shrimp eating a baby neo tetra, which still has its gills moving.
I removed all the amano shrimps to another holding tank soon after.

I've read many comments about amano shrimps be gentle and will not attack small fish but i personally witnessed it myself. 
And I would say they are very active at nite would prey on the small fishes during the nite when the fishes are not so active and "sleeping". 

I believe they would also prey on fish that are unwell or weak.

My tank is a 3 ft x 2 ft x 2.5ft (H), there are about 80 neo tetras and 5 guppys with 8 amano shrimps. All were introduced about 2 days apart into the tank.


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## Sub-Mariner (Jan 25, 2016)

JasX, it is possible that when you purchased the amano shrimp, you were actually sold some form of prawn. They can look similar when prawns are still small. This happened to me when I was just starting out. I had two Electric Blue Jack Dempseys that got along famously in a 56 gallon. One day one was missing, so I removed the decor from the tank, only to find that what I thought was a ghost shrimp I had fed to the Dempseys months earlier was a prawn that had managed to hide and grow to about 5" in length before I discovered it. I placed it in a smaller tank by itself, and before I got rid of it I was feeding it other prawns, goldfish, and beef heart. My wife got scared of it when it reached 8" so I sold it to my LFS. That thing was a Kraken for sure.


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## alcimedes (Dec 7, 2014)

Take a photo of the amano shrimp please? it would move this conversation along nicely I wager.


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## JasX (Jan 18, 2016)

alcimedes said:


> Take a photo of the amano shrimp please? it would move this conversation along nicely I wager.


Hi Alcimedes. sorry for the late reply. Please see attached picture of the Amano shrimp I managed to take a picture of. Not sure if this is the one that attacked my fish.

Bump: Thanks

Bump:


Sub-Mariner said:


> JasX, it is possible that when you purchased the amano shrimp, you were actually sold some form of prawn. They can look similar when prawns are still small. This happened to me when I was just starting out. I had two Electric Blue Jack Dempseys that got along famously in a 56 gallon. One day one was missing, so I removed the decor from the tank, only to find that what I thought was a ghost shrimp I had fed to the Dempseys months earlier was a prawn that had managed to hide and grow to about 5" in length before I discovered it. I placed it in a smaller tank by itself, and before I got rid of it I was feeding it other prawns, goldfish, and beef heart. My wife got scared of it when it reached 8" so I sold it to my LFS. That thing was a Kraken for sure.


Hi Sub-Mariner, sorry for the late reply. Thanks for the info. I have removed 5 of the Amano Shrimp to another holding tank, leaving only 3 in the tank. So far I have not witness any attacks and my small fishes are doing fine. Hope it will maintain this way. :smile2:


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## alcimedes (Dec 7, 2014)

Thanks for the photo. The def. looks like a regular ammano shrimp.

If you have a shrimp that looks mostly the same as the others, but the pincer arms are longer than all the other shrimp, that would be the one to keep an eye on.


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## Sub-Mariner (Jan 25, 2016)

Agree with Alcimedes, that is an Amano Shrimp, and do indeed keep an eye on anything with longer pincers.


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## JasX (Jan 18, 2016)

Thank you Alcimedes & Sub-Mariner for the advise.

Have a great week ahead.

Thanks!


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## PlantApprentice (May 8, 2017)

I found this thread after googling for the same problem. I had two reticulated siamensis jump from my tank today and I put them back in after finding them (Pretty much dry, but still breathing) and i've noticed the amano shrimp jumping on them whenever getting close to the siamensis and the siamensis start to freak out and wiggle them off. Could it be the amanos picking at them because they possibly lost their slime coat after drying up?


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## Ganthet (Aug 9, 2017)

Hi, from my experience, Amanos do not go out of their way to hunt fish. That said, I have seen Amanos try to get the jump on fish that are dying. I have had cardinal tetras which were severely weakened from old age, and lying on the tank floor. They were harassed by Amano shrimps who probably went hungry for a while beforehand.

But if your fish are perfectly healthy, then there's no reason why the Amanos would have bothered them.


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

PlantApprentice said:


> I found this thread after googling for the same problem. I had two reticulated siamensis jump from my tank today and I put them back in after finding them (Pretty much dry, but still breathing) and i've noticed the amano shrimp jumping on them whenever getting close to the siamensis and the siamensis start to freak out and wiggle them off. Could it be the amanos picking at them because they possibly lost their slime coat after drying up?


Most people will say that amanos don't harm fish, but I'll say it's quite possible. I've seen an amano going after a cory cat that wasn't dead, there's a video on Youtube of amanos going after fish, and there are plenty of stories of amanos eating fish.


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## KrypleBerry (May 23, 2017)

Zoidburg said:


> PlantApprentice said:
> 
> 
> > I found this thread after googling for the same problem. I had two reticulated siamensis jump from my tank today and I put them back in after finding them (Pretty much dry, but still breathing) and i've noticed the amano shrimp jumping on them whenever getting close to the siamensis and the siamensis start to freak out and wiggle them off. Could it be the amanos picking at them because they possibly lost their slime coat after drying up?
> ...


These must be some severely underfed amano shrimp. For an opportunistic omnivore to go predator it must be in lean times ime. Have you tried supplementing their diet with more than just algae? Do they get a chance at food before fish clean it up? Amanos dont play games when it comes to food, or stealing it. Like others here, I have never witnessed an amano attack a healthy fish.


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