# CPD and red cherry shrimp



## touch of sky (Nov 1, 2011)

Wow, I am glad you posted this. I have sometimes considered CPD. I have had neons and small rasboras with cherry shrimp, and the fish did not ever bother the big shrimp, but certainly kept down the number of newborns. At the moment, in my tanks with shrimp, I am keeping shrimp only tanks.


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

Hmm, have you seen corpses of dead adult shrimp? Doubt the CPDs would eat the adults' shell.

Have you seen the CPD attacking the shrimp with your own eyes?

Maybe the shrimp and just real good at hiding?

I have heard of some people having shrimp climb out of the tank.

No chance the filter sucked em up?

Or the shrimp died for some other reason and then were eaten?

It is uncommon, but I never rule out oddities, but still would be nice to cover all the grounds to be more certain that is indeed the case.


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## steste1122 (Dec 29, 2015)

I have not seen the CPD attacking them. I can only assume since what was once 40 is now just the 1 that I can actually verify. For the first week the shrimp were moving all over the place, so I see no reason they would get super good at hiding, and I really dont think its possible they could be that good. I saw a few corpses of adults, that were half eaten.


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## Ganyon (Jun 11, 2012)

My cpd's don't mess with my cherries or Amano shrimp.


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## newbieshrimpkeeper (Dec 2, 2014)

WaterLife said:


> Hmm, have you seen corpses of dead adult shrimp? Doubt the CPDs would eat the adults' shell.
> 
> Have you seen the CPD attacking the shrimp with your own eyes?
> 
> ...


Thats a good guess, but it is also possible that the cpds picked on moulting ones(which would be hiding, so u wouldnt be able to see them) and attacked them when their shell was soft, so there would be only half eaten corpses left.


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## Turningdizzy (Apr 5, 2014)

Bummer for you, Steste1122. I put a few in a community tank with some Black Skirts and Serpaes and I watched them be actively hunted. I have this really large Black Skirt, about 3 1/4 inches tip to tail, and I saw her scoop one up and devour it. When I drop Hikari bottom feeder wafers in the tank, she usually grabs one and swims around like a Mursi Tribe member (Lip Disk), until she eats it all. I think any fish will eat a shrimp if said fish can get enough of it in it's mouth to carry it around while chomping it to bite sized pieces. WaterLife made some good points, especially the hiding and the the being sucked up by the intake. Did you look inside your filter? I sent you some cherrys, I believe, and some of them were small enough to to pass into the filter. Then again, they were also small enough to be hors d'oeuvres. Good luck finding them, or not. Have you considered using some ghost shrimp? They get big enough that being eaten is not as likely.


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## Oceangirl (Feb 5, 2013)

I kept cpds with blue velvets, and the ate my entire colony of them except 1 malwa shrimp. If it fits in the mouth it will be eaten. Or if it doesnt fit, rip peices off till it does. My tank was well planted too, floor to ceiling moss.


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## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

Only fish I have ever kept that would not attack/weaken, and then eat my cherry shrimp especially the tiny babies,,,was Threadfin rainbow's.
They have very tiny mouth's, and though I'm sure they might have eaten a few of the tiny baby shrimp, they could not make a very large dent in the population .
Lot's of places to hide also helps and the Threadfin's seemed to prefer upper region's whereas the shrimp stayed close to the substrate.


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## Rion (Dec 29, 2006)

That's really odd, I've had varying numbers of CPDs with cherry shrimp for 7 years now and never had a problem with them killing cherry shrimp, they've never really ever shown an interest in them either.


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## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

Rion said:


> That's really odd, I've had varying numbers of CPDs with cherry shrimp for 7 years now and never had a problem with them killing cherry shrimp, they've never really ever shown an interest in them either.


 Where you sellin all the shrimp?
I gotta trade some off every five or six month's, and seven year's worth of shrimp breeding as you have reported,would be a tank crawling with thousand's?
With that said however, I once kept an electric blue Dempsey that I thought would eat guppy cull's but it was seemingly oblivious to their presence and ignored them completely.


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## Rion (Dec 29, 2006)

roadmaster said:


> Where you sellin all the shrimp?
> I gotta trade some off every five or six month's, and seven year's worth of shrimp breeding as you have reported,would be a tank crawling with thousand's?
> With that said however, I once kept an electric blue Dempsey that I thought would eat guppy cull's but it was seemingly oblivious to their presence and ignored them completely.


LFS, friends, and a large hungry oscar (fed culls); it's not hard to find people to sell/give shrimp to. Plus I've moved 4 times, had multiple heater malfunctions (leading to fish/shrimp stew), shrimp crawling out of tanks, a weird time where I was getting mostly males, then a time of too few males, open filter intakes, buying/renovating a house, new water chemistry that had to be figured out (post moving), down sizing tanks (until recently), and inbreeding have all lead to losing shrimp over the years. But yes I've had a lot of cherry shrimp at once, possibly 200-300 between a 10 gallon and 20 long was the highest I had but that was breaking my bioload and I got rid of a lot of shrimp at that point. But never did I notice CPDs attacking shrimp, they must have been too busy fornicating.


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## Veritas (Aug 9, 2013)

mine LOVED hunting RCS when they got bored.


They much preferred the frozen bloodworms, but I would see little gangs of them team up and attack shrimp on a consistent basis.

I felt it kept my shrimp population in check


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## koiboi (Sep 4, 2011)

CPD's are one of the most interesting fish I've kept but I have to say, taking size into consideration, they are focused little predators. They spawn in my heavily planted 15 column tank almost every morning, and spend every waking minute of the day egg hunting through the plants. You can almost see the concentration on their beautiful, but heartless, little faces! Big fish personality in a tiny package.


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## jrh (Sep 9, 2007)

This been my experience w/CPD as well. Mine comb through moss and subwassertang looking for goodies.



koiboi said:


> CPD's are one of the most interesting fish I've kept but I have to say, taking size into consideration, *they are focused little predators*. They spawn in my heavily planted 15 column tank almost every morning, and spend every waking minute of the day egg hunting through the plants. You can almost see the concentration on their beautiful, but heartless, little faces! Big fish personality in a tiny package.


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