cannibalism

my fire shrimp ate my cleaner shrimp today... it had always been a little territorial but its weird because they have been in there for so long. anyways cant find the body, so i assume its been eaten, should i pick up the pieces i see or will they go away on their own?

 

They will go away on their own. Bummer, I really like fire shrimp, I wonder why it did that.

 

Fire shrimp are pretty territorial and won't usually allow shrimp of other species. If it allowed it for this long, maybe the cleaner just molted.

 

yeah i thought of that, except a couple tiny rocks the cleaner likes to hang out by were toppled over, and ive seen the fire shrimp being territorial before. my cleaner shrimp was also out for pretty much the whole day and now i havent seen it in a while. maybe i just wasnt feeding it enough? i gave it some krill every other day

 

Every other week I can't see one of my fire shrimp for a day or so. After they molt, they hide until their new exoskeleton hardens.

 

yeah maybe it just molted, but my tank is only 28g so there arent any really good places to hide haha especially with its huge feelers. ill keep my fingers crossed though

 

hahahah thats so funny