Peppermint shrimp fighting?

Hi - I have a ten-gallon tank stocked with two peppermint shrimp, a few other small inverts and two oscellaris clownfish. Today I walked in on my two shrimp apparently fighting each other, which they've never done before. One of the shrimp, the more brightly-colored one, killed the other (despite my efforts with a net to separate them) and began eating it. The shrimp that died had just molted recently before my other shrimp attacked it, so it was vulnerable. Now the blue-leg hermit crabs in my tank are also eating the dead shrimp.

Is there any specific reason why this might have occurred? Am I just not feeding them enough? Or is it something else?

 

could be not feeding em.or the one that won might be ppregnated.and fighting over the babys lol.and when mom dont have a very good spot for the babys dady eats em and momy coute him and eat him

 

Could just be survival of the fittest.

 

Peppermints will turn on a freshly molted one of their own kind. I have vid of it happening in my old tank. Mine were always very well-fed.

 

Really?? How can I stop this from happening in the future, then?

 

I would think plenty of hiding places, but any invert that molts is going to be easy pray for whoever is hungry enough to eat em.

 

Peppermint shrimp are evil plan and simple. The wreaked havoc in my tank. Ate the aiptasia but also tore apart my lps and ate my mini-maxi anemones.

 

No, there's nothing you can do about it except provide plenty of hiding places and hope the molting shrimp is smart enough to actually hide. The one I lost was molting on the skimmer intake right out in the open during lights on. The other pep came hauling it over from the other end of the tank to attack it.