Assassins vs. Ghost Shrimp.

[FasterShrimpo]

Well we all the know the famous assassin snail. Well I decided to pick up couple from a cruddy local pet shop. I got them for 1$ canadian each! :grinyes:
So I arrive home about 10 minutes later. Acclimate them....yadayadayadayada... and bam put them slowly in my tank. Suddenly my only ghost shrimp viciously darts towards my three upside down and disoriented snails and starts poking at them!:jaw: To my amazement I quickly took them and put them in my net. Man am I ever scared since these guys are just stunning. Oh and I have mts and they don't get attacked.

So has anyone ever had ghost shrimp attacking snails?

 

[DarrylR]

Ghost Shrimp has been known to eat smaller snails like pond/ramshorns. But ghosts are shrimp and usually just curious to whatever drops in the tank and immediate picks/cleans it. The assassins should be fine with a tank of ghost shimp in my opinion.

 

[jamesstill84]

I fed my ghost shrimp to a Convict because it was eating my pond and ramshorn snails. He was shoving that claw right into'em.

 

[FasterShrimpo]

Lol yea she is curious even when I put my hand in to do maintenance. So I guess that I'll release the one she keeps on picking at.

 

[foolish1]

i have used the ghost shrimp from wally world to get rid of all of the pond snails in my 30hex. i read an article that explained that some of the breeds of freshwater shrimp sold as "ghost-shrimp" are small macrobrachium(sp?) species which are moluscavores (sp?). i bought a dozen from wally world, dumped them into the tank, and after a coupla weeks, no more pond snails.

 

[Wycco]

I have ghost shrimp- and no they're not the macro juvies that Walmart sometimes sells- these are genuine Palaemontes (sp?)grass shrimp .

I don't have any snail (other than MTS or Quilted Mels that they seem to ignore) under about 5mm in diameter besides a few that I keep finding in the HOB. The ghosts will eat any snail small enough- quite vicious watching them- they pluck them up- reach into the shell for bits of meat- then roll the snail round and round and round with their legs and then pluck more meat... roll again- pluck again.

Some people have palaemontes that don't eat snails... don't know why some do and some don't.

They will also eat the eggs of the snails- and outcompete the snails in terms of gathering food... so long term- with shrimp you'll have fewer snails.


I don't know how big your assassins were- but if they were bigger than 5mm diameter they're probably too big for your ghosts unless you were sold Macros instead of Palaemontes by mistake.

Sometimes wild-type Neocaridina shrimp are also sold as ghost shrimp... they won't eat snails and are quite a bit smaller.



Oh, and assassins on very rare occasions have been known to catch and eat healthy shrimp.