Free Loading Shrimp

[WrittenLyric]

Tonight I witnessed the weirdest thing I have ever seen. I fed the 10 gallon crew, Blue in his Betta penthouse (2.5 gal - where the shrimp were originally but let's just say they came as a group, left as a trio), and then moved on to Arlo and the 3 stooges (ghost shrimp) in the cube (1.5 gal). I threw in some pellets for Arlo and some flakes for the shrimp. The biggest shrimp decided that he was not going to wait any longer for the flakes to make the journey to the bottom of the tank and decided to hitch a ride...on Arlo's tail! He stayed on for almost a minute and for some bizarre reason, Arlo didn't seem the least bit bothered. His tail on the other hand looks a little banged up in one area (nothing serious). My question is, has anyone else had this happen? Should I be using different types of food for the shrimp? Or should I move them to another tank so that this doesn't end ugly? They've been together for over a month without issue..until tonight I mean.

Advice?

 

[plah831]

Interesting. I've never seen a shrimp hitch a ride on a fish, but I have seen my ghost shrimp pinching my dojo loaches inquisitively. The loaches get startled, which in turn scares the shrimp. It's only happened once or twice that I know of :huh: The shrimp have also done it to me once, so I think they're just testing things to see if they're edible. Neither I, nor my loaches, have been left with any marks, though.

I don't think that helped you, but just wanted to share.

 

[WrittenLyric]

...well it didn't really help per say, but it did make me feel a little better that maybe my little guys are just "testing" the waters. I'm just waiting for Arlo to get kung fu on them and there'll be a shrimp massacre on my hands.

 

[plah831]

Is Arlo a betta? If so, maybe he will go ballistic one day and decide to kill the shrimp Fish can be funny, can't they?

Do you think the shrimp actually tore his tail?

 

[WrittenLyric]

Arlo is a betta. It looks like there's a nip in the area where the shrimp "latched". The weird thing being, Arlo was unchanged by having the hitch hiker - no aggression at all - not even a wiggle. Arlo seems to not realize he is in fact a betta, he'd probably do great in a community setting, however my serpaes would have a field day with his fins.

 

[icecubez189]

my mystery snails love hitching rides on each other. although now my favorite blue mystery snail went missing! and the other two just laid the first clutch of eggs last night in the month that i've had them, which i removed promptly (not ready to clean up after snail baby) so i guess they were mating.