For those who have questions about CPD and RCS, I have only had mine about 3 weeks. I started with 9 CPD and 40 RCS. In the time I have had them the CPD have managed to consume all but a few of the RCS, and not just the small ones. Some of the biggest ones were actually the first to go. I cant explain this as what I have read said the large shrimp would not be bothered. As of now I can only spot 1 lone shrimp. I suspect there may be another one or two hiding deep in the plants.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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