Godzilla, the shrimp

[Bruckm]

Ok, here is my monster shrimp. Now, is he a ghostie or some other variety? This is the first time I've been able to get a good picture of him. He's a good 3" now and frankly, he's close to eatin' size. Only seafood I like!! There's a cousin of his that's about 2/3 his size in there too now. That must mean there's too much food on the bottom, right?

 

[trouthead]

He looks like a amano shrimp (caridina japonica) to me, some of mine are 1½" long (maybe I too have a monster in the waiting) - they're great fun to watch.

btw: great photo - I would submit it to Photo of the Month.

 

[Bruckm]

Thanks.
His markings are different than most of the shrimp I have. He wasn't sold as an Amano. Actually, I doubt he is, just because his algae eating is non-existant. The algae was growing rampant until a couple of otos got turned loose.

The light color of the gravel makes it hard to get him well. The panda corys blend in also. If I can get this 55G re-siliconed, I've already got eco-complete and it looked great, until the tank started leaking!

 

[Fruitbat]

Bruckm...

I have the same problem. I released 10 small 'ghost shrimp' in my tank as fish food. Five perished immediately...the other five survived. I've got one in the 3 inch range now and the others are gaining ground quickly.

Here's one of mine:

I'm beginning to believe these are some sort of 'prawn' but I don't pretend to know my shrimp all that well.

 

[Lotus]

Fruitbat, yours looks like a longarm shrimp, pic here: http://www.shrimpcrabsandcrayfish.co.uk/Shrimp.htm?Shrimpfr.htm~mainFrame

Maybe yours is the same, bruckm?

 

[Fruitbat]

Thanks Lotus....it does indeed look like one of the Macrobranchium species, especially the one they have illustrated as the 'Indian Prawn'. If mine grow much more I'm going to fire up the barbecue!!!

They haven't caused any problems with my fish...yet...but they are starting to do nasty things to my plants and that simply won't do!! They are hilarious though....they grab algae wafers that I drop in for my loaches and carry them away to munch on at their leisure!

 

[Lotus]

lol... I clicked on one of the ad links on that page that just said "shrimp" and it took me to a page saying I had won a free seafood meal

I guess wherever they grow the ghost shrimp there are always a few "oddballs" that slip in.

I have seen a ghost shrimp fight a bala shark for a bloodworm... and win.

 

[Bruckm]

Yeah, both of my largest take the algae wafers now. Good thing Bob the Betta isn't an algae eater or I think he'd find a way to make them a meal. I saw him eat a couple of my small shrimp. He just ripped them apart!

 

[Fruitbat]

Here are a couple more pictures of the 'ghost shrimp' survivors. I don't think either of these would have much to fear from a Betta...even if they were trying to steal his lunch!

 

[Geo]

Those look VERY much like that Freshwater prawn that someone had a while back that was eating Tiger Barbs!

I'll go find the thread and picture, but I would be careful, he looks mean O_O

 

[itchy armpits]

i think it looks like a prawn, too. did you get it from petco? they sell prawns there now.

 

[Fruitbat]

No....I got those at a local fish store as 'ghost shrimp' when I bought a bunch to use as feeders.

 

[pooky182]

re

it's called a blue banded shrimp. peacefull although will stick up for themselves if threatened. males are bigger and have bigger claws than females. also seem to have more of a blue colouration to them.
hope this answers ya questions
pooky
p.s you're no overfeeding it's virtually impossible with shrimp

 

[Bruckm]

Now check out the colors on the claws. This is what I've not found yet in the searches. On each leg, one claw is dark and the other is the normal color.

 

[Fruitbat]

I don't think these are 'Blue Banded Shrimp'...there's a picture of that shrimp at this web site. Definitely NOT the same as Bruckm's or mine. http://www.shrimpcrabsandcrayfish.co.uk/Shrimp.htm?GhostShrimp.htm~mainFrame

 

[pooky182]

re

yep i know what they look like I have two if ya look at ma fish list. It's one of the macrobrachium species definately and i would say blue banded shrimp is the nearest match.
thanx
pooky

 

[Fruitbat]

The blue-banded shrimp is genus Natantia , not Macrobrachium. Anyway.....I'm working on getting an ID. Never cared much about them before because they were destined to be fish food but now that they've grown up they have become part of my aquarium community and I need to figure out what they are!!!

 

[Bruckm]

Well, this morning the equation has changed. I was making pancakes and my wife screams "Godzilla has an Oto and he's eating it! It's alive!!!" Sure enough, the tail was gone and he was into the meat. Poor little oto. I had to euthenize him as I don't think Melafix would help him. The shrimp has turned into a man-eater, well fish. I'll bet he's the one who attacked the Betta. Now, what to do with him? He better not attack my Pl*cos before I figure something out.

 

[trouthead]

Sorry to hear about your oto

I have 2 of these mystery shrimps amongst my amanos. They don't appear from their liars very often, but when they do they are pretty scary although only a mere 1½" long. I shall be keeping a close eye on them now.

I recently had an sick ( _/¯ shaped) zebra danio, and am now wondering if this was a shrimp related injury.

Have you identified the shrimp yet? I have been trawling hundreds of images without a match.

 

[Bruckm]

I have looked through every google database that I can find and I still don't see it. It's the bi-colored claws which are the kicker. Also, any shrimp that size usually has much larger pincers from what I've seen. I also had 2 Panda Corys mysteriously die. I checked the water chemistry and all is well, so now I'm thinking it was the monster. His cousin was munching on what was left of the cory and all we found of the other was the head.

Thing is, he was in the 20G tank with ALL of the guys. No otos or pandas went missing while in there with him. Why now in a 55G? Could it be that the fish are more at ease in the larger tank and not constantly looking over their shoulders?

I need to do something soon with the big guy, but I just don't know what.