Can I Ask?

[Honeythorn]

Can I just confirm that Ghost shrimp aren't really capable of catching and eating a small peppered cory?

Because I found my shrimp eating a dead cory in my tank yesterday. The fish had always been very small indeed, runtish in fact at about 3/4 of an inch ( the rest have grown rapidly and are just over an inch long ) and had never eaten much despite appearing otherwise fine if a little slow. The fish seemed fine the night before, but when I got up and switched on the light, I saw my shrimp happily munching on something quite large for him. On closer inspection it turned out to be my little runty cory, and the shrimp had consumed his entire head! I prodded his prize away with my planting stick and managed to get it out despite him swimming after it and trying to grab it again

I have never ever seen him go for any of my other fish, corys included. All he usually does is hoover up and catch any leftover food or steal a wafer from the cories now and then.

Also, since my fish appeared to be a genuine runt, could he have died from a genetic weakness? I saw no signs of disease or obvious ill health, other than him being a bit slow in feeding. I did offer all the usual things I give the others. All water parameters are normal but I did an extra water change all the same.

 

[TylerFerretLord]

It is very unlikely the shrimp killed the cory. It likely died and the shrimp took the opportunity to eat something meaty.

Ghost shrimp may be able to catch fry, but nothing larger that can move away.

 

[three-fingers]

Are you 100% sure your ghost shrimp is actually a ghost shrimp and not one of the small Macrobrachium species?
It's not really easy to tell, they don't look too dissimilar, though Macrobrachium species tend to have bigger arms.

I've never seen proper ghost shrimp on sale in the shops (though I've seen the brackish ones that seem to die a few days after being in freshwater), and when I do see shrimp labelled as 'ghost shrimp' they are usually just young or smaller species of Macrobrachium shrimp - which are fully capable of catching fish.

But if it really is a ghost shrimp it's more likely the cory died first, or was on it's way out at the time.

 

[Honeythorn]

I'm pretty sure it's a ghost shrimp. His arms don't look particularly large. He looks like most of the pictures I have seen although admittedly I may be wrong. I will try to get a picture of him if I can.