Cherry Shrimp, Cories And Rocks!

[paulypaul182]

Well, lets just say I have had a very gruesome afternoon!!!
I HAD a few cherry shrimp and 3 Cories. One cory, not long after I had them which would be 5 weeks ago, went behind the rocks and got stuck. He died unfortunatly. Well, after doing a head count this afternoon, I found that I had one Cory missing. I hunted high and low but couldnt find him. I started taking out the wall of rocks that I made and he rose to the top dead. Loads of murk came off him and his tail was missing.
I removed all the rock and on the bottom rocks there were just small red splats on some of them. I guess these were the cherry shrimp. They took residence behind the rock since I had them. I wonder if they were growing but just grew too big for the space they were in and basically got crushed to death??
Ive done a huge water change and have build a wall of rock where there should be any gap between the rock and the glass. There was one shrimp survivor, but guess what...he has disappeared behind the rock wall and I havent seen him since.
I have one cory left now.
Im gutted about the shrimp and corys, the mess and smell was really apalling!!! Will my last Cory be ok on his own? Were my shrimp hiding because of the Rams? Are there any shrimp that are suitable with Rams? I havent got much of a clean up crew (although i dont feed much and clean out once a week), can anyone recommend a suitable crew?

 

[minxfishy]

Sorry to hear that, sounds nasty.

You really should have some friends for the cory, they do better in groups of about 6 if possible.

Rams and any other fish with large enough mouths will eat shrimp, so yes the shrimp were probably in hiding. You could try some larger shrimp, maybe amano or rock or similar, try to get them adult size, they stand more of a chance that way.