Shrimp Killing Endlers

[cooledwhip]

I have an emergency. I have a 20 gallon long with 3 dwarf neon rainbowfish, 1 albino BN pleco, 6 endlers, (3 female 3 male), 2 guppies, 2 panda platies and 6 RCS and 3 ghost shrimp. I walked into my room to see my largest ghost shrimp (1.-1.5 inches) chewing on something and it was my FAVORITE ENDLER. IT WAS A ORANGE AND GREEN EMBER ENDLER WITH A BLUE TAIL... I saw him chewing on him on the ground, he had his carcas in his hand and obviously had been eating him for a while. The ghost shrimp is huge and had a white body kinda like a real shrimp. What does this mean? Did he just snatch him out of the water? I have no idea what happened and I am really REALLY upset. I wanna cry, the endlers were my favorite fish in my tank. He wasn't sick or anything, I literally saw the ENDLER the same day. Like 1-2 hours before I walked in on him being nawed on by the shrimp. The shrimp ate the entire tail of the endler, head, gills/part below the head. All that was left was his back part and part of his head.

 

[Baccus]

Ghost shrimp are often mis-identified, if this is the case there is every chance your shrimp is a macrobachium species which are fully capable and do catch fish. There is a chance also that the endler just died of other causes and the shrimp just did what they do best and opportunity scavenged.

 

[Essjay]

It is hard to tell from the photos, but if the shrimp is a macrobrachium species it will have longer clawed 'arms' than you would expect on a ghost shrimp.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Yes, its is hard to tell the difference between a ghost shrimp and a young macrobrachium.
 
As essjay already mentioned the real difference between these two is the front forearms, a macro will have a more extended arm with pincers at the end while ghosts forearm are much shorter.
 
 
Here are two pics so you can compare the two. Its hard to tell when looking into a tank but if you compare all your glass shrimps, does any of them have longer forearms? If so then there is an answer for you.
 
 
                               Macrobrachium                                                                                                Ghost Shrimp
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The other posiibility is it could be an amano shrimp, which when young and smaller are fairly similar to ghost shrimps much less aggressive than macros but they may go for fish that are dying or already dead as they are opportunistic scavengers which is perfectly natural.
 
BTW there are other names for Ghost Shrimps but sometimes they are referred as Glass Shrimps.

 

[cooledwhip]

It's the left one for sure. It had super long arms... I got my "ghost shrimp" at petsmart... leave it to petsmart idiots. I moved them out of the tank.

 

[Ch4rlie]

It's the left one for sure. It had super long arms... I got my "ghost shrimp" at petsmart... leave it to petsmart idiots. I moved them out of the tank.

 
The staff are not always idiots, thats a fairly unfair general sweeping statement.
 
It really is hard to tell between the two and when dealing with multiple numbers of shrimps, sometimes in the hundreds, staff just simply don't have the time or the inclination to identify each and every shrimp that is delivered in case there may be a few macrobrachium.
 
Some stores do deliberately sell macros, at usually a higher costs can you belive. But these are truly fascinating creatures with a true predatory nature, would be in a tank of its own with no other fish and precious few tankmates, if any. Also can grow pretty huge as well if survives into adulthood, kind of lobster sized actually

 

[Baccus]

Aside from thier predatory habits Macrobachium species are quite interesting in their own right, quite a few are a food source for people in their native lands and interestingly I think all macrobachium species can not breed sucessfully in fresh water, their larval young have a brackish stage like so many other shrimp.
I have a macrobachium at the moment which as proven to be a rather well behaved shrimp, she leaves the fish alone and comes out for special snacks and seems quite intelligent compared to much smaller cherry shrimp.
 
I would not be too harsh on the pet shop for misidentifying the shrimp, many people have problems with identifying them and at young ages its even harder, especially when the two or three species have been mixed together. I made a booboo myself by adding three native shrimp to one tank Ninja (chameleon) shrimp, Blackmore River Shrimp, Darwin Algae Shrimp. Its almost impossible to tell the immature shrimp apart and even as adults the Ninja and Blackmore River like to confuse by adopting each others general patterns/ colours.
 
If you can keep the Macros, in their own tank with hidey holes and I think you will find the macrobachium will get quite tame, just give them a good varied diet and they should thrive.