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Yesterday I observed an Amano shrimp in my zebra tank which was eating something yellish that I couldn't identify at first sight.

Then my eyes wandered a little to the left where I saw a bunch of zebra eggs! The shrimp was eating a zebra egg!

I took the remaining eggs and dropped them in the breeding tube with the male inside it. It may sound silly, but it worked the last time. I have still 3 healthy fry as a result.

I decided to evacuate all Amano shrimps to the communitiy tank. They did a fine job in cleaning the tank from algues and left overs, but zebra eggs are too valuable to me. They won't harm the eggs as long as the male keeps them inside his cave, but he seems to be a little clumsy lately. Beside this, they ate too much of the zebra food as well.

Hmmm, Adam, , I got you enthousiastic for Amano shrimps as zebra company, and really they don't bother adults or fry, but I have to warn you now for this downside that they will eat eggs when they run into it.

Hi Cascudo,

Cograts on the new spawn and I'm sorry to hear about the amano shrimp snacking on one of the eggs . I took all the amano shrimps out of my zebra tank months ago and put them in my community tank, I hadn't noticed any aggression but I had noticed that a few of them had grown pretty large and I no longer trusted that they wouldn't eat zebra eggs/fry given the opportunity. I also had two red claw shrimp that I put in the community tank. Not too long after this I noticed that my cardinals were turning up dead, usually minus their top half or bottom half . I eventually caught the two red claw shrimps and put them in a covered breeding trap, there were no more cardinal deaths after that. Another lesson learnt I guess.

Hi Adam,

I am sorry to hear that the Amano shrimps weren't a succes. At least they will do a good job in your community tank cleaning the hair algues.
And I am also sorry and a little shocked to hear about the red claws snacking on your cardinals
I have one in my community tank. At least I think that it is the same one, it had red rings on his claws when it was young. Now he is dark brown and rather big, some 7 cm and he walks around as if he is the king of the tank.
I never caught him on snacking on my cardinals. I find it difficult to check, I have a shool of some 30 cardinals, which are difficult to count, but I don't find dead cardinals in the morning. Another day I noticed that a already very sick one was eaten almost entirely, but I think this is a positive aspect, better then have a dead fish rotting in some unseen corner.

I will keep an eye on him

Adam,

How many cardinals do you have? I remember from one of your posts that you had a enormous number of them, and how big is the community tank they are housed?

Hi Cascudo,

Males will sometimes eject eggs if they know that they are not fertile or have started to fungus. I have had a whole clutch ejected that were not fertile.
Are you sure that that the egg was fertile and that the Amano shrimp was eating the egg, or was it debris on the egg ?.

Regards,
Des.

Des,

I can't tell you if the eggs were fertilized or not. I only know that the eggs that were thrown out and put back the other time, resulted in 3 fry.

The shrimp was actually eating the egg.

Regards,
Gabriel