AHA! It's TRUE- ghost shrimp DO eat Bladder snails!

Wycco

Wycco

Eat more pine trees
Apr 19, 2009
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34^N 81^W
Real Name
Kim Jong Il
In the process of doing a water change- saw a bladder snail about 4 to 5mm long crawling a long a piece of slate- one of the larger Ghost Shrimp calmly approached it... then PLUCK... pulled it off the slate and started eating it before my eyes.

I was surprised- not that it was eating the bladder snail- we had already determined they do on occasion... but that it ate one that was so large... and DEFINATELY already alive since I just saw it moving.


Interesting watching it attacking it... it kept rolling it over with it's legs and claws prodding at it.

I've got several kinds of bladders- ranging from jet black to bronze to almost transparant (body and foot)...It was one of the transparant ones that got eaten.


Amazing to watch...


Anyhow- back to my water change- I just wanted to post this on here since we had been talking about this a few weeks back.



Oh, and I have the American Freshwater Grass shrimp to be precise since many shrimp can be called ghost shrimp. You may have recalled me saying they used to hide- they've really come out of their "shells" lately- very active and personable! One was chasing my arm around as I was reaching in to prune and propegate my bacopa. ;)

Maybe I should keep my arm out after what I witnessed with my snail! ;)
 
LOL. I have shells littering my sand all the time. They are hard to pick up or siphon.
 
I was just so excited to see it- and watch the shrimp spinning the snail round and round picking off bits of snail meat as it spun.

I was really skeptical that my peacefull little shrimp were the reason why my bladder snail population crashed at first- excited to witness the hunting first hand.

Odd though- ramshorn population and MTS population seems uneffected. It's as if they only eat bladders... I used to have lots of them- now I only have a handfull of bladders.

I don't know if all ghosts will eat 'em or if just one or two have figured out how. Amazing to watch though!
 
that is prety cool. it's awesome to watch animals be, well, animals.... i love watching my turtle snap his neck out and grab a cricket or meal worm or mouthful of veggie ^_^

now, if only i could figure out who was eating the snails in the fish tank... ¬_¬
 
Yeah- they're ghost shrimp not the young of some other larger species. Looks and description they match American Freshwater Grass Shrimp perfectly.

Plus, I know they're not the young of a larger species because they're small and several of the females are berried. I've not seen any larvae or shrimplets- but the fact that shrimp about 4 or 5cm long are berried means they're not some young macro.
 
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