Will a cleaner shrimp eat a baby dragnet?

[Iverson]

My tank has been getting along fairly well for the last couple of months, so I decided to try a pair of Mandarin Gobi. Spent the extra bucks for the captive bread ones thinking that it would be easier to get them to eat. Put copepods in my tank before they arrived. I was a little surprised when the fish arrived and were little bitty babies (about as long as my thumbnail) - but Oh My Gosh were they cute. After very careful acclamation they seemed happy in my tank. I have LOTS of nooks, crannies, and hidey holes for them. The next day I found my cleaner shrimp eating one's body. The day after that he was eating the other one. It is at least as long as my thumb.

Will a cleaner shrimp kill a baby fish? I thought those were algae scavengers. If it was him I will GLADLY deep 6 that shrimp before trying again.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

I'm willing to bet the fish both died (baby fish are very sensitive) and the shrimp was just cleaning up the mess

 

[35ppt]

What is your acclimation procedure? I agree with Kenny, likely the shrimp is just cleaning up the mess.

 

[Phycodurus]

sorry to hear about the loss.

cleaner shrimp are not algae scavengers ... they are definitely opportunistic feeders. when i feed my tanks live black worms, they are quick to jump on the worms with relish.

personally, i suspect the cleaner shrimp esp. if the shrimp is larger than the mandarins. otherwise the fellow was indeed likely performing cleanup duty.

 

[mattzang]

fwiw my mom has tried to order 2 of the biota captive bred mandarins from liveaquaria and both arrived basically on death's doorstep and died immediately. worth mentioning so no companies look bad the 2nd one was delayed for 2 days by UPS which probably didn't help, but yeah. they send them beyond tiny and apparently not very hardy at that stage

 

[Iverson]

What is your acclimation procedure? I agree with Kenny, likely the shrimp is just cleaning up the mess.

I have one of those gadgets that drips aquarium water into their bag while the bag sits in the aquarium. It gets temp and chemistry acclimation. I gave them both an hour at about one drop per second.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

That's a great way to acclimate new fish but there are still many reasons why a new fish could die (water parameters, stress, predators, ect). Especially one that small.

 

[Iverson]

I'm secretly hoping I can pin it on the shrimp. The cleaner shrimp is pretty aggressive when I feed the fish frozen shrimp. However, the mandarins were biota and very tiny. Yes, my magical thinking hoping it's the shrimp is so that I don't have to wonder what (else) might be wrong with my tank. :-(

 

[xxkenny90xx]

I'm secretly hoping I can pin it on the shrimp. The cleaner shrimp is pretty aggressive when I feed the fish frozen shrimp. However, the mandarins were biota and very tiny. Yes, my magical thinking hoping it's the shrimp is so that I don't have to wonder what (else) might be wrong with my tank. :-(

Good point, definately the shrimp!

 

[35ppt]

I'm secretly hoping I can pin it on the shrimp. The cleaner shrimp is pretty aggressive when I feed the fish frozen shrimp. However, the mandarins were biota and very tiny. Yes, my magical thinking hoping it's the shrimp is so that I don't have to wonder what (else) might be wrong with my tank. :-(

If you feed the shrimp daily it will be much less food aggressive IME.

 

[35ppt]

I suppose I could see a large skunk take out a tiny fish.

 

[mattzang]

worth mentioning, you got the fish from liveaquaria yeah? and then you drip acclimated for an hour?

 

[madweazl]

The chances of the cleaner shrimp killing the dragonets is exceptionally small (closer to none).

 

[Iverson]

worth mentioning, you got the fish from liveaquaria yeah? and then you drip acclimated for an hour?

I ordered them from Algae Barn, but they just have someone else drop ship them. I don't remember who right now. Yes, I used a Doradon FA18X Aquarium Acclimation System. Pretty fancy name for a $12 gadget. It holds the bag inside the aquarium while dripping water from your aquarium into the bag. I gave them each an hour.

 

[Iverson]

The chances of the cleaner shrimp killing the dragonets is exceptionally small (closer to none).

Wishful thinking maybe. Sure would be an easy solution.

 

[madweazl]

Wishful thinking maybe. Sure would be an easy solution.

Did you check the salinity of the water? If it's close, no drip acclimation would be necessary (just temperature) which is much less stressful for the fish (and less chance of ammonia building up in the bag). Most of the time we receive fish at or near hypo-salinity levels; my last Live Aquaria order came in considerably higher at 30ppt however. Worth checking first in the future and then adjusting your method from there.

 

[mattzang]

so i drip acclimate fish i buy locally, but when buying online and the fish sits in a bag for quite awhile, drip acclimating is less awesome especially for an hour. i'm no scientist, but basically my understanding of what happens is the fish sit in bag water which has ammonia in it, but the ammonia isn't toxic because the pH is lowered due to co2 being unable to escape the bag. so when you open the bag and drip acclimate for an hour, the ammonia becomes toxic and can kill fish.

i'm guessing algaebarn drop ships from biota and i don't know what salinity they keep their fish at, i'd hope ~1.023ish but don't know. if you want to try again in the future i'd ask them what salinity they ship the fish at. if it's close to the tank you're putting them in, i'd just float temp acclimate them and then just drop them in. or a very brief acclimation

not saying this is what happened as i told my mom to skip drip acclimating too and she still lost both of hers anyway, so seems to me they just don't ship well with as tiny as they are

 

[Fishbird]

Sorry you lost your mandarins! There is so much conflicting information on acclimation but it seems like the best way to acclimate depends on how you get your fish.

situation 1. If you get your fish from a local store and it isn’t in the bag very long at all then ammonia doesn’t have time to build up and you can/maybe should do a drip acclimation.

situation 2. If the fish is shipped to you then ammonia will have built up in the bag. The second you open the bag and expose the water to air the ammonia will rapidly become more toxic. If the fish is shipped it’s best to temp acclimate with the bag still closed and then either cut a slit in the bag to get a sample of water to test salinity and tape up slit immediately while you make your QT tank match salinity or contact the seller to find out what the salinity of the water will be. Either way, temp acclimate and then drop the fish into the tank. I did this when I recently had a fish shipped and my fish did really well.

 

[Iverson]

so i drip acclimate fish i buy locally, but when buying online and the fish sits in a bag for quite awhile, drip acclimating is less awesome especially for an hour. i'm no scientist, but basically my understanding of what happens is the fish sit in bag water which has ammonia in it, but the ammonia isn't toxic because the pH is lowered due to co2 being unable to escape the bag. so when you open the bag and drip acclimate for an hour, the ammonia becomes toxic and can kill fish.

i'm guessing algaebarn drop ships from biota and i don't know what salinity they keep their fish at, i'd hope ~1.023ish but don't know. if you want to try again in the future i'd ask them what salinity they ship the fish at. if it's close to the tank you're putting them in, i'd just float temp acclimate them and then just drop them in. or a very brief acclimation

not saying this is what happened as i told my mom to skip drip acclimating too and she still lost both of hers anyway, so seems to me they just don't ship well with as tiny as they are

Yes, I did notice that the published salinity was a little lower than my tank. I didn't check what it was in the bags. This is valuable information; thanks!

 

[Fishbird]

I’ve also read multiple places that it is much easier for a fish to go from a high salinity environment to a lower salinity environment than the other way around. If your tank is higher than 1.023 then what I would do is prepare a QT at 1.023 or even 1.022, do the temp acclimation, drop them in the QT (don’t put any of the shipping water in the QT, scoops the fish out with a colander or something) and then you have them in an ammonia free environment with a heater and something to oxygenate the water and you can raise the salinity in the QT over the course of hours. Then transfer to your DT (unless of course you were going to quarantine for disease purposes).