Need help: guppies nip cherry shrimp to death

[Bangwalldie]

I've used to keep cherry shrimp with guppies(normal fancy guppies from Lfs) before and none of the shrimp were nip by them. This time I got a bunch of wild guppies and they nip my shrimp to death. Can anyone tells why did the guppies did that ?

[Jianyuan]

Keeping shrimps with fishes is like putting live food for them. Anything that can fit into their mouth may or will be eaten. Unless you have a big planted tank that provide lots of hiding places.

[Urban Aquaria]

Yeah... its usually a matter of trial and error when you put most fishes with shrimps, some may not bother with shrimps, but others of the same species may see them as food and eat them. More so if you got fishes which are wild type and prefer live foods, compared to the tank raised ones which tend to prefer commercial food.

Looks like your current fishes are not so suitable to be kept with shrimps, so have to separate them... unless you don't mind them enjoying the expensive snacks.

[CalvinTBC]

Try to get them used to pellets and flakes before introduce them to the shrimps one by one.


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[Trichopsis]

Interestingly enough, my wild-caught guppies (2-4 cm long) ignore the cherry shrimps. There's plenty of vegetation and hiding places for the shrimps, and the fishes are fed on a regular basis. It might also help that my guppies have been breeding inside my aquarium for a number of generations; many of those that are now adults were born in the tank, and grew up with the shrimps. It's possible that they haven't realised that the shrimps are potential prey, although they will take other live foods.