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Old 10-20-2011, 03:08 PM
fresh fresh is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Langley, BC
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Default Damsel hurt shrimps?

I have a 1 inch (not even) yellow-tail damsel in my BioCube14 tank. With him I have a fireshrimp and a small yellow CBS. The damsel was the first in there, and he is the KING of the tank. He is annoying at times with his tail-sandstorm creations, but I still like him.

I have seen the damsel dart at both shrimps multiple times. He usually doesn't hit them, but only to scare them off. He also wags his tail at them kind of to push them away. Neither shrimp is allowed to the damsel's corner of the tank where he has created pits and crevices with the sand.

I noticed yesterday that my fireshrimp has 2 antennas that have been shortened. My guess is that they have been bitten by the damsel. (refer to attachment below).

Before anybody says that the yellow CBS did this, I can almost guarantee you that is not the case. These 2 have been together for over a year, and they even hang out on the same rock at times. The yellow CBS does shake his arms sometimes at the fireshrimp, but only for show. No serious aggression and certainly no hunting down. As a matter of fact, the fireshrimp is larger than the yellow CBS.

Questions:
1) Is it possible for a damsel to bite off antennas from shrimps?
2) Could the damsel kill my shrimp? Just like a sixline can kill a shrimp?

By the way, the yellow-tail and the fireshrimp are both the centerpieces of my tank. Here are a couple of pics.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg Photo0260.jpg (54.6 KB, 28 views)
File Type: jpg Photo0249.jpg (26.9 KB, 24 views)

Last edited by fresh; 10-20-2011 at 04:14 PM.
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