Shrimp eating shrimp problems

[Hatter]

a little less then a week ago i picked up a cleaner shrimp for my ten g tank. it was carrying eggs, and didnt seem very active. wouldnt come near my hand, and just kind of stayed in one spot. a few days later it molted, and a day after that the eggs were gone. it started to come around after that and now he crawls on my hand and acts more like a shrimp. However, the problem started when I decided i wanted another one. I went back to the fish store and brought one home, quickly acclimated him, over about a half hour, and then left for a few hours. When I returned, the second shrimp was no where to be found. He was a bit smaller than the first one, about half the size. before i left they seemed to be alright. The big one one was checking him out, but it didnt seem aggressive. I also noticed my hermits chowing down on some sort of carcass, weather it was shrimp number two, or shrimp number ones molted skin, im not sure. Is it possible that big shrimp killed the little shrimp? or maybe i should have spent more time acclimating? from what ive read, the regular, red and white cleaners can be kept in pairs, and I have no fish in my tank yet, so it must have been either the shrimp, or he just died on his own, and the crabs cleaned him up. Or im crossing my fingers, and maybe hes just hiding somwhere, and will come out in a day or two. Any thoughts?

[noirsphynx]

Did you test the salinity between your system and the LFS water? It could be that the shrimp wasn't acclimated long enough. I always do and hour or longer depending on the salinity swing.

[Hatter]

just going by what the fish store guy said, he keeps his inverts at 1.024. my tank is the same, so i thought a half hour would be good. I didnt actually check the water in the bag though

[The Codfather]

I have on several occation had shrimp molt within hours of placing them into the new tank. I would say give him a few days, he will probably show up.

[Myka]

The shrimp shouldn't kill each other. They are all simultaneous hermaphrodites so you don't have to worry about squabbling between sexes.

[fishytime]

But they can be territorial..... I've seen video of two cleaners duking it out over territory......may have just been an odd situation tho as I've kept multiple cleaners before without any issues....

[Myka]

I just read the part where you say it's a 10 gallon tank...I didn't notice that on first read. That might be an issue then. 10 gallons is too small for one shrimp, putting two in there definitely could cause territory issues mostly because it isn't big enough for the lesser individual to escape.