Amano shrimp eating my plants!

[Sbradley81]

Hi

I recently put 5 amano shrimp in my tank. Only 4 seem to be left, the fifth seems to have vanished!
The 4 remaining shrimp are doing great, but they appear to be eating my plants! I have read a lot of stuff saying that these shrimp don't eat plants, but mine certainly are! There are holes in all the leaves and I'm worried there will be nothing left at this rate. Has anyone come across this before? Any ideas what I can do, if anything?

Thanks
Sbradley81

 

[Shawn214]

What else do you have in the tank?

 

[Sbradley81]

Hi

I've got

2 mollies
1 catfish
1 tetra
3 flying foxes
1 fighter
8 rainbows
1 borneo sucker

The holes in leaves only started appearing after adding the shrimp and the sucker, but the sucker spends all his time on the rocks.

 

[aqua_chem]

Normally amano shrimp don't eat plants. More than likely it's one of the following situations (in order of likeliness).

1) Your plants have a deficiency. Potassium is a likely candidate.
2) Something else is eating the leaves.
3) Your amano aren't getting enough food
4) You have some other kind of shrimp.


Do you have a picture of the leaves in question

 

[Sbradley81]

These are some of the leaves.

 

[Sbradley81]

It seems to be all the different types of leaves, not just one type.

 

[OBEYtheFISH]

Like aqua_chem said its a deficiency of some nutrients?
Or if they were recently added they can possibly be melting?
Also what type of tetra? They like being in a school

 

[Sbradley81]

The plants have been in there for a long time.. Longer than 6 months. Never had a problem like this until I added the shrimps about 3 weeks ago.

I did have lots of tetra, but sadly I only have one left now. It is a purple emperor. He likes to school with the rainbows!

 

[Sbradley81]

If it is a deficiency of some kind, how could I find out? What could I do?

 

[Maxkolbe]

The reason that the one disappeared was probably because a fish ate it, I suspect the beta.