Ninja Cherry Shrimp?

[Drayven]

Short Version - Could Cherry Shrimp take down a healthy danio?

Long version - Yesterday I added 4 new danios to my tank. I watched them for a few minutes and saw something weird. One of them swam near the algae patch where the Cherry Shrimp seem to hang out and when he got too close one of the Cherry Shrimp did this Matrix style flying leap towards him. The danio dodged and the shrimp swam back to his spot. While it was hilarious to see it caught me off guard, I never new that shrimp like that could be aggressive.

Last night I noticed that one of my new Danios was missing. I got to thinking and realized that in the past the type of fish I've had the most trouble with was the Danios. Some times I find their corpses on the bottom being eaten by snails and shrimp but usually they just disappear, overnight. The only fish in my tank that I think could be big enough to eat a danio are one of the weather loaches and I don't know if his mouth would even open far enough, or the Columbian shark but I don't know if he has the speed to catch a Danio. So given that I've actually seen a shrimp try to tackle a Danio it got me thinking, could a cherry shrimp actually attack and kill a seemingly healthy Danio?

 

[BigJim]

Short answer - no

Long answer - I don't think RCS can be aggressive. It was most likely an escape move that you saw. RCS will scavenge a dead fish, but they won't kill a fish.

 

[JohnPaul]

From keeping dwarf shrimp (Red Cherrys and many others) for 7+ years, I can assure you that the little "flip" action you saw was an attempt by the shrimp to escape from the fish--and most certainly not an attack. RCS would not be able, nor would they even try, to take out even the smallest living fish fry, let alone anything close to an adult fish.

However, once a fish has died and come to rest on the substrate, RCS and other shrimps would most certainly immediately begin to scavenge on it.