Shocked and annoyed!

Hi everyone:)

I'm sort of new here, I have a thread going in the breeding section cause I just had my BN breed for the first time and cause I wasn't expecting it, I had no clue what to do.

But the reason I'm here in the feeding section is because I witnessed something this morning that shocked me and annoyed me at the same time.

I also breed Cherry Shrimp and was told that I can have these 2 in the tank together as the BN do not eat the shrimp.

Ummmmmm, yes they do!!!! I watched in horror this morning as both my female and male devoured 3 shrimp between them and it was no accident either

They were swimming around and both of the purposely lifted their heads to plonk right on top of a shrimp and they started eating it straight away.
The female ate 2 and the male ate one.

So, is this normal??
Is this something they will always do now they have the taste for shrimp?

Goodness knows how long they have been doing this but this is the first time I have seen it.
When the dad BN kicked a small patch of eggs off a couple of weeks ago, I witnessed the female eat them which also shocked me but I have always been told they can live with shrimp without being a risk to them but now I'm not so sure.

The female is gravid again, she is really getting nice and fat again, so obviously they will breed again but I can't afford to keep them in this tank if they are going to eat my shrimp.

They are well fed and always eat what's given which is a variety of cucumber, zucchini and algae wafers.
I always thought they were vegie eaters:) not meat eaters :|

Any advice or thoughts on this would be appreciated:)
Thanks

Bn are normally scavengers and will eat dead fish and shrimp but I didn't know they killed shrimp. I'm as surprised as you are

Oh yer!!! the shrimp were alive and well but not for long.

What I found really fascinating to watch was how they ate them, they jumped on them with their mouths straight over one, then immediately sucked it up and then lifted the whole top half of their body off the ground and I could see the shrimp being swirled around, then they spat it out and one of them was still alive and the BN pounced on it again and repeated the body lifting thing, spit it out thing and each time the shrimp got smaller and smaller until there was nothing left.
It was no accident cause both BN were sot on when they came down with their mouths, straight over a large shrimp each.

It was viscous to watch actually and upset/annoyed me.

Wouldn't mind a video of the act... For future reference of course

Hi,have you had these bristlenoses from babies?

Ive not seen that kind of behaviour from bristlenoses before.
I used to have a sailfin pleco but he became aggressive at feeding time - and would dive bombmy violet goby and try to bite him - it sounds like exactly the same thing that has started happening to you. I rehomed him in the end ....

I will keep the video camera close by:)

No, I bough these BN or they were given to me, I don't know which ones are which anymore.

I will just have to keep an eye one them and if they continue to do it then I will have to re-home them. They have lived in this tank for about 5 months approx and I have never seen them do this before.
I watched them closely at feeding tome tonight and all was normal, they didn't make any attempts to eat any shrimp.

I just goes to show when we think we know our fish/animals they do something really random like this and makes us realise we don't know them after all.

It could be that following the recent breeding activity they needed some extra protein.

Bn's will eat meatier foods it's just that to much can cause problems, feeding them something like bloodworm once a week may stop them from feasting on the shrimps.

Thanks, I will try the bloodworm trick and that might save my shrimp from having their numbers diminished:)

I was thinking about why? Why would they all of a sudden start doing this? What's changed? sort of thoughts and I was wondering if it had anything to do with them breeding.
Cause when she laid her first lot of eggs 3 weeks ago, this was their first time at parenthood for both of them and she is gravid again and looking like a blown up balloon and dad has rebuilt his love cave under the driftwood and is letting her in every now and then.
Up until yesterday, I had never seen them even attempt to eat the shrimp but now they are, so maybe it has something to do with them breeding.

Luckily for them I have plenty of shrimp at the moment (they are lucky I do or I would have kicked their butts out of this tank right there and then:)
They will all be going into a 5 ft tank soon, with more driftwood and caves, so if they decide to keep eating my shrimp, maybe the shrimp will have more room/places to escape.

I have just discovered that another male BN in another tank that I thought was too small to breed, is much bigger than I thought and he is already in the 5ft tank along with another female who I think is too small to breed, so maybe once the other 2 and all the shrimp go in this tank, the current breeding female might breed with both males....if she wants to that is:) and I might get myself another breeding size female (or 2).
I was going to put the male from the 5ft tank in the shrimp tank but luckily I checked the ratio and found that 2 males to 1 female is not a good idea, so I didn't move him cause I gather that would not have been fun in the shrimps 3 ft tank :|

I've got the video camera sitting beside the tank waiting but I still have seen no more signs of them trying to eat anymore.

Well, bns like meat and they are well-known for eating fishes (dead fishes I mean).

I give my bns frozen fish and tubifex once a week. Since introducing these proteins, they are more happy and more keen to spawn. Now am reading Kathy Jinkings's book to see if they correspond with scientific observations ;-)

i keep cherry shrimp in all my tanks including my breeding tanks and grow out tank. Never seen them eat a live shrimp. even if they did i dont think i would care though, free food for them and i have more of them than i can poke a stick at.

Well Doug, I can promise you I saw it happen:) so it can happen but obviously a rare thing maybe??

I too have plenty of shrimp but I won't if this keeps happening, plus any fry that will grow up in this tank and maybe stay in there too, if they decide to copy their parents, then my shrimp count will not rise quite as quick:)

I have been keeping a really close eye on them since this first happened, mainly cause the female is soooooo fat now with eggs she looks like she's going to pop, so I'm just watching their behavior etc and I have not seen them even attempt eating any more, so I have no clue what possessed them to do this but they did and it seems it's a very rare thing.