l. dorsigera, Cherry Shrimp Hunters, are not color blind!

[Cockatoofreak]

First, a bit of a back story:

These little hunters were sold to me as l. curviceps. Bought 6 juveniles and received 7! I then compared them to pictures of curviceps and discovered mine had red dorsal edges and spangles in front of the dorsal black spot. They are too young to show the red throat.

Anyway, after quarantine, I put them in a 75g planted tank with cardinals and harlequins as dither fish. There was also a school of red cherry shrimp. I had read that the dwarf cichlids could eat the shrimp fry but, I was not overly concerned.

Things went smoothly for a several days then, I noticed the shrimp were missing. I watched more closely and discovered the dorsigera(s) were hunting the adult and fry of the cherry shrimp who were now in hiding.

They would attack en masse and in a wild frenzy. Right after, several would start chasing the cardinals, who were too fast for them. They left the harlequins alone which leads me to believe it was the red color of the cardinals!

Anyway, that's my story for this Friday...

 

[anewbie]

First, a bit of a back story:

These little hunters were sold to me as l. curviceps. Bought 6 juveniles and received 7! I then compared them to pictures of curviceps and discovered mine had red dorsal edges and spangles in front of the dorsal black spot. They are too young to show the red throat.

Anyway, after quarantine, I put them in a 75g planted tank with cardinals and harlequins as dither fish. There was also a school of red cherry shrimp. I had read that the dwarf cichlids could eat the shrimp fry but, I was not overly concerned.

Things went smoothly for a several days then, I noticed the shrimp were missing. I watched more closely and discovered the dorsigera(s) were hunting the adult and fry of the cherry shrimp who were now in hiding.

They would attack en masse and in a wild frenzy. Right after, several would start chasing the cardinals, who were too fast for them. They left the harlequins alone which leads me to believe it was the red color of the cardinals!

Anyway, that's my story for this Friday...

Just an fyi but i believe fishes are colour blind.

 

[MacZ]

Just an fyi but i believe fishes are colour blind.

Cichlids are not colour blind. Quite the opposite, they are likely even able to see colours we cannot sense. I have read studies about the colour perception in blackwater fish, showing e.g. Dicrossus having a much finer perception of red colours than us and another one was conducted at my Alma Mater university with Mbuna in which they let the fish count shapes in a certain colour among a number of differently coloured shapes. Interestingly the colour distinction wasn't even the thing they wanted to research, it was the counting. They already knew they can distinguish the colours.

As for the Laetacara: In contrast to Apistogramma and Mikrogeophagus they are not of the Tribe Geophagini, meaning they are indeed more adapted to hunting instead of sifting sand and mulm. On the other hand, I once had a Mikrogeophagus ramirezi, that picked off one adult Neocaridina after another, like 2-3 a week, while the rest of the lot didn't care.

 

[anewbie]

In truth my wild caught Latacara dors have been pretty tame around smaller tetras like ruby. Maybe the shrimps trigger a desire to hunt
--
The big thing is the wc versions (other than being nicer looking) are also a lot more skittish than the domestic ones i have.

 

[Cockatoofreak]

Maybe the shrimps trigger a desire to hunt

Desire!!! My fish are fannatical. If one shrimp is spotted, the entire school races around looking for others. It is then they start chasing the cardinals.

One more thing regarding color...I have 6 or seven Amano Shrimp in the same tank. Some are a similar size to the cherries but are not red. They are ignored.

 

[anewbie]

Desire!!! My fish are fannatical. If one shrimp is spotted, the entire school races around looking for others. It is then they start chasing the cardinals.

One more thing regarding color...I have 6 or seven Amano Shrimp in the same tank. Some are a similar size to the cherries but are not red. They are ignored.

Sometime it is better to be invisible rather than pretty.

 

[illumnae]

Entirely my opinion, but I think amano shrimp may have a thicker shell than cherry shrimp which helps discourage predation from dwarf cichlids. It's my observation from their leftover molted shells.

I put 10 amano shrimp and 10 fire red shrimp in my Apistogramma bitaeniata grow out tank (the Putumayo wildcaughts from Glaser arrived barely larger than fry size). Both were also about the same size, and both were eaten by my growing apistogramma. The shrimp were about half the size of the fish and seemingly too large for their mouths, but they got eaten in bite sized chunks. Interestingly, after I started feeding the apistos live brine shrimp, the predation stopped and I still have a couple of shrimp of each type left in the tank.