# Wow my betta fish ate my Ghost shrimp!



## BudgetPhoenix (Jan 5, 2012)

I went home on lunch and witnessed my betta attack one of my 4 Ghost shrimp killing it, then proceed to swallow it whole. I don't know how it managed to swallow it, it was a decent sized shrimp. It gulped it up tail first but couldnt manage to get the head down. It just swam around with a shrimp head and attena sticking out of its mouth!!! My betta looked every bloated with an inch long shrimp in his gullet. I wanted to watch more but had to go back to work. I come back from work and no sign of the shrimp. I can only find 2 shrimp in my 5g tank now. I think my betta must have killed another while I was gone.


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## Myates (Aug 2, 2011)

Bettas will do that.. have to remember, bettas are insectivores by nature, carnivores if given chance. 

I love shrimp, but wouldn't put them in my tanks for fear of seeing that.. as fish can drown, and it happens more from too big of food getting stuck then from anything else. Just scary.


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## scootshoot (Oct 11, 2010)

Just not much elbow room in a 5 for shrimps to go unnoticed. Also, aside from a larger tank, if you want to increase your chances of them co-existing, introduce the shrimp first followed by the betta.


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## BudgetPhoenix (Jan 5, 2012)

It was weird the fish never seemed to be bothered by them before, I was worried of my fish dying too, from trying to swallow it. This shrimp was 2 inches in length from antenna to tail


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## jasonh (Feb 11, 2012)

i got several ghost shrimp and i love them. they seem too fast for my bettas to catch.

i had to remove them from the tank with my more aggressive betta, but i have a white dragonscale that doesn't really bother them. they are keeping the tank cleaner and are fun to watch.

my white betta occasionally pokes at them and chases them out of his spongebob pineapple house but that's it.

now i have a 'pregnant' ghostshrimp and i need to take her out to her own tank but they're so hard to catch!


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## BudgetPhoenix (Jan 5, 2012)

Well all my ghost shrimp have disappeared i'm guessing the betta made them snacks


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## daniomania (Feb 12, 2012)

WOW!!! my mollies ate my ghost shrimp too!!


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## bettaWOMP (Mar 25, 2014)

I woke up to a swollen betta and the chewed remains of a shrimp body hanging out of his mouth. It looks like fungus at first, so I freaked for a sec, then I noticed the shell of a shrimp head floating in the same area. I put two and two together. Is Blue going to get sick?

Planted, co2, 10g, betta, pleco, 5 black xray tetras, 1 ghost shrimp


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## givemethatfish (Feb 10, 2014)

This may not be funny, but I'm kind of cracking up thinking of a betta just swimmin' around with half a shrimp hanging out of his mouth. Like oh yeah, hi. I just ate your shrimps.


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## bettaWOMP (Mar 25, 2014)

I laughed. He hasn't shown any aggression towards the last remaining shrimp, but I bet given the chance he'd eat that one too.


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## Pocketmew (Mar 25, 2014)

My betta never ate his ghost shrimp or cory cats. He steals the cory cats food though every chance he can get >:C. My other Betta though had SBD when I first got him (apparently a lot at petco did and my sister didn't notice). So he was a lump floating on the top. SOMEHOW he managed to swim down with sbd and eat the shrimp...I'm like wat I thought you were crippled.


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## alyymarie (Oct 17, 2013)

I hope you're not feeding him anything else. Little piggy has had plenty of shrimp 
My bettas never tried to eat the shrimp, but I still moved the shrimp to a different tank just in case. My female in particular did not like sharing food with them at dinner time, she would always chase them away.


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## Thothgirl (Jul 12, 2013)

My first Betta was a live and let live kinda guy. Maxx was a sulker and he would sulk at the shrimp and cories in his tank. I have never seen such pointed sulking in anything outside a 2 year old. then I got Myr.

The shrimp lasted less than a week (they were about the same size as Myr's body) and I had to separate Myr form the cories cause he was having none of that other fish existing sh*t and kept trying for their eyes. 

It was kinda awesome watching Myr get irritated as i kept taking away his proudly won shrimp corpses.


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## Kithy (Nov 21, 2012)

bettaWOMP said:


> I woke up to a swollen betta and the chewed remains of a shrimp body hanging out of his mouth. It looks like fungus at first, so I freaked for a sec, then I noticed the shell of a shrimp head floating in the same area. I put two and two together. Is Blue going to get sick?
> 
> Planted, co2, 10g, betta, pleco, 5 black xray tetras, 1 ghost shrimp


What kind of pleco do you have?


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## bettaWOMP (Mar 25, 2014)

Plecosaurus. They leave each other alone for the most part. He's quite a bit bigger than Blue now. Blue will try to flare at him if he's aggravated, but other than that, no interaction.


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## Waking Buddha (Jan 3, 2014)

When you say plecosaurs I assume you mean plecostomus_. _I would try to find out what kind you have. There are a lot that grow very large. Much to large to be kept in a 10 gallon aquarium. 

I tried searching plecosaurs in case it was a fish I'd never heard of, but I can't find anything on it.


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## Kithy (Nov 21, 2012)

Most need way more than 10g. The smallest I know of off hand is the albino bristlenose. They need like... 30ish or more.


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## Cara (Apr 27, 2014)

Funny that you posted this. I moved Fred into my five gallon yesterday since he seemed to be recovering nicely from his time at Petco. Apparently he was feeling well enough to kill on my ghost shrimp. x_x


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## bettaWOMP (Mar 25, 2014)

Waking Buddha said:


> When you say plecosaurs I assume you mean plecostomus_. _I would try to find out what kind you have. There are a lot that grow very large. Much to large to be kept in a 10 gallon aquarium.
> 
> I tried searching plecosaurs in case it was a fish I'd never heard of, but I can't find anything on it.


Omg, hahahaha. My son was telling me about his dinosaurs while I was typing that. Yeah, its a plecostomus. I was told at the pet store that they will only grow as big as their tank allows, initially it was just him and the betta, but we've added a few other fish since we started the tank.


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## aselvarial (Feb 21, 2014)

Pocketmew said:


> My betta never ate his ghost shrimp or cory cats. He steals the cory cats food though every chance he can get >:C. My other Betta though had SBD when I first got him (apparently a lot at petco did and my sister didn't notice). So he was a lump floating on the top. SOMEHOW he managed to swim down with sbd and eat the shrimp...I'm like wat I thought you were crippled.



lol ok, i thought this was hilarious. I had an SBD betta, but how on earth did he swim fast enough to catch a shrimp?


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## myexplodingcat (Apr 9, 2014)

I know this is another Walmart horror story but... you should be glad it was just a betta and a shrimp. 

My older brother and I walked by a Walmart fish tank once and there was a goldfish with another goldfish's tail sticking out of his mouth, and he was just swimming around like that.

Cannibal fish. XD


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## Kithy (Nov 21, 2012)

bettaWOMP said:


> Omg, hahahaha. My son was telling me about his dinosaurs while I was typing that. Yeah, its a plecostomus. I was told at the pet store that they will only grow as big as their tank allows, initially it was just him and the betta, but we've added a few other fish since we started the tank.


This is partially true.

Fish are limited by their tank size and will generally because stunted, which is painful and bad for the fish. It can cause organ damage and shorten the fish's life.

I was keeping my BN pleco in my 20g temporarily with my goldfish (was rehoming) and it attacked the goldfish to the point that we had to euthanize. You should really get a bigger tank for your specific pleco (some need 50g+) or rehome it so it can have a long, happy life.


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