Fish eating eggs

[Drewbacca]

I have a planted 10 gallon with Amano shrimp, cherry shrimp, mystery snails, nerite snails, Malaysian trumpet snails, and a small group of Endlers. I haven’t had any shrimp babies yet, but I have plenty of java moss and cholla wood to help them hide. Today I saw 2-3 Endlers eating a bundle of shrimp eggs.

My colony is young, and the only berries shrimp I’ve seen so far dropped her eggs. I’ve heard they often do this the first time or so. Anyway, I’m wondering if you think that happened again or if you think the Endlers were involved. Will they try to get the eggs a shrimp is carrying? As far as I can tell, everything seems peaceful, and I’ve never seen them pester even the smaller males. I was fine with losing a few shrimplets to the fish, but I’m not ok if they’re keeping the shrimp from reproducing all together. The mom has to carry them for awhile, and that’s a long time to keep them away from the fish.

Should I move the fish out of give it more time?

 

[richiep]

Problem you have is endlers/guppies will follow the female Endler and as they give birth they eat them and once they catch on shrimp eggs hatch from the mother they will pick off the young, you may get a few survive but they could be hunted later. That's the bad side
The good side the female shrimp.may have lost her eggs and the Endlers ate them, she will get berried again pretty quick

 

[Drewbacca]

Endlers generally don’t eat their young like guppies do. That’s hasn’t been an issue. Like I said, I’m ok with losing some baby shrimp to the fish. I just want them to make it that far. If they’re knocking the eggs off the moms before they’re babies, then my colony will never take off.

 

[richiep]

Ive never heard of fish pestering shrimp like that so I wouldn't worry on that side, they may be getting stressed because of the fish but that's about it

 

[Drewbacca]

That’s good to hear. I’ve had some fish fry a month or so ago so there are about 25 fish in there.... 6 adults. I’ll try thinning it out and see if that helps. I have to do it anyway so that the bio load doesn’t get too high as the fry get older. I’ll probably move all the females into my 55 gallon and just leave about 6 males in there so I don’t have to worry about breeding in such a small tank.