Banggai Cardinal eats Cleaner Shrimp!!!

I couldnt believe my eyes when i came home! I see my banggai cardinal with shrimp sticking out of his mouth. has anyone heard of anything like this before? I assume i should be concerned for my other shrimp in the tank. It is incredible as he is not really much bigger than the shrimp if at all. Also it has been 2 hours since i fist saw it, and the shrimp is still sticking out of his mouth, could it be stuck? or is he just waiting to digest the first half before swallowing the rest?
here is the pic:

Are you sure that maybe it's only eating the molt? I'm just guessing but that stinks. Maybe it's hungry.

i had 4 shrimp and now only see 3. could be hiding i guess, but why would he eat the molt?

That really sucks if it was a shrimp but,....on the other hand its a really nice picture.

Sorry about the shrimp tooo.

OMG.. That is awesome..sorry.. But I always see banggai cardinal as slow and shy.. That definitely change my mind ..

wow....albert, this is really streange...
i alwast tought they so shy...
sorry,bro...

mike

Sorry....but that's hilarious...lol

That's one cool pic.

Some of my fish pick at the molt.

One of my friends fish (forgot which one) ate the molt & had it stuck in its mouth for a few days too.

If it did eat the shrimp.......you have one serious PJ there.

Looking at the pic again....I don't think it's the molt.
Are the antennas still white after the molt?

Ooops,
sorry for the loss bro.

i know, its funny but i feel the same way as most. of course i feel bad for the loss of the shrimp, but at the same time it really is pretty cool. (first thing i did is run for my camera).

LOL...


Maybe he cleaning the inside of the fish...

That first pic was taken around 8:30pm.
Here is an update at around 12:30am (4 hours later).

Cool! Are you sure the shrimp didn't die first before being eaten. I think that it would be too fast for a cardinal!

Great picture . But an expensive meal for the fish.

as i said before, i just saw it the way i posted the pic. it must have happened during the day while i was at work (lights out on the tank). I cant know if the shrimp molted or died or was just a victim of a surprise attack.

i dont think anyone would've believed it without the pic to prove it.

i think it was probably the molt. my coral banded has molted a few times and i thought it was dead till i realized what it was. when a shrimp molts, it will hide because its skeleton is not hard, therefore it is unprotected. maybe you can catch the fish and try to gently pull the "shrimp" out of it's mouth.

I think it could have been alive. I had a coral banded shrimp start eating a damsel face first while it was ALIVE , I should have taken pics or a short movie cause its really hard to believe. The damsel was in really good health, I pulled the damsel away from the shrimp, he swam into a corner. I thought he was getting better but died two days later

Hard to believe? It is but I saw it with my own eyes. This happened with the lights off and I saw it when I woke up in the morning.

i don't think it's the molt, the legs still have too much color.

I have a monster of a banggai cardinal. He will eat 2 pieces of live food (we haven't taught our baby antennae lion to eat dead yet) before the lion gets any. He will devour entire silversides when I am trying to handfeed anemones. He never shows any agression towards other fish (except occasionally our damsel that is colored similarly) - but when he is hungry he is fast! So although I agree with Jennie, I wouldn't doubt his ability to catch a shrimp if it were still alive!

this morning the shimp is no longer sticking out of his mouth (and still only count 3 shrimp in the tank / one missing).

Originally posted by alrha:
i had 4 shrimp and now only see 3. could be hiding i guess, but why would he eat the molt?

Click to expand...

When my fire shrimp molts I always see critters and such pecking at it. Just a thought.