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I just got a group of five Cherry Shrimp for my 10 gallon dorm tank yesterday, and a few minutes ago I witnessed some sort of struggle going on between a couple of the shrimp. At first I thought one of them was dead/dying and another one was trying to eat it (perfectly understandable, but I would be kind of PO'd if one of them died), but then I realized the struggling one was just shedding.

The other shrimp looked like it was trying to eat the one that was shedding. The shedding one appeared to be having a lot of trouble shedding its legs, so it could not get away. The predatory (?) shrimp was dragging the shedding shrimp around the tank and appeared to be picking at it, but I could not tell if it was picking at the actual shrimp or its shed shell.

I chased the offending shrimp away with my hand and carefully removed the remaining part of the shell on the "victim" (the part that was trapping the legs). The shrimp then swam away to a hiding place and appeared to be fine. After this, I remembered that crawfish generally like to eat their exoskeletons after they shed to "recycle" the nutrients.

Is this what the "predatory" shrimp was doing, just going after the shell of the shedding shrimp? Or was it actually attacking the other shrimp because its new shell was still very soft? The shrimp that was being "attacked" was flipping its tail and trying to get away, but I don't know if this is because it was just trying to get out of the shell or if it was trying to get away from the other shrimp (or both?).

These are the first Neocaridina I've kept personally, so I really don't know that much about the intricacies of their behavior. The shrimp that was shedding appeared to be a female and the "attacker" appeared to be a male, if that has anything to do with it. There is also a school of Trigonostigma hengeli and a group of five Amano Shrimp in this tank (giving a total of 10 shrimp). There are many hiding places, and the Amanos are slightly larger than the Cherries, but I have not witnessed any aggression/territoriality between the two species.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

It sounds like the male was trying to mate with with the freshly molted female. This thread from petshrimp.com sounds similar to your situation.

[link]http://www.petshrimp.com/discussions/viewtopic.php?t=2205

These ones definitely weren't mating... The "attacker" was picking at the head/thorax region of the shrimp, and was not lined up with the female at all, as was described in that thread. I'm fairly certain it was trying to eat the shed exoskeleton that was still trapping the "victim" or it was trying to eat the shedding shrimp itself. I just can't figure out which one.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Cherries are not agressive with each other or other shrimp. Sounds like they are starving and going after any scrap of food they can find. Sometimes they aren't fed well in dealer tanks because they are kept with fish and the fish get all the food and/or there is no algae in the tank. Cherry shrimp are one of the more algae eating species and with amanos your tank is probably already bare of algae so they won't get any food there. You might have to grow some algae covered rocks like for otos as well as feeding them a few good meals of sinking food and soft vegetables like cucumber. If food is scarce the amanos are also likely to attack even healthy smaller species of shrimp. There's been a few people who have had all of their smaller species like cherries or rainbows wiped out by hungry amanos.

Thanks for the info. I think I counted all five Cherries alive in there this morning.

I see the Amanos eat fish flakes all the time, so I doubt they are staving. I see the Cherries picking at the Riccia but not any of the flakes. I don't have any algae in the tank right now, so I guess I'll have to get some veggies. The only problem is that there's no grocery stores within biking distance here.

I'm going to be leaving this evening and I'm not going to be back till Monday. Should I try to put some veggies in the tank to satisfy the shrimp? Or should I just not worry about it for now?

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

OK, well it just so happened that the farmer's market was going on this afternoon, so I went downtown and got an organic, locally-grown cucumber for the shrimp. I just put a piece in a moment ago, and so far there's one Cherry and one Amano on it (and it looks like the rest of the shrimp are looking for it).

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Cherries aren't big on most flakes unless they are vegetable based. They will pick at most sinking pellets, algae wafers, and invertebrate foods like crab and lobster bites. Otherwise if you can get some vegetables leaving a small amount of cucumber for a few day usually won't do any harm. There's not much to a cucumber so it doesn't pollute a tank very easily and most vegetables take a day or 2 to start breaking down anyway. I've been leaving cucumber chunks in the 10g for long periods of time to get the tadpoles in there to eat. They won't eat it if it hasn't been sitting in there for a day or 2. The shrimp then make off with bits of it in the meantime.