[DMHdispute]

I have a dead guppy in my tank and two cherry shrimp are eating it. Should i scoop the fish out before my parameters get screwed up or should i let them eat it? would there be any bad effects of letting them eat a dead fish, because as far as i know its part of what theyre supposed to do. Right?

 

[newbie314]

I would take it out.
I'd worry about posioning your tank.
I even take out dead shrimp.

Things just don't get eaten soon enough.

 

[southerndesert]

I remove them as well...One ammonia spike and your shrimps whole little world gets turned upside down. Not worth the risk, but that just me. In a ten gallon dead fish or other shrimp is a big deal, in a 50 gallon not such a big deal....

Bill

 

[MatPat]

I guess there are a lot of variables to this equation...like Bill said, in a 50g tank, a single dead guppy may not be much of a problem but in a 10g tank it could easily become an issue. If you have a lot of shrimp and snails in the tank, the dead fish could be gone very fast but if you only have a couple...

 

[dgphelps]

I've got a 37 gallon with hundreds of shrimp and several snails. I lost a fish a while back and it was gone within a few hours. No noticeable ammonia spike etc. I think each situation varies. I for one wouldn't go through the trouble of scooping out a dead fish or shrimp. Now if I lost several of anything at once I would, but that's never happened in my tank.

From what I have been able to surmise, the fish died of a cancer. It it died from a bacteria or fungal infection I would have gotten it out.

 

[bgzbgz]

Whatever the fish eat will eventually be turned into amonia.

 

[dgphelps]

But if your tank is cycled, has good populations of beneficial bacteria, is well planted, you do frequent water changes, etc. it won't matter. There are so many factors to consider for a question like this.

 

[oblongshrimp]

I agree with what the people above said. Of course if the fish was sick or something beforehand then I would remove it immediately just to try and cut down on passing the disease to the rest of the tank.