Baby Cherry Shrimp

...I found it this morning cleaning that tank...

I wish my fish would do that!  You must pass on your training tips Sue.   

I noticed a couple of days ago that one of the females in the QT was no longer carrying eggs and she had developed a saddle (ie more eggs are growing in her ovaries). But I couldn't see any baby shrimps, though they are very difficult to see on the sand on the bottom of the tank.
I did a water change this morning and checked the old water before throwing it away - and found 7 baby shrimps, which are now back in the QT. There are probably a lot more than that, I just hoovered up 7.
I have moved the female that is now saddled but no longer berried into the 50 litre. Once the eggs carried by the second female hatch, I'll move all the older shrimp and just keep the new babies in the QT.


Anyone know how long it takes for cherry shrimp eggs to hatch? I noticed the first female carrying eggs on 5 Oct, 17 days ago. She may have had them before that and I just didn't notice. I am sure the second female didn't have eggs until 9 Oct because I was looking for them since she had a saddle when I found the first one with eggs. Will they hatch any day now or will it be a few days yet?

Thank you, Natalia. Female number 1 had probably been carrying eggs for several days before I noticed. It is tricky spotting individual shrimps in a tank with a lot of hiding places 
I have made notes on what I noticed and when.
On 20 Sep, I noticed 2 shrimps had saddles. On 5 Oct I realised one was berried. That's when I started checking the two red shrimps every day with a magnifying glass. Number 2 did not have eggs on 8 Oct, but she did on 9 Oct. The temp is 26^oC. So expect more babies around the beginning of November?

Just over a month after hatching, five of the babies were big enough to go in the 50 litre.

I always check the bucket after a water change on both the QT with the baby shrimps and also the 50 litre just in case I hoover up any baby cories. No shrimps from the QT today but there were 2 tiny baby shrimps in the water from the 50 litre. I am most surprised, I didn't think any newly hatched shrimps would stand a chance in there with pygmy cories and Microdevarios looking for a tasty snack.


Oh, and there are now six Microdevarios - I found another shop with just two left to add to my four. There are now two shops trying to get me some more as I want twelve altogether.

Ok read all this and the only thing I'm not doing is the beta glucans. I've been syphoning water from the surface, leaving the poop and only removing 1 litre a week from a 25 litre tank, there's an old piece of bogwood in there planted up with established java ferns, quite a few other plants in there, there's catappa leaves on the bottom, I've been putting pieces of trimmed plants from the 200 litre tank in every week so there's fresh bio-film and they get fed a pellet between them and the mts once a day.

Fingers crossed they hang on in there for the beta glucans

I just put a normal shrimp pellet in, which they started indulging in earlier this week. Prior to that they were feeding off the biofilm and algae. I've been swapping in stems of plants from the main tank that are covered in diadoms and they seem to love that.

I'm assuming thats sufficient.

I've seen 9 babies at one time on the feeding station so I guess there's a few I'm not seeing. I reckon atm with the decomposing catappa leaves there's enough to go round and I'm quite guilty of overfeeding, so if I'm satisfied, they must be