Tropical Fish Forum

Tropical Fish Keeping => Invertebrates - Shrimps and Snails => Topic started by: AdyDnt on November 12, 2015, 12:36:13 PM

Title: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: AdyDnt on November 12, 2015, 12:36:13 PM
I have 7 red cherry shrimp in my little tank and im hopping they will start to breed but is there anything i can do to improve the likelyhood of this happening, i.e. what plants they prefer to lay eggs in, water temp and that sort of thing. Currently the temp is set at about 22 degrees, i use Beta G and Bacter AE along with Hikkari shrimp food. also in the tank is a cappata log, plastic plant decor and some ceramic tubes for them to hide in. Occasionally i give them a spinach leaf which they love but as yet iv had no luck with babbies, still keep my fingers crossed though.
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: Sue on November 12, 2015, 01:38:20 PM
The first thing to check is that you have both males and females, not all the same.
I've never been much good as sexing cherry shrimp by looking at their abdomens, but females are meant to be rounded underneath and males straight.
At certain times, females will show a saddle shaped mark on their backs. This is the ovaries filling with eggs. Males, obviously, don't get saddles.
Once the eggs become mature, they move down to the undercarriage, then if they are not fertilised they are dropped (I think). At this time the female does not have a saddle, but one will develop again.

Have you ever seen any of your shrimps carrying eggs? They look like a cluster of berries between the swimmerets under the abdomen. If you have seen this, it means the shrimps are breeding but something is happening to the baby shrimps.


Other than that, I don't know what to suggest, except maybe to go out and see if you can find a berried female in a shop. That way you'll know you have at least one female and hopefully the eggs will hatch giving you lots of babies, which should contain both sexes.



My cherry shrimp breed all the time. They are in a 50 litre tank (60 x 30cm footprint). The pH is 7.4 and the hardness 6 german degrees. Temperature 23oC. Sand substrate. Bogwood, and redmoor wood and a tangled root style plastic ornament, with java fern, anubias, bolbitis and hornwort attached to/draped through the decor. Alder cones scattered over the substrate. Food - Hikari shrimp cuisine (and New Life Spectrum flakes and crushed pellets for the fish which the shrimps also eat). Tank mates pygmy cories, habrosus cories, Boraras urophthalmoides and B maculatus. [Yes the tank is a bit overstocked but the fish are very small]

I used to use beta g but only use it now if I add new shrimps. It's almost out of date!
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: AdyDnt on November 13, 2015, 11:29:07 AM
I think I may have all female shrimp then as all my shrimp have saddles, either white or black looking in colour
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: Sue on November 13, 2015, 12:44:31 PM
In that case, you need a male.
Either go shopping for a cherry shrimp with the flattest under-abdomen you can find, or look for a female carrying eggs. They are quite easy to spot as little balls between the female's swimmerets (under the abdomen). Yes that will give you another female but some of those eggs must hatch into males.
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: AdyDnt on November 13, 2015, 04:01:36 PM
shrimp shopping at the weekend or next week then :)
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: AdyDnt on November 16, 2015, 12:16:11 PM
Well, looked in the tank this morning ready to feed the CPD's and shrimp and noticed i had lost another shrimp, but such is the circle of life and to my amazement, a shrimp pressed her belly to the glass while scavaging for food and showed me a clutch of yellow eggs in her undercarrige. Fingers crossed now they hatch and i'll be more carefull with the future water changes, couldnt be happier.
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: Sue on November 16, 2015, 12:26:17 PM
That's good news  ;D  And it means you did have at least one male in the tank when the female released the eggs from her ovaries.

When you do water changes, check the old water carefully before throwing it away. Newly hatched cherry shrimps are tiny. The technique I use is time consuming and boring but it does save babies. And adults.
I use a bucket and siphon tube to do water changes. After I've removed enough water I use a plastic jug to scoop water out of the bucket. At first all I find is water but as I get lower down I start to scoop out debris - hornwort leaves, fish, snail and shrimp poo etc. This is where the babies will be hiding. I then pour the water from the jug into a cheesecake pot a bit at a time and look carefully. Any baby shrimps can be sucked out using a medicine pipette with the tip cut off to make the opening wider. Juvenile and adult shrimps can't be sucked up so I have to suck out all the debris instead and decant the shrimp back into the tank.
This does take a while but it is amazing just how many babies I find like this. I think my record is 13.
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: AdyDnt on November 16, 2015, 01:07:15 PM
I usually take the water from the rear compartment of the aquanano tank where the heater and pump live, so hopefully ill not be anywhere near the young ones, though i do use a white polystyrene packing box that some shrimp from sharnbrook shrimp came in, so that will be usefull to inspect the water before pouring it away.
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: Sue on November 16, 2015, 02:45:25 PM
With that tank layout you should be OK though it is possible some might squeeze through. Be warned though that baby shrimps are around 1mm long, and whitish. You probably won't see them against polystryene.

Do you clean the substrate at all? That's how I suck my shrimps up. I have sand and hornwort leaves fall off regularly all over the sand so I 'hoover' them out. I know that shrimp poo grows bacteria that shrimps like to eat, but I also have snails in there and their poo looks awful on sand alongside the hornwort leaves  :-\
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: AdyDnt on November 16, 2015, 03:03:48 PM
Yeah i have dark sand as a substrate and i hoover bits of fish and snail bob out now and again.
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: Sue on November 16, 2015, 03:06:56 PM
Definitely look for shrimps when you do that  ;D
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: AdyDnt on December 17, 2015, 09:46:42 AM
Well I still have a pregnant female but I have now lost all my shrimp except 2, pretty disheartened at this stage. My nitrate level out the tap is around 40ppm and I'm wondering if this could be a bit high for them.
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: Sue on December 17, 2015, 11:15:10 AM
Are the shrimps plain basic red cherries or one of the 'fancier' types like fire red or sakura? The fancier types are more inbred than the basic cherries (they are also inbred but not as much).

Red cherries are supposed to be very adaptable to various water conditions and my reading does not suggest a sensitivity to nitrate, though that doesn't mean they can cope with high nitrate.

You said earlier in the thread that you take water from the rear compartment of the tank to do water changes and hoover fish and snail poo from the substrate now and again. I know that in shrimp-only tanks, not hoovering the substrate is acceptable as shrimp poo grows bacteria that shrimp eat but I don't know about fish and snail poo. Maybe try hoovering the bottom more often.



I do know what it is like to lose shrimps like this as my start with cherry shrimps was disastrous. And I've lost all my crystal reds, probably due to them not liking my water.
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: AdyDnt on December 17, 2015, 12:13:17 PM
The shrimp are plain red cherries, Iv ordered some floating plants to give them more things to crawl over and hopefully reduce the nitrates a little. I'd like another plant to put at the back of the tank but not sure what to get.
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: Sue on December 17, 2015, 12:42:05 PM
I have hornwort, java fern, java moss and bolbitis in with my shrimps. The fern, moss and bolbitis are grown fastened to decor and are quite slow growing; java fern is low light, bolbitis is medium light.
Hornwort (Ceratophyllum) is low light and fast growing. It can be planted but I grow it woven through a piece of redmoor wood.

I think that fast growing plants use nitrate faster that slow growing plants.
Title: Re: Help Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
Post by: AdyDnt on December 17, 2015, 01:18:52 PM
I'm a bit worried of buying plants and getting unwanted snails, I might get a Java fern as Iv read there quite easy to grow.