AquaRank.com

FishProfiles.com Message Forums

faq | etiquette | register | my account | search | mailbox
# FishProfiles.com Message Forums
L# Freshwater Aquaria
 L# Invertebrates
  L# Breeding Cherry Shrimp
 Post Reply  New Topic
SubscribeBreeding Cherry Shrimp
rickyz
*********
-----
Fingerling
Posts: 26
Kudos: 19
Votes: 0
Registered: 04-Oct-2005
male puertorico
Hi, i would like to know more about the cherry shrimp. And breeding them any help would be appreciated.
Post InfoPosted 26-Jan-2006 11:27Profile PM Edit Report 
illustrae
**********
-----
Fish Addict
Posts: 820
Kudos: 876
Registered: 04-May-2005
female usa
It's really quite easy. Buy a half dozen or so shrimp, put them in a tank, and in 3-4 weeks, there should be baby shrimp.

For optimal breeding conditions, put them in a tank by themselves. I have a breeding colony of upwards of 30 shrimp in a 7.5 gallon tank, so the tank clearly does not need to be very large at all. They will appreciate a heater to keep the water around 78°F, and a sponge filter or a sponge over the intake of your filter will keep the water moving, but not too much, and will prevent baby shrimp from getting sucked up.
Cherry shrimp are algae eaters, though they'll eat any kind of detrius in the tank. They will appreciate plants and caves to explore, and Java moss provides excellent cover for baby shrimp, and traps all kinds of stuff for them to eat.
A few drops of marine Iodine (Kent makes a good one) added to the water helps keep inverts healthy and may help them survive molting easier. It really is just a few drops, though. One or two per gallon is plenty.
You don't need to feed baby shrimp anything special. They are born as miniature versions of adults and will eat what adult shrimp eat. I usually break up a variety of normal fish foods like shrimp pellets, algae wafers, and normal flake food. Hikiari also makes a food called "crab cuisine" that has calcium that is necessary for shrimp to build new shells, so I usually use this as a staple to their diet. Make sure you don't feed them too much, though, It's very easy to overfeed them, and that can cause a lot of water-quality problems. Just a pinch a day is enough. They'll clean it all up.

Water changes can be tricky. Baby shrimp, and even young adults are easy to suck up with a gravel vac. Fortunately, shrimp produce very, very little waste, so you should only have to do this once a month as long as you're not overfeeding. Regularly clean your filter though! For more frequent water changes, put a sponge or screen over your siphon tube to prevent suck-ups.

And that's about it. I started with 5 shrimp about a year ago, and now I have so many I can't count. I see females carrying yellow clutches of eggs under thier tails every day,a nd every few weeks, I catch glimpses of tiny baby shrimp in the moss. They are really funny to watch, and a shrimp-only tank is really not as boring as it sounds.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...
Post InfoPosted 26-Jan-2006 11:27Profile AIM PM Edit Delete Report 
sham
*********
----------
Ultimate Fish Guru
Posts: 3369
Kudos: 2782
Votes: 98
Registered: 21-Apr-2004
female usa
I'm working on this task myself. Except I only found 2 cherry shrimp to start with and lost what I think is the female so I'm waiting to see if the same store can order more in for me or I'll have to order them online when the weather warms up in a few months. I have a 5g with 2 pieces of driftwood, a couple round rocks, a few crypts, and floating plants. 1 piece of driftwood is mostly flat with a slight curve to form a cave underneath where molting shrimp hide and the other piece is tall and branching to help the shrimp use the top of the tank and get onto the floating plants. To feed them I pull algae from my other tanks and add it to that tank. The only other thing in the tank is trumpet snails. It's very hard to raise shrimp in a tank with fish. Even fish that won't eat the adult shrimp(which are fairly small already) will eat the babies. I've got a few ghost shrimp, rainbow shrimp, and wood shrimp in my 90g that occasionally manage to multiply mostly due to the moss wall and pile of hornwort in 1 corner that provides hiding places for the young but it's not very common.
Post InfoPosted 26-Jan-2006 11:27Profile PM Edit Delete Report 
So_Very_Sneaky
**********
---------------
Ultimate Fish Guru
Posts: 3238
Kudos: 2272
Votes: 201
Registered: 10-Mar-2004
female canada
Not to interrupt this thread though, but it seems
some very knowledgeable people here.
Would Cory Hasbrosus eat cherry shrimp do you think?
Thanks!


Come Play Yahtzee With Me!
http://games.atari.com
Http://www.myleague.com/yahtgames
Post InfoPosted 26-Jan-2006 11:27Profile PM Edit Delete Report 
sham
*********
----------
Ultimate Fish Guru
Posts: 3369
Kudos: 2782
Votes: 98
Registered: 21-Apr-2004
female usa
Definitely not the adults. They might grab babies though. Baby shrimp are only the size of about brine shrimp or even smaller. You can barely see them and if cories can get ahold of it they'll eat brine shrimp. The adults though should be fine but may hide a slight bit more than in a shrimp only tank so that they don't get bumped into by the hyper cories. My rainbow shrimp mostly hung onto driftwood and thick planted areas so the pandas wouldn't mow them over when flying along the substrate.
Post InfoPosted 26-Jan-2006 11:27Profile PM Edit Delete Report 
rickyz
*********
-----
Fingerling
Posts: 26
Kudos: 19
Votes: 0
Registered: 04-Oct-2005
male puertorico
Hi, yesterday I saw a female carrying eggs but some where like out of the bellie, like she was dropping them. My questions are:


1. Do the babies born inside their mother like guppies or she deposit the eggs.

2. Do the heterandria formosa and Poecilia Chica eat them.

3. Like how many babies I can expect from her.

4. The female doesn't have much color shes like clear like a lot of the cherry that I have but they are still juveniles, do all the cherry shrimp get the red color that I see in the pictures.

Thanks,
Post InfoPosted 07-Feb-2006 21:19Profile PM Edit Delete Report 
illustrae
**********
-----
Fish Addict
Posts: 820
Kudos: 876
Registered: 04-May-2005
female usa
The female shrimp lays her eggs and collects them all up under her tail. It should look like a little yellowish mass under her tail. She will occasionally fan them with her swimmerets. The eggs gestate and hatch under her tail over a period of 2-3 weeks. You'll notice the eggs growing and changing shape and even moving once the babies are hatching. Then the mother will let them go and they are on their own. They are very difficult to see for another week until they are larger and start to get their pink color.
This is very stressful for the female shrimp, and she may not eat during this time, and she will probably molt right after the babies are released. Having any other fish in the tank besides maybe ottos will increase the stress of the female and she may not carry the eggs all the way through gestation and drop them prematurely. This is why for breeding, a shrimp-only setup is best.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...
Post InfoPosted 08-Feb-2006 17:12Profile AIM PM Edit Delete Report 
Post Reply  New Topic
Jump to: 

The views expressed on this page are the implied opinions of their respective authors.
Under no circumstances do the comments on this page represent the opinions of the staff of FishProfiles.com.

FishProfiles.com Forums, version 11.0
Mazeguy Smilies