Tropical Fish Keeping - Aquarium fish care and resources

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someone with RCS enlighten me!

I've had Red cherry shrimp in a very heavily planted 5 gallon tank, for about 3 weeks now. I always see the green eggs on the tummy's of the females, but rarely see the babies. I've seen 1 or 2, they are green and very tiny (size of flea). Are they just hiding? Are they dieing and I just don't know? I do have a filter cover on the intake, so I know they are not getting sucked in. Perhaps it's normal not to see many, but I'm wondering, from those of you who have lots of experience if you can enlighten me on the cycle of these little guys.

Gwen

I constantly had problems with my RCS dropping their eggs? Have you found the eggs dropped around the tank? I have found it was possible I was startling them to the point of them releasing their eggs. Probably during tank changes or flashing on the lights in a really dark room. Then my next mistake was gravel vacing. It is very hard to know if you are sucking up baby shrimp during a water change because most of the time you can't see them because they are so tiny and they hide in the substrate. So I have found if I see a pregnant female I will try to stay away from her when sucking out water. I also quit gravel vacing because I believe I was sucking out the babies. As soon as I quit I had a successful batch of babies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dfbiggs (Post 881103)

Thanks for that. I've not seen little eggs in the tank, but I can't figure out why I don't see more babies. I just did a small wc today, and looked through the water before I threw it out. I wish I would have put sand down, because even though I have very tiny gravel, it will need to be vacuumed some day. I guess I'll stay away from the gravel completely and see how that goes. I haven't vac'd (until today) since I set the tank up a few weeks ago, so I couldn't have been losing them that way. A bit of a mystery. Thanks again.

Gwen

Quote:

Originally Posted by GwenInNM (Post 881127)

You're welcome..hope it works for you.

considering you've only had the shrimp for three weeks, it takes time for the eggs to mature before they hatch. When you start to get yellow eggs in their saddle that's when they are close to hatching. They may also like mentioned be dropping the eggs cause they're still getting used to their new home.

How long does it take the eggs to hatch? does the mother continue to carry them after hatching?

I believe their gestation period is about 30 days.

no the mother doesnt continue to hold after they hatch

If their gestation is 30 days, than I would have had females arrive from being shipped, pregnant. Talk about a reason to "drop eggs". They arrived in a bag the size of a tennis ball (15).

I've seen little ones, but so few, so I'm glad to know the eggs are more yellow when they are ready. I've seen yellow eggs too. I guess I will one day have a big group of them. So far, they are doing very nicely in a 5 gallon tank.

Gwen

Soon your five gallon is going to be over run. they breed like rabbits