Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

(disturbing thought: It's like inbreeding with your great great great great great great grandfather, and everything in between... :-D ) This brings up visions of Futurama, the X-Files, and Deliverance all at once. This is so wrong. :mrgreen: But yeah, I get your point about the shrimp, but was just...

And six newly hatched babies by my count this morning. The berried shrimp is still releasing freshly hatched babies, as far as I can tell, so we may have more.

Which brings me to an idle question, whenever you get around to answering, Mustafa - Do I have to worry about inbreeding in my shrimp?

I need to get a better camera for that, I think. And a macro lens. And they won't sit still, little buggers.

Well. It's been a while, but I didn't want to post until I was sure this batch of babies would live. But I have baby shrimp - two of them this time, and they've grown to the point where they are recognizably tiny shrimp. I no longer have to strain my eyes to see them. And there's another berried fem...

Well, an update: the berried shrimp with 11 eggs now has 7 left, but she's otherwise fine. There's another berried shrimp but I can't count her eggs as she's being rather reclusive right now. I'll get an egg count once she gets cooperative during the fortnightly feedings.

Yeah, she does. I did a count this morning and she has all 11 of them, which is good. The first female to lay, she's started saddling again. I think if all goes well I may have more shrimp in this tank next year than I did this one.

And yet another update: another saddled female, freshly molted, is now standing around with her swimmer legs hanging down like the other two did before they laid eggs. I suspect she's going to lay soon. I'll give an estimate of egg count if she's obliging enough to do so where I can see her.

Update: She is fully berried now, but also hiding in one of the crevices so I can't get a good egg count. I'll get one up sooner or later when she swims out to graze. EDIT: A quick count while she was out in the light gives me an estimate of about 9 to 11 eggs. We shall see if she successfully brood...

As for the shrimp trying to lay last night: She is still in the arched position, no eggs out yet. I did see a whitish bulge where the eggs would normally come out. I wonder how long this normally takes.

I've actually got another girl arching her back, with her swimmer legs held straight down like the first one to lay did before she laid. She's heavily saddled and I wouldn't be surprised if she winds up berried overnight. I think the breeding's started in earnest, and I'm fairly sure that as the you...

Awesome! :) Trust me, there are more to come... It seems to have vanished right now, but knowing my shrimp, it's probably just gone to a less visible part of the tank. And yes, there's been two molts just today and I'm keeping an eye on the saddled shrimp in case they're the ones that molted. Not t...

Mustafa wrote:Is the egg still there?

We have a baby! It hatched last night or a bit before, I think, but it's hanging out in one of the lighted spots, resting on the chaeto or sometimes the reef rock. It's... well, it's tiny. It's a bitty tail on a large-ish yolk sac.

- Mel

Update: She has just the one egg left but she's also been carrying it all this time, and otherwise is fine, so I'm expecting a baby about the end of the month or the first week of the next. The other girls don't look like they've molted yet but I'm still keeping an eye on the tank and maintaining it...

Hey Mel, Just leave the tank alone. :) It's normal for shrimp to drop some eggs the first few times they are ovigerous. Other shrimp chasing them has nothing to do with it. Either way, congrats! Well, I just hotglued a bunch of food-safe straws together and weighted them down with aquarium sand, th...

Hm. Interesting. After she laid her eggs I counted seven of them held to her swimmer legs, but now she has four. I don't know why she's dropping them (inexperience, perhaps) but I've noticed some other shrimp chasing her around the tank. I may have to use some large drinking straws to make a sort of...