I am watching one of my girls lay eggs right now!

[MelWong]

A freshly molted, heavily saddled female is sitting in a corner of the tank with her back arched slightly and I'm watching her lay the eggs as I type.

Eeee!

[MelWong]

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 "shrimpyhide" for expectant shrimp to hide in to avoid the annoyances of being chased while having to guard a clutch of eggs.

[myprecious]

You should have recorded the process - that would be interesting to watch.

[Mustafa]

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!

[MelWong]

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, then dropped them in and put some chaeto on top. I am calling it the "Shrimp condo" - I know some red cherry shrimp and bee shrimp breeders use really posh ones handmade from clay in Japan, but I don't have access to a ceramics kiln yet, so mine will have to deal with the prefab shrimp uh, Fisher Price playhouse version.

They seem to like swimming through and resting in the condo, so if they like it I'm fine with having it in there. I'm otherwise maintaining water level, temperature, feeding 8 to 10 pellets every 2 weeks - and I'm sure my other saddled shrimp will lay soon.

I haven't seen the berried shrimp around - she's probably hiding somewhere, or may have dropped the eggs entirely, but I'll keep an eye on them and see if we have babies in a month.

The egg-laying process is actually pretty interesting to watch. You can guess if a female is going to do it a bit of time in advance if you catch her molting. She'll straighten her swimmer legs out vertically, perpendicular to her tail in what another poster described as a "cage", and that was what kept me looking at that one female who did berry. But now I've noticed this, I can keep an eye on the other females and see if my new phone is actually good enough to take good video footage the next time one lays. (Especially if I get one of those neat macro lenses.)

- Mel

PS: Aww crap. I promised them a new tank if they gave me babies. They are giving me babies. Guess it's time to start virtually windowshopping just in case they reproduce enough I might want to follow up on that. If.

PPS: Spotted her! She's got three eggs left, looks like, but she's lively and well and browsing the algae on my fossil coral rock, so all's well.

[Mustafa]

Looks like you're going to have to get that new tank. They really don't need any condo or anything similar (frehswater shrimp don't need it either), but if you like it, that's a different matter. I'm pretty sure those three eggs will hatch. Young females tend to drop many eggs, but they also tend to hold on to a few. So, you may actually see 3 larvae floating around in about 30-35 days.

[MelWong]

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 its parameters. They seem to actually like resting inside the tubes of the "condo" that I made from time to time, so I've decided to leave it. The snails have also spawned, and I've got a couple tiny babies crawling around on the tank glass - tiny pinhead size ones.

[Mustafa]

Is the egg still there?

[MelWong]

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

[Mustafa]

Awesome! Trust me, there are more to come...

[MelWong]

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 too likely as neither of them looks callow in general - freshly molted shrimp have a sort of slightly shiny look to them before their shells harden, and they just don't look like it.

[Mustafa]

If you have a light right on top, usually the larvae like to hang out right under it...close to the surface. Just keep looking...one larva can be hard to keep track of.

[Mustafa]

One more thing...if you think like you're not getting enough reproduction although your shrimp are out and about doing just fine, just increase the amount you feed every two weeks. You may be a little too careful with the amount you feed. In an established tank food sitting around for 3-4 hours before it's completely gone is not a problem at all.

[MelWong]

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 young mothers get more experienced, more eggs will be retained to hatch into babies. I've spotted our baby hanging out on the tops of the rocks where the lights are when it wants to show itself, but I also have a lot of chaeto in my tank.

[MelWong]

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.