My success story

[Mustafa]

Wait until you get a point where you have 100+ larvae floating around. That's a pretty amazing sight, too.

[tooth]

Make that 4 berried females, another showed up this afternoon. The males are 'excited' winter is over, it seems. I don't think these 4 will make 100 larvae, but maybe 25-30. That'll be fun to see.

[Mustafa]

When it rains, it pours!

[tooth]

It is indeed raining--a fifth berried female showed up this morning.

[Mustafa]

Wow...and no food ever...just wow.

[tooth]

The first female to berry is now dropping larvae--7 so far, but it looks like 8-10 more eventually. Some struggle more to squirm free of the swimerettes than others. I can't tell if the female actively tries to hold them in or not.
The fifth berried shrimp has had some interesting behavior. She only produced one egg. She dropped it a couple of times at first, but went back and picked it up after a few hours. She hasn't dropped it for a week now. A few of the other shrimp would happen across the egg as it sat on the substrate, would investigate it, then leave it. I suppose it could be a dropped egg from one of the others, and this female just has a maternal instinct. She is smaller than the other berried females.
Has anyone else seen this happen?
Brad

[Mustafa]

Hmmm...something doesn't sound right there. Shrimp don't usually pick up anything with their swimmerettes/pleopods like that..at least not intentionally. Usually dropped eggs are gone for good. Have you actually observed this and could describe the mechanism behind it? What may have happened is that an egg was being dragged around hanging well outside the pleopods (and appeared dropped), but then the egg somehow got pulled back in. It's not unusual for Supershrimp to carry eggs well outside their bodies (but the eggs are still "connected" to the other eggs/pleopods).

[tooth]

The shrimp in question was perched in the front corner of the tank with one egg. I came back a little later, a few minutes, and noticed an egg sitting on the substrate. The egg was clearly visible (red on green algae), right in the front of the tank. I want to say the shrimp was still in the corner without an egg, but I can't be sure. Later, I watched a shrimp come over to the egg. It handled it a little with the forelegs, then swam off. By this time the corner shrimp was definitely gone. I looked for, but did not see the shrimp with the single egg. The egg sat there for a while, maybe 30 or 40 minutes--I checked it every few minutes, as I was curious. I did not see any other shrimp show interest in the egg as it sat on the algae, although several passed close to it. I came back (a few minutes, perhaps 10) to find the egg was gone from off the substrate, and a shrimp was back in the same corner with one egg, but I did not actually see the shrimp pick up the egg. This whole scenario happened at least twice--always in the same spot, over a couple of days. The shrimp is still carrying just the one egg.

[tooth]

On another note, the first female to berry this time around (April) has dropped 16 larvae over the last 4 days, with 6 more to go. She is the biggest shrimp of the group, and this is her second time breeding. Just counted the larvae now that they are all free of the female. They are difficult to count since they are rising and falling, moving back and forth, etc., so I counted several times, and it looks like 25-27 all told.

[tooth]

Here is a pic of most (maybe all?) of the larvae. I count 25 in this photo. I've counted the group several times, ending up with between 23 and 27.

20150526_182503_resized.jpg (439.75 KiB) Viewed 7598 times

[tooth]

The larvae were visible this morning in a nice pattern. I counted several times--28. The eggs of the other 4 berried females are still a month or so away from hatching, so they all came from the one large female it would seem.

[Mustafa]

Thanks for the pic!

[tooth]

The 28 larvae are now benthic. The second berried female started releasing her larvae today, about 8. The third berried female (8 or 9 eggs) looks like she'll release in a day or two. The fourth looks to be a week off, or so (this will be her 3rd clutch--10-ish eggs). The fifth, carrying just the one egg, looks like a week or two out.
The second female just finished dropping, with a total of 13. The third may start dropping today, by the looks of it. I got a good view at the third, and she seems to be carrying about a dozen.

[tooth]

The third female released her larvae today--I was a little low on my estimate as she produced 14. That's 55 for the first 3 females .
I haven't seen the fourth for a few days, or the fifth which had just the one egg. I've noticed some of the females get a little shy a week or two before dropping larvae. Anyway, I'm quite happy!

[tooth]

The fourth female released larvae today--I count 15 or so. I have about 42 or 43 larvae floating head down now. I have not seen the female with the single egg for a week or so. Maybe she dropped it for good?
The total for the 4 females is 70 or so. Wow.