RCS Stressed?

[jeej]

I have only been keeping these for a couple of weeks.

I bought 5; 2 mature females, one young female and 2 young males.

One of the females was quite pregnant (at least I thought). Then I saw some pics on here of pregnant RCS and they seemed to have A LOT more eggs. Mine had maybe 10 - hard to count.

Anyway, as you know the babies are tiny! I've only managed to spot two at the same time. Which either means they are hiding, or I literally only have two babies.

What would cause a female to only have so few eggs?

My tank is 7 gallons and stays around 81 degrees F. There is a mixture of Guppy Grass and Java Moss for them to hide in and I am using a large piece of sponge to cover the inlet of my hang-on filter. The pH is 7.2 and everything seems pretty stable.

My females are bright red and my males are red through their centres.

I feed them once a day by chucking in a couple of sinking crab cuisine pellets.

My shrimp seem to hide quite a lot, but I was under the impression that they should be quite bold. When they do come out, they tend to stay around the same dead leaf and just walk about, rarely actually swimming very far.

Is the behaviour of my RCS abnormal, or are they still just adjusting to the tank after a couple of weeks?

Any advice or tips would be great!

Thanks.

[aberfitch]

I am suprised she even had any babies since the you have only had them a couple of weeks. 81 degrees F is kind of too hot . 76-78 should be more comfortable. If the tank is new Not established with micro food for the babies they are probably not getting enough to eat. This is only SOME of the problems with having them for only a couple weeks in a new tank.

[Neonshrimp]

A female will have fewer eggs if she is inexperienced in carrying the eggs (first time berried) or if she is stressed during transport or just kept in a stressful environment. The babies are more like hiding in the plants. I have babies from females berried with 30+ eggs and see a fraction of the babies when they hatch but when it is feeding time most of them come out. Keep your eyes open and maybe you will spot yours, look closer around feeding time

[jeej]

What can I do about the temperature? I'm in Queensland Australia summertime!

People keep telling me that at feeding time the RCS should swarm around the food, but mine are bloody ambivalent!

I think all these shrimp are very young, so that would explain the low egg count, going by what you have said.

Cheers for your help.

[badflash]

Feed them less. Also look for food that is veggie based rather than meat based. These guy just don't need much and you'll kill them with overfeeding. Read the FAQs and the articles.

[jeej]

Ah, fair enough. Thanks for the advice.

[Neonshrimp]

I have fans over my shrimp tanks. They will bring down the temerature up to 5 degrees F, that can make a big difference in the health of shrimp.

[Mustafa]

81 degrees F is just fine. Don't worry about the temperature. Just read up everything you can on this site and things should work out fine in time. The most common problems are: 1. Tank is not established 2. too much food (which screws up the water..even if you can't measure it).