dropping eggs

[jpmel]

hi everyone.. i've recently juz started shrimp keeping and i have some greens and cherries with me... after keeping them for abt a month or so.. i realised that the pregnant shrimps always drop the eggs in a whole cluster and it happens to both the green and cherries! can anyone please tell me what i should do?

[Shady]

jp,

Welcome! I am a noob here too, but I think there have been other posts similar to this one. Try doing a search. You might also post your water chemistry parameters, especially hardness and pH. I think you need acidic pH for successful breeding.

[Mustafa]

Yes, a search in this forum is very helpful. By the way, Red Cherries and Green Shrimp need alkaline water to be most productive (and in the case of green shrimp to be able to breed at all), so one can't really generalize certain PH levels on all shrimp. It really depends on the species of shrimp you are keeping. I will soon update all my shrimp profiles with PH information to clarify these issues.

[badflash]

It is probably too obvious, but do you have males in there? I've gotton batches of all males & all females. All females is really common with RCS. No male and the eggs drop.

[Redbridge]

Mustafa, I have egg dropping issues as well. I thought it was due to my males still being quite young-the good news is I have at least 1 baby so far. Can you help me understand what you mean by alkaline-do you mean above 7.0? my PH is 7.2 is that too low or too high for RCS?

Thanks,

[badflash]

Yes, alkaline is pH above 7.0. Acid is lower than 7.0
7.5 is just about perfect for most shrimp.

[Mustafa]

It's actually a fallacy to assume that most shrimp need hard alkaline water. It really depends on the species. When I update my shrimp varieties page with water parameter information for every species, this will become more apparent.

Redbridge, 7.2 PH for Red Cherries is fine. You have to look at other factors to see why your shrimp are dropping their eggs. As mentioned above, you need a male. If you have that you should read my article "Why are my shrimp dying?" and see if any of the factors mentioned there could be causing stress for your shrimp.

[Kenshin]

Besides Mustafa care sheets and info. on why shrimps would be stressed/drop eggs, you can also search my previous posts in this forum as well. I used to have that same problem and almost gave up shrimp keeping hobby. But the members in this forum have been giving me great advices in which I have followed, and now I am breeding RCS like crazy now.