Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

I'm still clueless as to the sex. I pulled out 6, turned them over and checked. The manual says:

EXAMINE THE VENTRAL SIDE OF THE FIRST SOMITE (SEGMENT) OF THE ABDOMEN; MALES HAVE A LUMP OR POINT IN THE CENTRE OF THE SOMITE WHICH CAN BE FELT WITH THE FINGER

I didn't feel a thing. Either I'm not doing this right or these were all female. They are not that hard to check. I used a 6" square net to catch them. Once you grab them they stop fighting and just put their claws together straight in front of them.

While I had trouble determining the sex, the shrimp have no such problem. I now have at least one Blue claw (BC), several orange claws (OC) and a good number of females and even a runt male. I have 13 all together after finding homes for the others.

In one tank I have 3 shrimp. The blue claw has picked the best "cave" and a female spends time with him on a regular basis. The OC hiides on the far side of the tank, even though he is larger than the BC and the female will have nothing to do with him. So far no troubles, but now that Ihave a positive ID on the OC's I'll probably isolate them from each other to prevent a blood bath on the next molt.

Maybe I should get my rosenbergii a girl (along with upgrading the size of the tank by a lot), but would I have to get a female that matches his size? Cuz that would be hard to find.
By the way, what do they do when they "spend time together"? just sit there?

ok jack im confused i have one that is showing blu in the claw and some that are orange and one that nothing so is the bigest blu a domanet MALE ? he hangs in the cave. last night there were some blood worms hiding in the sand left from 4 dasy prior man the blu claw went out diging deep and grabed a few i was like woooo i call him proteus the prawn hes the biggest and doing the "this is my hood biatch"

I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty sure a blue claw will tolerate any adult female, especially one that is about to molt and carry eggs. The Orange Claws are reported to kill and eat females and have little interest in mating, even though they can. This may be what happened to Chlorophyll's female.

By the way, what do they do when they "spend time together"? just sit there?

Yes, the female is not fertile yet. I understand the behavior of a BC is to gather and guard his females from other males. The female does a lot of stroking with her feelers, but little else.

so jack do the females have blu and orange or are orange claws just liek a male drone ? jsut seems like there are more questions