Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

I recently purchased some Red Cherries from Petshrimp (which was great thanks again!) a few weeks ago (maybe a month?). About two weeks ago I started to notice red dots on their previous transparent shells which It hought was a good sign. Now I see a bright yellow to orange color blob at the base of the head that ends halfway to the back on the top. It doesn't look like pictures I've seen of eggs and they it's currently on every shrimp I've seen (at least 5 out of remaining 7).

Is this normal? What could it be? I've been fairly careful about water quality and i'm concern I might have done something to stress them out, but I have never heard of this kind of color patching.

That's ovaries with developing eggs. If you have a male, you will soon see them carrying eggs.

Opopanax wrote:I recently purchased some Red Cherries from Petshrimp (which was great thanks again!) a few weeks ago (maybe a month?). About two weeks ago I started to notice red dots on their previous transparent shells which It hought was a good sign. Now I see a bright yellow to orange color blob at the base of the head that ends halfway to the back on the top. It doesn't look like pictures I've seen of eggs and they it's currently on every shrimp I've seen (at least 5 out of remaining 7).

Is this normal? What could it be? I've been fairly careful about water quality and i'm concern I might have done something to stress them out, but I have never heard of this kind of color patching.

That's great news!

So I assume that I see that on every shrimp I can find I have no males?

If you can take a picture of the two shrimps without yellow saddle, someone here will probably can tell if they are male or female.

BlueEl - ya no photography options at the moment:(

It's not that the 2 do not have a saddle... I just haven't see the other 2 yet:) This is a very well planted tank so it's a bit like playing hide N seek.

Just thought of something.

I bougth 10 from petshrimp and 2 from a LFS in Madison, WI (the last two and they have never been refilled.) The two from the LFS 1 almost looks like a ghost shrimp and the 2nd is a dark dark red.

I've read that the males don't have the sam color, but I have never noticed a saddle or anything on the dark red cherry shrimp. I currently have the 2 from the LFS in s aseparate tank. Would it be advisable to move them into 1 tank for breeding purposes? Since I'm fairly certain that the 7 I got in my other tank all have saddles.

Take a look at http://www.petshrimp.com/redcherryshrimp.html. Do you have one look like the male on 2nd pic?

ya I was using that pic earlier. All my shrimp look like:P The bulk of them have that yellow spot. I did find the other 2 and they do not have that yellowish spot. So either they haven't developed it or they're male... I guess.

I'm going to see if I can grab someone's camera and try to take some pics.

you most likely have a few males in there. If the other two shrimp don't have eggs developing in the ovaries by now, they are probably males. And yes, you can put the other two red cherries in with these guys.

Finally I have a female RCH loaded with eggs on her swimmerlets! I have 2 more that have good saddles. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they will hold the eggs until they hatch. I have plenty of males, so fertilization should be no problem.

I'll keep everyone posted.

Got my proscope on line again so here is a picture if I can find out how to upload. It doesn't seem to be working.:


OK I've set the folder to public. I did this before but it looks like this is a premium service now.

Your link just does not work even when cut and pasted. It seems like your picture folder on yahoo is private and cannot be linked. Try to make it public. There should be a setting somewhere there in yahoo.

I updated the picture and verified it is public.

Wow, your female has a lot of eggs there. You'll have lots of offspring soon!

The reason your picture does not show here is becaue yahoo adds a bunch of things behind the .jpg file in the link, which the [img] tag does not recognize. It's ok, cutting and pasting works just fine.

thank you to everyone who pointed out the yellow/orange coloring was the saddle. I saw a distinct yellow color and didn't make the connection the saddles mentioned on the threads.

I was getting very excited about the number of females with saddles 5 for sure out my total 7. The last 4 days I haven't seen a single shrimp with a saddle in my tank. I just attempted a census and I counted 4 maybe 5 shrimp none with a saddle. I'm sure all 7 are in there, and were easily missed. But the fact that 4 our of the 7 didn't have a saddle where 5 out of the 7 did just a week ago has me a tad concern.

I do think a few of the shrimp may of molted since 2 of them were quite larger than before. I do not see any eggs on any swimerettes (but I could be missing them).

I'll try to post some pics. I just got a camera and i'm still trying to get the focus right (when they decide to pose for me which is not often). I also I'm not sure wehre to put them so I can link the photos. In the meantime anyone have any suggestions? I've browsed the boards here and done an exhustive search via google.

I know that the saddle will disappear after a molt and the eggs will move to the swimmerattes, but I haven't seen any eggs on teh swimmerates. Maybe they're too small and I'm jsut not seeing it.