Is Breeding Seasonal?

[beckypyyeung]

My adult tiger shrimp gave birth to about 50 babies about a year ago, though all of them died one by one in two months. Now I have another batch of tiger shrimps in the tank. They have been there for several months. I have around 10 of them. None of them is pregnant. I guess some of them are male and some female. Do adult tiger shrimps get pregnant any time in the year or is it seasonal?

[demented_lullaby]

I don't believe it's seasonal. Someone else can clear this up for sure for you. Are you sure your water is soft to their liking?

[badflash]

I had a similar experience with several other varieties of shrimp. The problem turned out to be phosphates. Get a drop type phosphate test kit and check your phosphate levels. Once I got it below 5 ppm the eggs started showing up non-stop.

The other thing to checkis your hardness, both GH and KH. These animals won't breed in hard basic water, so you need to check that for sure. The solution to hard water is dilution with R/O and carefull use of diluted muratic acid. You need to be VERY carefull with the acid and should dilute it about 20:1 before you use it. You want to get your KH to near 0 and general hardness down to >70ppm or so. This takes time. I've been setting up a new tank and have been battling the pH for a couple of weeks. It has finally settled down.

A water softener pillow put in your filter will help if you are in the 200-300ppm range. Just be aware that minerals will leach out for months and you need to keep at it in an established tank. Be sure your substrate has no carbonate in it.

[beckypyyeung]

Thanks a lot my shrimp friends

[Mustafa]

Do adult tiger shrimps get pregnant any time in the year or is it seasonal?

Definitely not seasonal in the aquarium. Anytime the shrimp feel halfways happy they will breed.

[beckypyyeung]

Oh I see.

By the way, I bought a pregnant shrimp ten days ago. It reads "Diamond Rainbow Shrimp" in the fish shop. The eggs inside are black/ deep gray in colour. I'm waiting for seeing her babies. Don't know how much longer I'll have to wait. I've seen baby Diamond Rainbow in a fish shop. They're very beautiful, deep body color with little white stripe(s).

[beckypyyeung]

Wow, a minute ago I suddenly found that three of my tigers are pregnant

I'm very happy to see that on one hand, on the other hand my 50+ baby tigers died one by one in a month. I wonder if baby tigers can become adults in aquarium. If they can, what should I pay attention to?

My baby cherries were born at my home like the tigers did, cherris could successfully become adults. I don't know what went wrong with my baby tigers.

[Shrimp&Snails]

I had a similar experience with several other varieties of shrimp. The problem turned out to be phosphates. Get a drop type phosphate test kit and check your phosphate levels. Once I got it below 5 ppm the eggs started showing up non-stop.

The other thing to checkis your hardness, both GH and KH. These animals won't breed in hard basic water, so you need to check that for sure. The solution to hard water is dilution with R/O and carefull use of diluted muratic acid. You need to be VERY carefull with the acid and should dilute it about 20:1 before you use it. You want to get your KH to near 0 and general hardness down to >70ppm or so. This takes time. I've been setting up a new tank and have been battling the pH for a couple of weeks. It has finally settled down.

A water softener pillow put in your filter will help if you are in the 200-300ppm range. Just be aware that minerals will leach out for months and you need to keep at it in an established tank. Be sure your substrate has no carbonate in it.

Becky Tigers can't live for long in hard water.....the above info is the best way to go if you want to keep these fellas for longer than a month or two.