cherry egg questions

[fishgeek]

Hi apologies if i am repeating Q's

I was checking my tank today and have seen a first for me , egg's not in the shrimp but beneath the tail on the swimmerettes (right term?)

what i was hoping is that this only occurs with fertilised egg's
i have never seen it before just the saddle and then gone

the shrimp in question has quite a bit of colour , i understand this suggests that it is longer since the moult that allowed these egg's to drop down from within the body, is that correct?

the egg's have a greenish yellow colour to them does that signifiy that they are fertile or is there no way to tel other than waiting

incubation period appears to range around 3 weeks depending on temperatures, i am at 24 C , can anyone predict a more accurate time ?

is this a male?


and this is the female the questions have arisen from


last question, can anyone explain what i am donig wrong on the photo side?

[fishcrazee]

You have a male and a female alright. If the eggs are on the swimmerettes that means she is going to have babies. I'm not sure about color of the eggs, mine are usually a greenish yellow color as well. I'm not sure how long the incubatoion period is though. Also I can't answer your piucture questions sorry

[badflash]

Your picture problem is that you are using the location of the webpage and not the picture. The location needs to point to a graphic file (like pic.jpg) like this:


If you want to point to a website use the site

[Newjohn]

Just showing of your new " Red Zebra " Ha Ha

Thanks badflash

I needed to know the same information
John

[GunmetalBlue]

I was checking my tank today and have seen a first for me , egg's not in the shrimp but beneath the tail on the swimmerettes (right term?)

what i was hoping is that this only occurs with fertilised egg's
i have never seen it before just the saddle and then gone

Hi Fishgeek, congrats on your pregnant female. Actually, the very same thing happens to females WITHOUT having her eggs fertilized too - it's just that she will drop them within a day or a few days. It seems you have a male in there though, so I'm fairly certain her eggs are fertilized. So if she drops them again, it will be more related to having poor water parameters.

the shrimp in question has quite a bit of colour , i understand this suggests that it is longer since the moult that allowed these egg's to drop down from within the body, is that correct?

I'm afraid I don't quite understand your question, but let's put it this way ... as females mature and get older, they will color up. The most colorful in terms of being red is a pregnant female with fertilized eggs. However, there are all sorts of factors that determine the intensity of color in shrimp, such as substrate color, mood, time of day (in my experience, most intense after the lights have been on for a while, less intense in complete darkness), etc., etc. As to the molt, yes, usually a shrimp molts, then they are available for fertilization. If there are no males, the preproduction eggs in the saddle can and will still descend to the swimmerettes, but will be dropped within a few days.

the egg's have a greenish yellow colour to them does that signifiy that they are fertile or is there no way to tel other than waiting

incubation period appears to range around 3 weeks depending on temperatures, i am at 24 C , can anyone predict a more accurate time ?

I've heard some people report greenish yellow eggs - that's perfectly fine, and the color does not reflect if they are fertile or not. If you have a mature enough male and female, the chances are excellent though, that they are fertilized. As to incubation, mine have hatched on average, 17 - 18 days at about 78 F. It'll probably take longer in cooler temps; unfortunately I don't have experience with cooler water, but it should give you an idea when to start watching for the shrimplets. Enjoy!

-GB

[fishgeek]

sorry gunmetal, i meant that the colour of the females is quite intense so i am assuming that the moult that released the egg's may have been a few days ago?

prehaps not?

secndly do you think the image shown when badflash correctedmy error is a male?

thanks andrew

[fishcrazee]

Yea that is a male CRS. I really nice colored male at that

[GunmetalBlue]

sorry gunmetal, i meant that the colour of the females is quite intense so i am assuming that the moult that released the egg's may have been a few days ago?

prehaps not?

Hmmm, I'm wondering if perhaps you're referring to the fact that a shrimp can look a little milky before molting? At any rate, molting and shrimp turning more red afterwards, as far as I know are not necessarily related, except perhaps, the fact that a juvenile is becoming older, thus more colored out. Cherries are able to become pale or more red, even throughout the day/night, depending on other factors mentioned previously. I also think that ultimately, how intensely red they can become, is also related to genetics; but even in the same batch of offspring, you'll still have some shrimp that can become more intensely red than others.

As to the molting, then the eggs arriving on the swimmerettes, yes, it happens in that order, so I agree that your female molted recently, previous to the eggs arriving on the swimmerettes.

secndly do you think the image shown when badflash correctedmy error is a male?

I can't quite see the carapace over the swimmerettes clearly, but from what I tell, yes, I agree with Fishcrazee, it does look like a male.

Yea that is a male CRS.

To avoid confusion, thought I should mention CRS stands for Crystal Red Shrimp. So to refer to Red Cherries, one would use RCS . I remember when I first started shrimpin', all the names and pictures of shrimp were confusing and all seemed the same to me ... SHRIMP! But now it seems there's a world of difference between for instance, Crystal Reds and Cherries !

-GB

[fishcrazee]

Sorry about the CRS vs RCS I'm used to red cherry shrimp and not cherry red shrimp. I hope I didn't cause people a lot of confusion

[Mustafa]

Yea that is a male CRS. I really nice colored male at that

It's not necessarily a male. In fact the only way it would be a male with such bright red coloration is if it is an immature male. Only immature males can get this red, but lose the intense red once they mature. On the other hand, immature females have the general body shape of a male. Only after they start carrying eggs for the first time do they acquire the typical body shape of a female.

[tapmxt1]

Frankly speaking, I have not seen a male with that kind of coloration in my tanks. All my cherry shrimps (1/2" or larger) with that kind of coloration are all females - young females. As they get older (3/4" or larger), they become very red, dark red, or even a bit of purple.

All my the males are basically transparent and most have 2 long RED stripes (very thin like a string) from the edge of head to tail.


In my experience, at 76-78 (24.4C - 25.5C), the eggs takes 16-18 days to hatch.

[Mustafa]

I guess I should have been more precise. Only immature males of the "super red" red cherries (ones with solid red coloration...can't even see the eggs through the color) *can* be deep red when they are juveniles. How do I know that? Because I had selected out very young deep red "super red" red cherries to selectively breed them. I thought they were all going to be females since they were already deep red at a very small size. I was going to add a male later on. Well, before I added a male some of those deep red juveniles I separated lost their deep coloration and matured into males, while others kept the coloration and became females.

In most red cherry populations you will not see very young deep red males, but with the "super reds" you will sometimes. So, most people who think they have deep red males just have immature females. Sorry for the confusion.

[fishgeek]

is the photo good enough for you guys to sex
there is also a another slim bodied shrimp that maybe the male?

[GunmetalBlue]

I think if one of us saw the shrimp in question in person and saw all the angles and knew its age, we'd be in a better position to judge whether the shrimp is a male or female.

One shot of a shrimp in a limited angle with certain lighting can't help much (especially if still a juvenile), except for us to "speculate" on the sex of the shrimp. I do know lighting and angle can play a tricky role and might not necessarily get across what we might see in person.

I started my RCS shrimp population with just one male. On light-colored substrate, he looked like this:


However, after being put on dark substrate, with pic taken at a certain angle, more of the light is reflected off the carapace, which, if this is the only shot I represented, might make one think he is a female. BUT he is a fully grown male; it is the above same shrimp:


I just took a couple impromptu shots tonight from my all-male RCS tank (offsprings of the above male and the female behind him) - these guys are over 5 - 6 months old:




Incidently, in my all-male RCS tank, I have two groups - ones that are for the most part, clear, and ones that have some color. The ones with color are about the same as my lightest-colored adult females. But no, I have no males that are anywhere near as intensely red in terms of overall color coverage as my more colorful females - those are solid red, without the "lace" design on them.

So Fishgeek, if your shrimp in question is still a juvenile, the best way to find out is to wait until he/she becomes more mature and see if he/she develops a saddle and other characteristics that define male/female of this species. As you can see, photos can be somewhat deceiving.

Is your female still holding the eggs? And if she continues to do so, I guess that would solve the problem of if you have any males .

-GB

[fishgeek]

i believe she is still holding egg's , the tank has some very dense hair algae that i have put in so lots of good hiding places

the suspected male shrimp seems to me to have a more slender body/tail and also is seen swimming through the water more often than walking , these i thought were male traits
my photo's are no where near as good as your GB i will try for more

the substrate is black silica
i alos have one female from the group who is almost as mustafa say opaque red , so prehaps i have been lucky in finding intensely coloured shrimp and a a male

fingers crossed
andrew