Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

I got my first batch of Caridina cf. babaulti babies about 5 months ago. At this point, the young are still only half-grown so I figure their generation time to be 10-12 months? I'm wondering if anyone else has a similar experience, or am I doing something horribly wrong to stunt their growth?

I remember Kenshin saying he thought his infant daughter grew faster than these guys, and I have to say I agree!

on a green-ish shrimp sidenote: badflash, how are you green N. heteropoda doing? Any new pics? That one large, dark green female you had was just beautiful. The best looking green Neocaridina I've seen.

It all really depends on what kind of green shrimp you have, water quality and what type of food is available. Certain micro-organisms make all shrimp grow much faster than others. I've had green shrimp that grew to adult size within a month and a half and started carrying eggs. I've had others that took half a year almost. The same can happen with red cherry shrimp by the way...although less extreme. My research and observations on this are ongoing....

Mustafa wrote: Certain micro-organisms make all shrimp grow much faster than others.

interesting. If you could figure out how to foster those 'super-food' organisms, you'd make a fortune wouldn't you?

Wouldn't that be great? "Shrimp Super Micro-Food!" "Makes your green shrimp grow to the size of a small dog!!" Joking aside, since other factors (e.g. water quality) play a role, too, I doubt there will ever be a packaged product like that. Rather, we have to identify the exact factors that play a role and strive to achieve the right conditions for those factors to become "dominant" in the shrimp tank. One "easy" way to circumvent all of that is to just have a very large tank (55 gallons minimum). There is usually tons of food growing in such a tank and it's much harder to mess up the water quality in larger bodies of water.

I know that my green shrimp grow slowly. Not as slow as I had expected, since everyone seems to say that theirs grow slowly, but my cherries and snowballs definitely grow twice as fast.

shrimpbaby wrote:I know that my green shrimp grow slowly. Not as slow as I had expected, since everyone seems to say that theirs grow slowly, but my cherries and snowballs definitely grow twice as fast.

yes
and my indian zebra are even slower

zapisto wrote:and my indian zebra are even slower

Just a theory, but I think mine have grown much better since I put them on very fine sand. They seem to prefer turning sand to fish food.

Mustafa wrote: "Shrimp Super Micro-Food!" "Makes your green shrimp grow to the size of a small dog!!"

LMAO!! That I'd have to see.

One "easy" way to circumvent all of that is to just have a very large tank (55 gallons minimum). There is usually tons of food growing in such a tank and it's much harder to mess up the water quality in larger bodies of water.

that's a great point. I wish I had the room for a giant invert-only tank. Maybe a 55 gal just for that 1 chihuahua-sized Caridina

JK, that's a great observation. It's easy to imagine that the higher surface area of the sand substrate cultures more micro-critters. Which, as we all know, is really what dwarf shrimp prefer to eat over prepared foods.

If they were chihuahua-sized Caridina they would no longer be "dwarf shrimp" anymore, would they?

I noticed today that some of my original offspring are developing saddles, so I think that it has been 6-8 months for me.

Have these offspring reached adult size to be berried or are they still small?

Neonshrimp wrote:Have these offspring reached adult size to be berried or are they still small?

They're still small compared to my original, mature females, however, I've seen young female cherries berry up before they are full grown as well. So I guess I'd compare them to that. These females aren't berried yet, just saddled.

Larissa, I had some of my juve female greens also develop saddles at about 3 months old. But never saw any eggs *shrug*

Baby_Girl wrote:Larissa, I had some of my juve female greens also develop saddles at about 3 months old. But never saw any eggs *shrug*

Interesting. Thanks.

yeah, they were still pretty small at the time - like a little over 1 cm and quite slender of body. So I don't even know that they COULD physically carry eggs. At least it would have seemed weird. They would have looked like a berried opae ula, only green of course