Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Hi All,

I spotted a 0.5 inch Cherry shrimp in my tank today. I bought (ten) inch-long Cherries two weeks ago. (No shrimp ever in the tank previous to that.) They were all bigger than this small one by nearly twice. So it seems that either they had babies right away, or a very, very small one came in with their water. I got them from a LFS in a tank that did not look as if it was any kind of breeding atmosphere for shrimp. It looked like they just got a shipment of nearly adults in to sell.

Is is possible that the ones I bought reproduced already, and could their offspring be half an inch long in a mere 2 weeks? Of the ones I bought, a few females had full, prominent yellow saddles when I bought them.

So, where'd the little guy come from??

Donna

Hi Donna,

The shrimp most likely came with the water in the bag with the adult shrimp. A shrimp has to carry eggs around under the abdominal area for the eggs to hatch. The yellow in the ovaries indicates egg production...but those aren't eggs yet. So, if you did not buy shrimp with eggs, they did not procreate in your tank. A hitchhiker hatchling is actually quite common. The people that buy from me probably get hitchhikers all the time since I always put some java moss in the bags and I can't always see if a baby shrimp found its way into the bag with the java moss or not.

Sometimes ovigerous females "give birth" while they are in the bag and since the hatchlings are tiny they are not all that easy to see at first (especially not to people who have never seen a "live" shrimp hatchling before) but become apparent later. However, if none of your shrimp were ovigerous when you bought them, then this is obviously not the case here.

Mustafa

Thanks, Mustafa.

I gather then that it is possible for a cherry to go from near invisible size to 0.5 inch length in a mere two weeks? When I put them into the tank, I looked carefully at the bag, and any hitchhikers would have been nearly microscopic.

D.

Yes, it's absolutely possible. Hatchlings of this species grow pretty quickly if they find enough food. Once your shrimp start reproducing you might actually see how tiny and almost invisible the hatchlings are..even if this species has the largest hatchlings of all the algae eating species that I keep. Of course with shrimp hatchlings size is relative...they're all tiny.

Mustafa

Wow, that's an amazing growth rate, then. Thanks for the reply, Mustafa.