Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

I posted this on the Yahoo group but I'm repeating it here too. We've got a tank of bumblebees and "Taiwan Blues" (for lack of a better descriptive name--non-red Red Cherries just doesn't make it) and there I found babies diving around the mulm and moss yesterday. The tank has lots of living teeny-tiny things in there, a nice layer of mulm, and I add 60 micron Golden Pearl powder and powdered algae (a couple of crab pellets or defrosted bloodworms for the adults a couple times a week) so I think the babies will have enough to eat. Babies could be either or both types of shrimp since there were berried females of both species.

I'm thrilled to see wee babies scooting around (for some reason I thought they'd float in the water column for their first few days). How fast will they grow--that is, how long does it take these algae-munching shrimp to get to 1/4"?

The growth rate depends almost entirely on the availability of food. If the young eat pretty much 24/7, which they should be able to in the mulm filled tank you have, they can grow from hatchling to egg carrying female within a month or maybe a little more. If they do not find food, the same process can take more than half a year (extreme scenario). So..it's difficult to give a general answer here. Just feed them well and see how fast they grow.

Mustafa

Thanks, that's exactly what I needed to know.

You're welcome.