Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Hi everyone, I'm awaiting the first hatching of shrimplets from my two pregnant Red Cherries; it's almost week 3 for one of them. I'm fairly new to shrimping, so this will be my first experience with this. A quick synopsis is I have one male and two females and the surprising thing is that all three are so different looking! Naturally the male is different, but the females too. One is much larger than the other, and has about 75% striated red coloring. The other female is smaller, but has almost 99% red (sometimes crimson) coverage, and is much shyer.

The first 3 pics, I took a couple weeks after getting them, so perhaps about 1.5 - 2 months old?






This is the larger female early in her pregnancy; she had a lot of eggs and I even noticed some excess on a plant. She's colored up more since this pic.


A comment I'd like to make is that I've seen a few pics "depicting" shrimps mating. The ones I've seen show the male alighted on the back of the female. However, that is not what I observed, so could Red Cherries be different?

What I observed was, while passing by the tank, I noticed a female lying on her side in the open and I thought, "Oh no, she's dying." For after all, shrimp seem to just keel over when dying. Upon closer inspection, I thought I saw a molted exoskeleton on her underside. But it was the male lying on his side too, and they were embraced, face to face. They stayed like that for about 7 more seconds (I have no idea how long the whole thing took, for I happened upon them in progress), then they sprang apart. Then within the next hour or two, I watched the process of eggs descending down into the pleopod area of the newly mated female.

Here's the female with the almost full red coverage.


She's actually carrying eggs in this particular pic but has much less than the larger female. I usually have a tough time seeing her eggs.






I've really come to enjoy the male Red Cherry - almost more than the females! I rather like that he's distinct from the females, so I'll just let the females have the glory with the red. The males are so cool how they "hover swim" like miniature flying horses. Even their hanging legs make them look like they're galloping. I don't usually see the females swimming around like that; perhaps because the "swimming" is more related to the male's need to search for females?




-GB

lovely pictures

wow, awesome pictures. What kind of camera do you use and what setting was that? If you don't mind me asking

As always, kudos on the sweet photos.
Wow I've never seen a Cherry that red. Really nice.

My plain Neocaridinas have bred plentifully. Still waiting on the 5 freeby Cherries I got. About 2 weeks ago I sort of umm, dropped their tank and lost two of them apparently due to shock (surprisingly the two greens, both of which I had to pick up from the ground - I only had to pick one of the reds up from the ground - survived the mishap).
I now have one big female, and two juvies... one of which may well be a male (lost the other big female and another juve).

Looks like your shrimp are doing really well. You'll have lots in no time. Is that bitter sweet? Sad truth tends to be, the more you have less special each becomes!

Oh, I can't say about the mating style. In the dark, I did see one Neocaridina on top the other... looking to be mating in the commonly thought way. They split as soon as I tried to turn on the light. Different positions? maybe they're like H. sapiens.

That solid red one -- Wow, very nice shrimp.

I guess you keep them in lower temporature. My baby shrimps (have hundreds of them now) hatch in 17-18 days at 77-78 degree.

Thanks Solaris and Csmike . Csmike, I don't mind, I use a very old point and shoot style digicam, Nikon 5700. I use the macro feature and try to use natural lighting, be it daylight or the aquarium light, which means I have to use a tripod or a stable surface (sometimes shooting as slow as 1/4 second). A direct flash at times, unfortunately, gives unnatural color because the exoskeleton bounces back a lot of the light (not to mention aquarium reflection if at the wrong angle). Some shrimp come out prettier with direct flash, shows a lot of weird colors (and of course you get sharper pics) but is misleading if you're trying to identify a species or whatever. An indirect flash or lighting would work well, but haven't tried that yet.

Hi Chlorophyll, when you say plain Neocaridina, do you mean the wild form? If so, What do they look like? Do both the male and female look similar in color/pattern like the male I have? Ouch! on your Greens and Cherries on "sort of dropping their tank." Good thing it wasn't a complete disaster though. Ah yes, I can see how possibly one day I'll start worrying about a population explosion - but I'm so desperate to have a nice little group in my tank that it's too soon to think about. For if just my male dies, and I don't have surviving shrimplets... well, it's back to the drawing board.

Someone just told me that they can have both mating styles, so apparently a little variety is okay . Mine seem to prefer face to face , but I'm getting ahead of my story! So here's the update: Last night before going to bed, I noticed that the eggs of the more red female were gone! She was the one due, so apparently the eggs hatched, however, try as I might, I just don't see shrimplets. Her egg count was low, so in a 20 gallon tank, it's going to be almost impossible to spot any shrimplets. The other female's eggs should hatch in 3 - 4 more days.

Anyway, today, I saw two molted exoskeletons. They could only be the more red female's and the male's, because the other female is still pregnant and I understand they don't molt during pregnancy. So tonight, I caught them in the act! The male, while advancing on the female kept fluttering his swimmerettes. Perhaps a message of some sort? Please forgive the poor quality of the first pic, they were just too far away and the time duration too short. It's not like I can ask them to please come closer to the camera and pose again . But if you squint, hope you can see them lying on the gravel together.


They tried again later, this lasted longer and think it was a take; about an hour later, her eggs had dropped down into the pleopod area - so she starts this process all over again!


Hi Tapmxt1, I noticed you mentioning the shorter gestation period in another post, which helped me be on the lookout for an earlier hatching - for I keep mine at 78 degrees too. And you're right, yesterday was about the 18th or 19th day; it verifies that they can hatch a little short of the 3 week period, so thanks!

-GB

Great shots GB. Your shrimp seem rather eh,umm...happy.

They most certainly look like a happy couple too ...

Cheers

Another great shots. I gotta get myself a tripod.

Great shots! This is exactly how shrimp mate. The "sitting on the back of the female" is not mating. It's just part of the mating game.

ohh shrimp sex

I'm usually not a "me too" kind of poster, but those are incredible pictues. Thanks.

Frugalfish and Marge, err... why yes, now that you mention it, they DO seem rather happy, eh? Solaris, this is all in the name of scientific reseach, right? .

Thanks Csmike, Mustafa and Gnatster. I just wish that ugly branch didn't partially obscure the male, but am glad I even had the opportunity to take the pic. Mustafa, thanks for the info, what my shrimp were doing made much more sense. And on one hand, I could say the two were comfortable enough with each other to forgo the "game," but on the other hand, perhaps this male is no Romeo, lol.

Day 2 and I finally spotted 2 babies! And they really are miniatures of their parents. Well I think I can finally rest easy and be happy that I'm on my way to the proverbial population explosion, barring any disaster. And for right now, can't say it feels too bad.

2 day old RC Shrimplet already hard at work doing what all babies do: Eat and poop!


-GB

Wow, that mating picture looks surreal. The photography seemed to really bring out their eyes and they look kind of robotic, almost spooky. But awesome picture of course. That very happy male has been busy hasn't he?

That was a super quick turnaround from hatching to extruding eggs again. And that baby (even though we can't really tell how big it is) looks pretty big for twp days. You've got some very happy shrimp and seem to be keeping them in the best way possible to have them thrive!

It may be the photography, but I think that solid red female is pretty special looking. Maybe you might want to try your hand at some selective breeding? I wonder if any of her sons will come out with any particularly strong pigmentation..

Oh yeah, by "plain Neocaridina" I mean the wild coloration of N.d. sinensis.
Here, I've seen those guys for 20 for a buck. When I purchased them, by chance I got 6 large and very pregnant females. Needless to say, that was the last time I purchased them
Anyway, I would say your male would fit in well with them all (male and female). Most are clearish like that, though I haven't noticed that "pinkish hue" (Seinfeld anyone?) in mine that your male has. Some look very similar to your male and others have tinges of green and tan/yellow or light brown. The more mature females tend to get a stripe on their back.

Hi guys, the update is that the other female has had her eggs hatch. Not sure exactly how long the process takes from first egg hatch to last? Over the course of a day or maybe even two? The next activity will be the molt, the mating, then being berried all over again! I've seen some little dandruff-type looking specs and think it's molts from the older babies.

Hi Chlorophyll, well at first everything was taking so long and I was impatient for things to happen, but now that they are - things seem to be moving along quickly. Proving once again time is relative. The baby is very tiny, but due to it looking like an adult (and like you mention, the trick of magnification of pic sizes), it's difficult to gage for viewers, but probably about the size of this exclamation mark: ! that is, assuming everyone sees the same typeset size! There's tons of algae in there, so tons of food. The shrimplets have probably not appreciated me constantly lurking around with a flashlight, trying to find them.

Concerning selective breeding, since I'm the end consumer, I personally don't have much issue with them being of varying color coverage. A throwback, I suppose, to the naively sacchrine notion of enjoying knowing who is who. But once I have more than a handful, that will go out the window! I've also been admiring from afar some of the other varieties of Neocaridina (be it a mutation or a different variety in its own right), like N. zhangjiajiensis and N. palmata. And I guess having a bit of variety is my "poor person's" way of enjoying the differences? The N. zhangjiajiensis is fascinating in that while the shrimp itself is a clearish white, you can see the white saddle on the females. I had a link but now see that Mustafa just put some up in the Varieties Page under "Snowball Shrimp."

Anyway, the two parameters I would be curious about, concerning breeding "Red" Cherries is the amount of red color coverage and also size. So I just might separate the more red smaller female into a 10 gal and see if both the color coverage and smaller size will be consistent with the mom. In the meanwhile, I can see if the other female will have larger growing offspring with less color coverage. I should add though, now that both are older, they both have a lot of red coverage, so in the end, it probably won't make much difference anyway.

-GB