The red cherry shrimp (Ruby) in my aquarium lost a bunch of weight recently. At first I thought she was on her way out.
My wife called me at work to let me know that she spotted three little red carbon copies of Ruby.
What a relief .... I thought I was doing something wrong to make her lose so much mass.
I guess I should be somewhat cautious on the next tank clean & water change out.
Was going to rearrange the plants, rocks, driftwood, etc .... maybe that should wait a few weeks. Don't know if any got sucked out during last weeks gravel cleaning.
Anybody know what a typical brood for shrimp is?

PG

They must be SO cute! Red cherry shrimp females hold the eggs under their swimmerettes for a few weeks (little balls under there) so they're never really inside of her. A brood might be 10-20 babies. What animals do you have in the tank with them? Normally, most any fish and even shrimp will eat most of the babies.

I wouldn't rearrange the tank for a while. You can still do gravel vacuumings and water changes but you should look through any water that you remove. I drain my tanks into a bathtub and then use a pipette to sift through the water and debris for any animals. It's been a while since I've had baby shrimp (ghost shrimp). Boy were they hard to see and pick out! I used to sift vacuumed water in a bucket (much more time consuming). While vacuuming in the tank with baby shrimp, move the end slowly and avoid obvious animals. You may not want to be as vigorous in your cleanings as usual for a while but some cleaning is beneficial for all the animals.

Hi Robyn,
They are cute! If my wife had not told me about them, I seriously doubt that I'd have seen them at all until they reached near adult size ... that lasik surgery is really paying off for her. She has spotted three babies, so far. :) :) :)

In the tank (26 gallon) we've got 13 neon tetras, 8 black neons, 12 harleys, 1 ghost shrimp, 1 brown colored shrimp, & 1 red cherry shrimp mama plus babies. There are also several small ramshorn looking snails in there, whose population varies up & down. The three different colored adult shrimp, mentioned above, are approximately the same size ... around 1" long. Most of the plants are live, two are fake.
Water temperature is 79 degrees F. The pH is 7.2, Ammonia is zero, Nitrite is zero, Nitrate reads 10 ppm.

The red cherry is a rather new addition in the last few weeks. Do different varieties mate? Or do you think she was sired by one of her own before we brought her home?

So, other shrimp will eat the small ones?!? With all the tank-mates they have I probably shouldn't set my hopes too high for their survival. There's no way I could catch the babies and move them to a safe tank .... not only are they lightning fast, but I would need some very strong magnifier reading glasses to keep my eyes on them. Don't want to stress out the youngsters too much. I'll just leave them be, and hope they get a chance to grow up.

Today they'll get a partial water change. I'll be careful and check the bucket before dumping it in the planters outside.

Thank you Robyn!

PG

The baby cherry shrimp are lucky they have avoided being eaten by all those tank mates. The mother could have been impregnated before you got her since she was new. Different species normally don't cross breed but there are some species that are close or actually the same but maybe called something different. The ghost shrimp couldn't have bred with the red cherry shrimp but I don't know what your brown shrimp is species-wise. Since the babies are fast, maybe they're manage to save themselves!

Just found a fourth one in there! :)