Why won't my cherry shrimp breed?

[Silock]

I must be the only person in the world that can't breed them. No luck in my 1 year 30g planted tank, so I thought I'd start a 5g tank to breed some. It's been 4 months and no luck.

The only fish are fancy guppies.

Temp 76
PH 7.5 (maybe too high?)
KH 6
GH 13

No amm, nit or trates. Heavily planted, of course. Plenty of java moss for the babies to hide in. What am I doing wrong?

[mistahoo]

Ph is perfect. Not sure what kh or gh they like. Maybe the fancy guppies are eating the babies? The females do have large mouths.

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[DBlauj]

I had some with almost the same set up with no fish and they bred for me. How often are you feeding them? I fed mine at least once a day with rotating diet of algae waffers, zucchini, pellets, and flakes. Honestly any fish big enough will pick off shrimplets. I'd try removing the guppies first.

[Nubster]

Sure you have both females and males?

[danielt]

See any females with saddles? Or berried? How often and what you feed them? Pictures of the tank might help as well.

[ekimf]

Increase your feeding times, it was like that with my planted tank. I started feeding more and they started to get berried!

[MABJ]

I saw two increase feeding time or feed once a day recommendation.

An appropriate amount of food should only be fed once every two to four days.

I feed every four and I get shrimp to breed. An established tank will have plenty of biofilm.

Try a big water change, try removing fish. Most people recommend fishless aquariums for shrimping.

[Nubster]

Yeah, such a small tank, it's possible the shrimp are too stressed because of the fish. They are probably under constant threat of being eaten. I certainly wouldn't be in the mood to breed if I was always having to watch over my back to make sure there wasn't something there getting ready to take a bite out of my arse.

[Kinection]

I agree, check to see if you have male and female. The guppies are probably stressing them out, especially in a small tank.

[randyl]

I got a male chocolate for my 6 pretty nice female chocolate....and there's no breeding for 4 weeks....and I found the "male" got saddled yesterday. No wonder.

So, first, make sure you have both male and female.

[DrakeScree]

Is it possible for GH to be too high? For some reason I thought it should be between 3 and 6.

My cherries were breeding in PH 7.6, KH 9, GH 0, Temp 76 with light Co2. 12g tank w/12 neons. They were breeding like crazy for about 4 months. Then the fish turned on them. Got rid of the fish since then.

(I've changed my parameters since then)

[Nubster]

For cherries it's not too high but getting close.

[Silock]

It must be the guppies then. I have twenty shrimp in there, and there are male and female. None are berried or saddled. They get fed twice a day, once spirulina flakes, once freeze dried shrimp.

I figured they would be okay with the guppies since they're so small and there are more than enough places for them to hide. It would be one thing if the babies were getting eaten, but for there not to be any babies at all is different.

[CookieM]

Breeding usually occur when the water parameters is stable and at the right condition for whatever shrimp you have. Stresses is the number cause of non-breeding usually cause by water parameter. In this case you have guppies that add up as a double edge sword toward the shrimp. Even if they breed shrimplets won't survive the guppies.

I once made a mistake by introducing 10 guppies to about 300 RCS colonies back couple years ago. After a month my shrimps reduced to only a few big adult hiding, tank was heavily planted tank. Guppies just dig their way through the plants.

[MABJ]

Also 2 times a day is a large amount of overfeed, unless that's for your guppies.