Why won't my cherry shrimp breed?

[Julianzh]

Maybe remove the guppies and see if they breed.

[zoo minsi]

i know its been said a few times but get rid of the guppies, your adult shrimp might be ok with them but baby shrimp are soooo small there flat out isnt a fish out there that couldnt get babies in there mouth.

when i first got baby shrimp i would have never even known if the one i saw wasnt on a bright green leaf right up against the glass, there crazy small.

also like otheres have said have you seen any females berried? and how many shrimp do you have its possible they could be all male/female if the numbers low enough.

[danielt]

Females get the saddle regardless if they feel like breeding or not. If you don't have any shrimp with saddles and they are about a inch long already then you don't have any females.

I don't agree with the general consensus of fish preying on the shrimp or stress them out so they don't breed but there is a bio load of a fish species that poops a lot. Twice a day feeding is also a no-no for shrimp unless you went over board with filtering and I mean 3 double sponge filters or some heavy duty bio media like seachem matrix or eheim substratpro.

If that's not the case, your shrimp are busy with surviving an environment which slowly kills them, last thing on their mind is to "shake the tail"

[Silock]

Originally Posted by danielt

Females get the saddle regardless if they feel like breeding or not. If you don't have any shrimp with saddles and they are about a inch long already then you don't have any females.

I don't agree with the general consensus of fish preying on the shrimp or stress them out so they don't breed but there is a bio load of a fish species that poops a lot. Twice a day feeding is also a no-no for shrimp unless you went over board with filtering and I mean 3 double sponge filters or some heavy duty bio media like seachem matrix or eheim substratpro.

If that's not the case, your shrimp are busy with surviving an environment which slowly kills them, last thing on their mind is to "shake the tail"

Why would feeding the guppies be killing the shrimp? There is no amm/tri/trate. The plants eat it all. But yes, there's a sponge filter and an AQ20 on the 5g tank. It is very over filtered.

[Kinection]

Originally Posted by Silock

Why would feeding the guppies be killing the shrimp? There is no amm/tri/trate. The plants eat it all. But yes, there's a sponge filter and an AQ20 on the 5g tank. It is very over filtered.

Overfeeding kills shrimp, not normal feeding. The important thing here is that, you need to know if you have both genders of shrimp.

[DrakeScree]

If ammonia is 0, how can overfeeding kill anything? I thought that overfeeding kills when the food rots and creates ammonia

[Soothing Shrimp]

Shrimp are scavengers, and aren't made to eat that much. But because they are opportunistic, they will eat anything when given the chance.

There are two camps in shrimping.

One believes that overfeeding creates microspikes and cycles which can kill shrimp.

The other that shrimp can actually die if they overfeed since their bodies are not made to eat that much.

[ravensgate]

Then there is the other train of thought that feeding too much can induce premature molting or too frequent of molting.

I feed my cherry tank once daily but only 3 tiny pellets...why? Because there are CPOs in there..don't feed the CPOs and they kill each other and all the shrimp. There are 3 CPOs in the tank and probably 30-40 adult shrimp and over 100 babies. That tank is also HEAVILY planted

I feed my tiger/tibee tank daily because if I don't their aggression goes through the roof. I've got way too many babies in there to take a chance. I do try to give them at least one day off a week as a starve day. But again, small amounts are key. The CRS tank gets fed 2-3 times a week and that's it. So it sorta varies based on the situation of each of my tanks. Those tanks are not as heavily planted as my cherry tank.

[DrakeScree]

Two schools of thought, both resulting in death. Haha.

Odd to think that anything would eat itself to death. Or that over eating causes premature molting (hay, it happens to everyone /drum roll)

[acitydweller]

whats the water change schedule like?

[Nubster]

Point is, there are many SUCCESSFUL shrimp keepers here and I'd dare say the majority feed only a few times per week to maybe everyother day, and certainly not twice a day. Take that for what it's worth. Heck, sometimes I don't even feed for a whole week to 10 days and I've never had an issue with my neos dying.

[acitydweller]

Originally Posted by Nubster

Point is, there are many SUCCESSFUL shrimp keepers here and I'd dare say the majority feed only a few times per week to maybe everyother day, and certainly not twice a day. Take that for what it's worth. Heck, sometimes I don't even feed for a whole week to 10 days and I've never had an issue with my neos dying.

true yet off topic. My shrimp tank is lightly fed twice a day mainly because fish are present. they feed on whatever is left. been this way for over a year... I think the OP's issue is that his/her shrimp aren't berrying.

QUOTE=DrakeScree;2903082]If ammonia is 0, how can overfeeding kill anything? I thought that overfeeding kills when the food rots and creates ammonia[/QUOTE]

1. water contamination leading to waste and toxicity build up in the tank, generally in the substrate...

2. a high protein diet leads to accelerated growth and pre-molt deaths where the shells aren't ready to be shed.

Both are less of an issue if feedings are sparce and infrequent.

[ravensgate]

Too many water changes and vacuuming of the substrate is what kept my cherries from breeding for the first 3 months. Also if you aren't seeing saddles they are either males or no males are present. I've had two OEBT females that have not saddled for two months and my only conclusion is because no males were in the tank. Added some males last week and they are finally developing saddles again. There were other species of males in the tank just no OEBT males. Coincidental or not that's what happened in my tank.

[danielt]

Originally Posted by Silock

Why would feeding the guppies be killing the shrimp? There is no amm/tri/trate. The plants eat it all. But yes, there's a sponge filter and an AQ20 on the 5g tank. It is very over filtered.

I have the shrimp tank 80% - 90% full of plants and moss. The plants eat ammonia but not as fast as you think. Not fast enough to not make an impact on the shrimp. I have on a 40L tank a 4L canister filter full of Eheim SubstratPro, and everytime I over fed, the shrimp showed me.

And I don't have any guppies in there.

One thing to note is the shrimp are sensible in two places. Ammonia and nitrate. Let's say the bio filtering absorbs any ammonia spike that might occur, I'm assuming the nitrate will become a problem rather soon. Nitrate will also be absorbed by plants but not if they have plenty ammonia available.

I don't have enough experience to compare myself with breeders or people keeping shrimp for some time now but I see my shrimp being active all the time regardless if I feed them or not. I'm inclined to think shrimp do not die because they ate too much since they're eating all the time, whether it is food or bio film.

[shrimpzoodotcom]

they probably wont breed with the guppies, guppies eat shrimp and stress thrm out.
they are probably more worried about hiding than breeding.

i would lower the ph to around 7
lower gh and kh a lot.
keep temps at 72-78
hope this helps