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Baby Red Cherry Shrimp

29K views 15 replies 11 participants last post by  Frogmanx82  
#1 ·
I recently purchased some Red Cherry Shrimp from Epicfish. I put them in a 40 gallon quaranteen tank and now there are baby shrimp everywhere. Will they survive? Do they need any special type of food?
 
#4 ·
gratz man...i used to breed RCS too...but now i wanna try and push it to crystal red shrimps....hopefully i can breed them successfully :D
 
#8 ·
I'm pretty sure that RCS don't eat their own kind, unless they're dead. The newborns can just be really small to begin with.

My babies always do great, but my RCS colony tank is filled with tons of java moss, so there is always microorganisms on that for them to eat.
but if a shrimp drops her eggs arent they dead at that point or will be dead very soon? i would figure dead eggs = shrimp food
 
#10 ·
I've never specifically fed my RCS. I bought six originally and probably have close to a hundred in a heavily planted tank with about 35 fish. When I got my first six RCS, I didn't think to cover the canister filter intake so, when I opened it for cleaning, I had about 30 or 40 baby RCS living in there. I clean the filter every month to. :eek:
 
#11 ·
Just to clear up a couple of misconceptions...

First, red cherries won't eat anything bigger than a daphnia while it's still alive, much less their own young.

Second, before an RCS mates, her eggs are inside her (in her saddle). Right after mating, she pushes them out and carries them in her swimmerets until they hatch. If she senses that one of the eggs is "dead", she drops it. Sometimes this happens to all the eggs. Dropped eggs are eventually eaten by other shrimp.

Third, when shrimplets hatch, they are miniature adults capable of taking care of themselves. But they are very small - about as big as this -> ~ . They hide most of the time and are very difficult to see even when they aren't.
 
#14 ·
Third, when shrimplets hatch, they are miniature adults capable of taking care of themselves. But they are very small - about as big as this -> ~ . They hide most of the time and are very difficult to see even when they aren't.
When you say, "difficult to see." Do you mean difficult to find OR so small, that they are hard to see even if you know what you are looking at?

I guess I'm wondering, if I see something small in my tank that I can't identify, could it be a baby shrimp - or would I immediately recognize even the smallest baby shrimp, once I spot it?

Do they swim around, or crawl around on the bottom - or both?

Also - I have to assume that using a sponge filter or cover the filter intake is best when you have baby shrimp - but is it possible to raise them, without doing this. I currently have a small HOB filter on shrimp tank, the intake is several inches off the bottom and it does not have very much suction. I would assume that while this might pose some danger for baby shrimp, that many or most of them will successfully avoid this intake (like my baby guppies manage to do). Am I right, or will they ALL get sucked up?

Thanks,
 
#16 ·
They aren't so small you can't tell what they are. They do hide so seeing them is difficult. once they get up to 5mm they come out a bit more. I think the starting size is 2-3mm which is small, but easily seen if they are on the glass.