Anyone else in the have issues breeding Yellows/cherries?

[Turbosaurus]

I have a 10 gallon planted tank that's been set up for a while, 78 degrees, weekly water changes, no dosing for the plants at all, very soft water, pH around 6.8. I added 15 yellow shrimp in October. I still have 15 shrimp.

I feed them Ken's vegetable sticks with Ca. I can see the saddles develop, but I've never seen a berried female, I know I have males and females. What's up with that?

I've spoken to two other people in my area - one having the same issue with yellows, and one who's noticed a decrease in the expansion of their cherry shrimp colony- but hasn't been watching it carefully, so I'm not sure if that's at all related.

So here's my question- if you are having luck, what specifically are you doing differently? Food? temp? GH/KH/PH? Or are you having similar issues? I want to keep this thread on track, so please don't stop in to just say "mine breed like crazy in tap water but I'm not sure of my tank parameters"

[myswtsins]

I had major problems breeding red cherry shrimp in the past. My problem was was a lack of minerals (hardness) in the water. Old water parameters Temp -76, Ph - 8.2, Kh- 8, Gh- 0 with traces of salt too. I would get berried females even but they died soon afterwards. I changed over to carbon filtered well water (bypassed my home's water softener) and now I am drowning in babies! New water parameters Temp 76, Ph-8.2, Kh- 12, Gh - 9 & no salt traces. They need hard alkaline water to thrive & SOME calcium needs to be present for them to survive even.

I feed ken's veggie sticks with added calcium, ken's meat wafers with spirulina & shrimp pellets. I leave there molts in the tank so them can re-consume them as well.

It is all about the hard alkaline water with these guys. You can add some crushed coral to help with that. Good luck!

[pbmax]

As myswtsins said, your water's PH is a bit low for Cherries. Crushed coral would be what I'd try first too.

I keep my RCS in my well water - PH in the high 7s to low 8s, GH 3, KH 4. They're breeding like crazy :)

My yellows seem to love this water too, though I ran through a bad patch with them that I think was caused by some gray PVC in the tank (only use white pvc!!). They're starting to saddle up again, though I haven't seen any berried females for a couple of months.

[TwoHobbies]

All my neocaridina species tanks use tap water. The ph is 7.4 and the tds is around 100. I wouldn't agree that they need hard water. You may want to raise you ph a little, but I'm not convinced anything you have listed is a real problem. Are you using tap water? I ask because I have never had any luck with straight RO/DI water.
We all run into periods where our shrimp don't reproduce, (once you have them long enough) but it sounds like yours never have, is that right?
Your on the right track, with shrimp it's almost always a water issue.

[Turbosaurus]

Nope- in six months- not a single indication of reproduction past the saddles. I just added about 3/4 cup of crushed coral (should increase Carbonate hardness and increase pH as well as Kh) I guess I'll wait a couple weeks and see if that makes a difference. All of the original shrimp have survived, but none are breeding

My tap is pretty close to RO- ph of 7, 0 degrees KH and GH and a tds at about 100 also although I've measured it as low as 80.

[excuzzzeme]

I use well water also and a Ph of 6.2-6.4 the rest (other than the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) I don't bother to measure as I have mineral deposits on all my equipment. Temp is about 78F and my cherries go in cycles from too many to no new ones.

[Turbosaurus]

excuzzzeme, have you ever noticed if your cycles correspond with any seasonal or weather related phenomenon?

[James0816]

My first batch of yellows bred quite well for me. Of late...nothing. I believe my TDS might be a tad on the high side for them. I haven't tested it of late to be sure but definately the only thing I can think of. On the other hand, my tigers and CRS appear to be doing well. Found quite a few berried between them...even though I did just loose quite a bit of tigers for unknown reasons.

[Turbosaurus]

James, do you know your Ph, GH, or KH? If not, do you think you water is hard or soft?

[The Zigman]

Yellows are much harder to breed than cherries.
I keep my tanks at a bout 78F

Gh is 13, Kh is about 6
Ph is over 8, but I think they will adapt to lower Ph as well.

Temperature is a key player when breeding all Dwarf shrimp. IME Noecaridina species prefer the water to be a bit warmer, around 78F while caridina specied prefer it lower around 72-74.

Hardness is a factor as well, medium hardness, gh 10-15 Kh 1-6 is preferred for most neos.

Despite what I have read, the yellw shrimp are much more delicate and require more care than RCS. IME if you drop a male and female RCS in a bucket of water eventually they will produce babies. Not the case with yellows. I have had my yellow shrimp for over 8 months and am just now seeing my forst babies. I have lost several adult shrimp without ever seeing any berried females.

[James0816]

James, do you know your Ph, GH, or KH? If not, do you think you water is hard or soft?

Haven't tested of late (lazy bum i become). PH is usually kept around 7.4 and temp at 78. Water is on the soft side.

[TwoHobbies]

Turbo...is that all that is in the 10g tank 15 yellows?

You should always see them swimming, or walking around the tank looking for food. Are they at all lethargic?

I'd try feeding some fresh vegtables, like a piece of squash, or blanched skinned peas. Within a minute or two you should see a dog pile on the food. If they don't your overfeeding.

[pinkertd]

It's taken me a while to finally see my first batch of baby red cherries. My water is nice and hard. GH = 15, KH = 11 (finally tested it after all these years!):) I was under the impression that you grew some male and females up and bam.....a gazillion babies in no time. I have been extremely observant with them and this is what I'm thinking....
I'm not sure how long it takes for each of these steps, but the period covered definitely is several months. It takes a few months for the babies to get big enough. Once they are saddled isn't it something like 5 weeks or so until babies? To me it looks like every female has dropped her first batch of eggs into the moss. Easy to spot in my tanks. Now they have to saddle up again and grow the next batch of babies. Several more weeks go by. So if a lot of the females do drop their first batch of eggs, it's going to take 6+ months from the time you buy baby shrimp until you may see your first batch of young. Probably a bit longer than that. And that seems like forever. I asked once here if other people noticed their females dropping their first batch of eggs and didn't get any responses.

[pbmax]

In my experience, it's about 3 weeks from berry to shrimplets and probably about a week from saddle to berry, though I could be wrong about that. I have a number of saddled yellows at the moment (finally, after months!) and Thursday will be 1 week saddled so we'll see how quickly the eggs come.

I didn't observe any of my first-time mother shrimp dropping their eggs, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Edit:

Actually, in looking at my logs, my first RCS female took just over 2 weeks from berry to shrimplets hatching. I don't have any stats on saddle to berry though. Additionally, my logs say that my first berried yellow shrimp back in November took only 2 weeks from berry to shrimplets. They quit breeding shortly thereafter... but the babies survived. So I'll have to change what I said above to 2 weeks from berry to shrimplets. My cajun dwarf crayfish also seem to take only about 2 weeks.

[Turbosaurus]

PB max, you mention you're stopped breeding- then restarted recently any details you can offer on water stats during that time? Anything you can think of that might explain it?

My 10 gallon has only those shrimp and european ramshorn snails (the small sideways kind).

[The Zigman]

the duration the eggs take to hatch seems to vary on my tank. It has usually been between 2-3 weeks.

My first baby yellows seemed like they took forever to hatch, it was well over 3 weeks, closer to 4. Since then I have seen them hatch in 18-19 days, and up to about 23-24 days.

I know temperature is important, I keep my tank at about 76-78F

[pbmax]

Ah, the great yellow shrimp / cray-killing tank mystery :) That tank killed a sexed pair of CPOs, 2 berried female dwarf cajun crays, and one male cajun cray before I figured out what I think was causing the problem. The yellows simply quit breeding... many of the babies survived, but I just saw no more saddles or berries. My parameters were the same as the rest of my tanks - A/Nitite/Nitrate 0/0/0, PH just below 8, temp about 77F. By process of elimination I believe that in my case, it was electrical conduit (grey) PVC that I put in the tank for cray hides that did it. The pigment they use for it contains lead, which shouldn't have been an issue because it's bound up in the PVC itself which isn't water-soluble. Interestingly, after removing that PVC and many 80% water changes, I did find a saddled yellow in there. I've since moved most of my yellows to a new planted tank where they seem to be saddling up very well. The old yellow tank also has brown rams, lots of MTS, and lots of planaria (yuck!).

Maybe it's just time to try a new tank? I'm in the process of decommissioning the old yellow tank... though I may use it for some platy fry which I seem to have a glut of lately (and maybe they'll eat the planaria).

One thing I've learned about freshwater shrimp (and crays) is that while there are some big reasons they're not doing well, sometimes it's something else and no one has any idea what. It can be terribly frustrating... hang in there!

[pbmax]

One of my yellows just berried up after about 1.5 weeks of being saddled. So maybe 4 weeks from saddle to babies if you're lucky?

[wrentz44]

Does anyone know of someone that sells RCS fairly reasonable?

[dbosman]

I've been following, and had on and off successes, freshwater shrimp for three years. I have successfully reared several generations of Crystal Reds and thousands of red cherry shrimp and know others who have had the same success. I know people who have successfully reared the blue pearls and tigers.

I do not personally know anyone who has successfully reared yellow cherry shrimp. Obviously it is doable as people sell them.

[Jody]

I had good luck with yellows at first had lots of baby's even sold some , then i had a 6 month period of no berried shrimp after months of looking and searching the web i found nothing of much help lots of PH,GH,KH and Temp sugestions tried it all to no avial , Then James0816 made a commit on TDS and it should be around 200 . I checked my water and there it was 600 ppm , so after a week of changing water using my RO/DI unit i got the TDS down to 250 cant get much lower then that now because my GH is getting to low. My Yellows look better and way more active now and the best part they are berried again.

So was TDS to blame, who knows but it worked for me