cherry shrimp

[bluekrissyspike]

i finally got my cherry shrimp! dam paypal can be soooo slow in canada. they are so cute and fun to watch. i got a couple questions though. after i first put them in the tank they were all over the place racing around and jumping. they looked like little pop-corns going every which way. today they are much mellower and only swim around a bit but still seem to be exploring and (i think)cleaning algea. what kind of activity levels are normal? i am thinking they may just have been a bit hyper because they were in a bag for so long and hungry and now that they've all eaten and explored they are settling down. i just want to check though. also, there are 35 of them and i'm not sure how much to feed them. yesterday i gave them 2 small pinches of flake food(not at the same time) and today i fed them half and algea wafer at 'dinner' and a small pinch of food for 'breakfast'. i don't want to over or under feed them. i also covered up the intake on the filter to keep the lil ones from getting sucked in. they range in size from 1cm to a bit less than an inch. do you think the larger ones full grown? none of the females are berried right now as far as i can tell. some are very intensely coloured though. i am so happy. i have been planing this tank for a few months and i don't want to mess it up.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

super active kind be a sign of bad water. whats going on so far seems just to be normal. i only feed mine once a day. they can get little larger then a inch. most people dont send adults since they more likely to die off during shipment.

 

[1oooop]

breeding is easy, make a few hiding spots here and there, wait, and you will probably have a female with eggs swimming around sooner or later

 

[thebullit]

seems normal 2 me no worrys mate. 35 i would feed every other day a little bit for a week and watch if they go mad for it or if any is left. you will be able to judge by this how much they feed. also if the tank is well istablished there will be addiquate (sp) natural food sources in there for them.

 

[msjinkzd]

i agree, i also only feed every other day typically. Bullit is on the mark on figuring out how to determine the amount to feed. If you overfeed, you will end up with pesties (planaria, etc). They usually get frenetic like that when t hey are very hungry as well.

 

[bluekrissyspike]

okay. thanks guys. i'll switch to feeding every other day and see how that goes with them.

 

[msjinkzd]

Daily can be fine as well, just feed half what you think they need. Planaria and other pesties are very very common in invert specific tanks as there is no predation and the food sits. I find this to occur more with prepared foods like algae wafers.