I was delighted to see that some of the red cherry shrimp (Neocaridina denticulata sinensis) or RCS, I’d gotten had mated and were with eggs.
But when I saw some of the rasboras I had hovering near potential hiding places for the babies, I knew they were seeing something juicy and I had to fish them out.
The juicy things, I suspected were red cherry baby shrimps.
So now, my fish tank has become a 100% shrimp tank. The only other fish is the bristle nosed catfish (pleco) that attempts to keep the glass clean. And hopefully, that’s all it does.
After I fished out the rasboras, the cherry babies started to emerge. To give you an idea of how small they are and how I have to squint to find them, here is a picture of a full sized adult cherry shrimp. Take note of the size of moss it is swimming among.
The adult above is a female. You can tell, because of the yellow patch near the top of her head. Those will become eggs. After mating, they will travel down to under her legs where you can see individual round eggs.
Here is the cherry shrimplet. It is possibly only a week old. I’m guessing this because a newborn shrimp is colourless. (Note its size in relation to the moss.)
Cherry shrimps are considered high order shrimps. That means they hatch into mini shrimps. As opposed to a low order shrimp whose eggs hatch into larvae before they become baby shrimp.
One such example of a low order shrimp is the red nosed or rhino shrimp (Caridina gracilirostris) that I added to my tank a couple of weeks ago.
However, I won’t be getting any babies from this guy because it’s really hard to breed. The young need to hatch and grow in brackish water. There is currently no commercial breeding of this particular shrimp and all are caught in the wild.
My attempts at breeding the rhino shrimp failed. I only raised mosquito larvae which I fed to my overjoyed fish. Yes, mosquitos breed in salt water!
To complete my shrimp tank, I have some really low quality Crystal Red Shrimps (Caridina sp. ‘Crystal Red’) or CRS. The good ones can actually cost a few thousand a piece. I’m not kidding.
The good ones have more solid white bands. Which is really confusing because they’re called Crystal Reds and not Crystal Whites. The thicker the white band, the more expensive. If the head is white, you’re rich.
The CRS is supposed to be a really fussy shrimp and many people spend hundreds of dollars on a chiller for these guys. Yes, they should live in airconditioned water comfort at a cool 24-25 degrees and they’ll breed. But I’m going to try and breed unspoilt CRS. Possible? I hope so!
There’s another bunch of shrimp whose photos I’ve not taken yet. They’re the Green Neon Shrimp (Caridina cf. babaulti spp. ‘green’) and I love them because they’re green and it’s fun to try and spot them among green plants.
And finally, not forgetting my Asian Fan Filter Shrimp which is a real gentle giant. I chose this particular photo because it’s next to the same hairgrass the CRS pictured above was, so you can compare the difference in size. I love these guys so much, I have two and I feel like getting another of the same type from Cameroon.
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