Red Cherry Berry Question

[PeteA]

Hi All,

Got a strange question. I currently have 4 Red Cherries in my tank. Two I 'aquired' as babies when I bought my neon tetra and have both grown to quite healthy female adults. The other two (much more red) my better half bought. They've not grown anywhere near as large as the original two, but I presumed due to the heavy red colouring that they were both female.

The two original developed nice green saddles and on the 17th, one of them decided to go a bit mad (flying round the tank for a few hours) but the next day had settled and tucked underneath it had a number of green berries. "Great!" I thought, "one of the newer ones must have been a male - more shrimps without having to buy any". Now last night I was looking and the shrimp in question (who's shell has hardened a bit and gone deeper red) appears to no longer have any green berries, but is still 'fanning' like she was before. One of the two newer shrimps is starting to develop a saddle as well as I was looking again this morning, so I potentially only have one male (though one chap in a LFS suggested they are asexual).

Now I'm just wondering what could have happened - am I being blind and just can't see the berries? Were they not fertile and she's abandoned them? They surely can't have hatched in less than a week?

Stock wise I have one Endler Liverbearer, some male Guppies, couple of Neon Tetra, couple of White Cloud Minnow and a couple of Amano shrimp.

pete.

 

[greenjar]

Hi Pete

Im confident that whatever the current situation, soon you will have some little shrimplets, because these guys definitely like to breed

Regarding the eggs, below is an extract taken from planet inverts website;

"If eggs have been dropped or it appears that the female has lost some eggs there can be many reasons for this. Some believe that young females that become pregnant for the first time are "amateurs" and will tend to drop some eggs. Others believe that when a female is unhealthy or unhappy then she will also drop some eggs. Also, it is believed that the older a female becomes the more eggs she can carry"

Nice read on shrimp reproduction on link below

http://www.planetinverts.com/shrimp_reproduction.html

 

[hotweldfire]

Almost certainly dropped them. No way they've hatched in a week. I had a CRS (the only one in the tank) berried a couple of weeks ago. Got very excited as she had to have bred with one of my new golden bees. Then didn't see her for a whole week. Today saw her again and no eggs. Gutted, but this stuff will happen.

As greenjar says I wouldn't worry too much. My tank is overrun with RCS. I struggle to manage the population in order to give the other shrimp a chance.

 

[PeteA]

Thanks for the replies - bizzarely I didn't look on that page on Plant Inverts (did check the species page). Just sounds like it's down to inexperience then! I have seen all 4 RCS's over the weekend and none of them are berried so know she's not hiding.

 

[Bungy]

It is of course possible that one of the 2 original fems was already dropping her saddle having mated beforehand...you didnt say how long you had them before the eggs appeared?
The smaller two will be the males however it is usual that the Fems are the deeper Red. As Jason said, there is a very strong chance that very soon you will be seeing the Fems berried once again. They will "Berry" every 2 months or so and gestate for around 30 days and produce anything from 10 to 50 shrimpletts though around 20 is normal. The older and bigger the female the more eggs she will carry. RCS are very hardy and a large proportion of the young will survive.