call me pappy

[retardo]

I now have 5 pregnant tiger shrimps!! Two of them got pregnant last week, and three more popped up with eggs this morning. The male tigers are studs and are getting plenty of action. WOWZAS!!! lol :shocked:

[Lotus]

Congratulations! Don't forget to keep us updated. :)

[Walter]

lol Congrats! Yup, do keep us updated with pictures.. :D Hmm so in about 3 weeks time you should be expecting 5 waves of baby shrimplets.. :p Nice..

[retardo]

Just another quick update. I spotted two more pregnant females. The dude shrimp are getting lots of action these days! I'm actually more amazed that they are all getting pregnant at roughly the same time (all within 72 hours of each other). When the females release their clutch, there is literally going to be at least 100 babies in there, assuming they all make it full term, that is. I can't wait. It's so exciting.

Walter, unfortunately, I won't be able to post any pix. I don't really have a digicam. I borrow my sister's but it sucks cuz it doesn't have a very good zoom nor a macro lens for me to work with. When I can afford a super duper camera, I'll be sure to post pix then.

[retardo]

OK, so I know that several of the pregnant females have released their eggs, since they are no longer carrying them, and I'm sure as 1+1=2 that the eggs were carried to full term. However, I cannot spot any of the baby shrimp for the life of me. They're size should be about 2mm as I understand it, so it sure as heck is not microscopic. Am I blind? Does anyone else have problems spotting the offspring right after it's hatched? I have tons of java moss, so maybe they're just very well hidden, but given the number of babies, I would imagine I'd at least find one of them. *sigh* ... how frustrating! :huh:

[shalu]

I am sure you have many shrimplets hiding in the plants. :D

I had the same problem finding my crystal red shrimplets initially. I thought very few survived the neon tetras. Well, in the last couple of days, I am seeing more and more of the 3 week old shrimplets produced by the first two females. It was a pleasant surprise, because I have written most of them off. In the mean time, I am seeing very few of the 10 day old shrimplets from the third female, and I am sure I have many more of them because I hatched them in the breeder box I bought. So I guess they only become bold enough to come out of hiding after about 20 days.

[silane]

Usually they will be out to join adults for food after 2 to 3 weeks, you may want to look for them at glass where brown algae grow.

Is yours a shrimp only tank or mix with fishes?

[retardo]

So it turns out they are very good at hiding. I thought I would do a poop extraction using a turkey baster, and I accidentally sucked up two of them. Being too scared that I may have sucked up even more, I dumped all the poop back into the tank with any baby shrimp I may have inadvertently caught. I'm not sure how many more of them I have in there though, but I'm guessing at least 30, since two of the females' broods hatched. I'm expecting another three females to release their eggs this week, so maybe I'll catch a glimpse of more. For the rest, I will wait it out for a few more weeks and see if I'm as blind as I think I am. :D

Fruitpie, this is a tiger shrimp only tankand unfortunately, no brown algae. They seem to like to hang around the poop though, as I found out when I sucked them into the turkey baster. lol

Sha, do you find this same 20 period for other species of shrimp you have?

[shalu]

I am seeing some bumblebee shrimplets, about 10 days old. Just be patient, you will see the little tigers come out :)

[retardo]

UPDATE:

I've been really busy this summer, so I haven't had much time to post or even read through some of these posts... but I thought I'd give everyone an update on my tiger breeding program...

It's sad really... no survivors from any of the hatches. There were several simultaneous hatches, and as I posted before, I couldn't find any of them. The explanation: most of them died early on, and the few that did survive died soon after. I did have an outbreak of hydra in the tank though, so perhaps some (if not all) of the babies became a meal :( before I managed to eradicate them (hydra) from the tank.

I also think there may be problems with my water conditions, so I'm planning an entire scaping project to get the tank up to speed, including DIY CO2 implementation (it was low tech, non-CO2 up till now). I'm going to toss out 50% of the water, add gravel, some nice low tech plants, add DIY CO2, and maintain lighting for 10hrs/day.

Anyone have ideas of how best to approach? Also, anyone out there that are keepers of tiger shrimp, please share what your water conditions are, so I can use it as a metric against my own water conditions. Thanks.

rich

[simcb]

Wild diamond offsprings from 2 females i kept, started hopping around looking for food about 12 days after hatching so far i saw only four of them. More should be joining i hope.

[jojoecute]

Sad to hear your update, to my experience Tiger shrimp need cooling water temparature below 26oC should be fine...


As i manage to breed some quantity of Tiger shrimp in my office tank temparature 24oC and below, and due over the weekend office shut down without air-conditioning to cool the water. End up i had only not more then 10pcs Tiger shrimplets survive..




UPDATE:

I've been really busy this summer, so I haven't had much time to post or even read through some of these posts... but I thought I'd give everyone an update on my tiger breeding program...

It's sad really... no survivors from any of the hatches. There were several simultaneous hatches, and as I posted before, I couldn't find any of them. The explanation: most of them died early on, and the few that did survive died soon after. I did have an outbreak of hydra in the tank though, so perhaps some (if not all) of the babies became a meal :( before I managed to eradicate them (hydra) from the tank.

I also think there may be problems with my water conditions, so I'm planning an entire scaping project to get the tank up to speed, including DIY CO2 implementation (it was low tech, non-CO2 up till now). I'm going to toss out 50% of the water, add gravel, some nice low tech plants, add DIY CO2, and maintain lighting for 10hrs/day.

Anyone have ideas of how best to approach? Also, anyone out there that are keepers of tiger shrimp, please share what your water conditions are, so I can use it as a metric against my own water conditions. Thanks.

rich

[Robert]

Hi Rich,
it's really sad to hear this :cry: . I hope you will have more success after re-scaping the tank.

I breed tiger shrimps for several years now. They are more hardy than CR but not as hardy as cherry shrimps in comparison. I bred them at first at 15dKH and 16dGH and now, after a move to another city, at 19dKH and more than 20dGH. THe pf is at around 7.5 . The survival rate could be better but it is ok (about 10 shrimps of each batch survive). Best would be softer water of about 3-12dKH and a ph around 7. But they can adapt well to sub-optimal conditions, at least they adapt much better than Crystal Red shrimps. The temperature should be between 20 and 27°C, best would be 20-25°C. They can also tolerate higher temperatures but they won't breed that easy. The other conditions are similar to all other dwarf shrimps, so no copper, low nitrite etc. . There is really nothing special. There is just one thing I noticed. If you keep them with cherry shrimps and the cherry shrimps breed well, you get less tiger shrimp offspring. The tigers do not seem to like the competition. So better keep them with other slower growing shrimps which also do not breed like crazy e.g. green shrimp (worked well for me for many years).

Best regards

Robert