[odin]

Congratulations! It’s very exciting when you get some berried females and gives you something extra to observe. Keep us all updated on your progress :)


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[Artemis]

Thank you! This is only the second time I've had a berried female so it's still very exciting! I'd love to have a good swarm of shrimp in the jar and maybe eventually get them a larger tank. They have 5L currently. Do you have any idea what the maximum population for that number might be?

[odin]

If you are just letting them breed then when they stop reproducing you will get a definitive answer to that question They will greatly reduce breeding when they run out of room. If you were to start with adults and add them i would say 30 is a good start.

[Artemis]

Well, I think the berried shrimp above has finally had her babies. She had dropped all but six of them but at least three of those had hatched into larvae yesterday and she seemed to be trying to get them loose yesterday afternoon. I can't see either the mother or the larvae this morning though, so maybe not.

I noticed my third batch of eggs last week! This is a pretty big clutch, at least, my eyesight isn't good enough to count them. I suspect this is the female that had the first batch of eggs but that isn't based on anything!

[Artemis]

A free floating larva! The tank water I'd super cloudy because I finally cleaned the algae off the glass.

[odin]

Congrats on the larvae! They stay that way for around 15 days.


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[Artemis]

So now I have two larvae swimming about. No idea what happened to the other 3 eggs but the female is still hanging on to one. It doesn't look hatched yet. Do they often hold onto one or a few eggs for a bit longer? Apologies for the poor photo, I could not get my phone camera to focus!

[odin]

How long ago did she first start releasing larvae? They should of all hatched by now and she will typically take 1 - 4 days to release all of them.

[Artemis]

I think those other eggs must have died. I'm left with only 2 larvae from the second clutch. Oh well. I'm going to change out some of the water in case there's a contaminant or something that killed some of the newly hatched larvae. I have run out of Instant Ocean so I ordered some more for this week.


In happier news, my other pregnant shrimp is still expecting! I also have an old stick insect enclosure that should work nicely as a second tank so I'm getting that up and running too. It's really just a perspex box with a lid but should hold 6 or 7 litres.

[odin]

Not all larvae survive unfortunately but you can tweak things in your tank to maximize their survival rate.