# Shrimp mating questions



## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

I feel like I've been posting too many questions in here lately, but there's always something interesting to ask about! 

I'm not too familiar with shrimp mating because I've rarely ever seen it, but it's definitely happening now in my smaller tank. Because this is a rare event for me, I have a few questions that hopefully you guys can answer:

1.) Can the female shrimp be "harassed" too much by the males? I see up to 7 males chasing her non-stop and I'm wondering if she can literally get exhausted to death. If so, is there any preventative measures to make sure she doesn't get too tired out?

2.) The female is actually way faster than the males are and they rarely get a chance to have contact with her. Is this common and are there instances where the mating chase fails and no male is quick enough to catch the female?

Thanks and sorry again for so many questions lately


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

yes she can be harassed to death! This happens when the balance of male to female is out of whack. Better to have more females than males in your tank.
Many hobbyists sell juveniles in the hope of eliminating too many adult males in a tank.

Yes it can happen and often does where the female doesn't want to mate and will avoid the males. Once the hormones dissipate in the water the males will settle back down and all will return to normal until the next time a female molts and it begins again.

IF you want a particular female to get berried, you can choose a nice male for her, then put both into a marina breeder box and leave them together until she gets berried. This is called selective breeding and is done by many hobbyists (myself included) to help promote a particular pattern, color or type of shrimp.

You can tell a mating has happened as once the males stop swimming eratically the female will be berried the next day. Eggs descend once fertilization has occurred usually within 24 hours after molting.

Have fun with your shrimps


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Thanks for the answers and rationale behind them!

I've got roughly a 50/50 male to female ratio, but unfortunately one of my larger females died last night, which I hope was due to old age. She wasn't involved in the mating chase or had any visible disease or molting problem.

It seems like the female really didn't want to mate and she's still being "inspected" by males and she's really defensively batting them away and hiding behind the filter sponge. So I'm still waiting for my first successfully berried shrimp from my own tanks. It's possible that she's sick and they're preying on the weak, but it's only males who are approaching her so I'm not entirely sure  Hopefully she's ok, but I may separate her tonight if she's still being harassed.

How long can you keep a pair in a breeder box and is this a more guaranteed way to get them to breed or mostly only a way to ensure the parents are ideal?

Thanks again for your answers!


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## supershrimp (Dec 29, 2011)

When 2 shrimp love each other..........


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

many hobbyists use the breeder box for mating purposes if they want specific
offspring. Its also very useful for quarantining any sick shrimps just don't attach the input line, change out the water manually for about a week to make
sure the particular shrimp isn't letting the bacteria back into the tank.

You can use them to hatch new baby shrimps (which I did a lot) and once they are big enough (around 3 weeks) you just empty them into the main tank.

All kinds of uses for breeder boxes. Large is best.


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

coryjames said:


> When 2 shrimp love each other..........


It looks more like when 7 male shrimp love 1 female 

And thanks bettaforu, once again, for your answers


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Success!

Got one of my blue velvet (?) shrimp to get mated with and I actually saw it happen this time  It only took me separating out the female with a few males in a breeder box 

Is there any way to make the female more "accepting" or "welcome" to the mating? It seemed to only happen when she tired out a bit I was wondering if there's any way for the female shrimp to maybe "allow" the experience more instead of freaking out and swimming all over the place  I'm pretty sure I worded all that weirdly, but maybe someone'll get what I mean D: It seems like more successful matings would occur if the female wasn't so opposed to it.

Parameters (still not ideal) for those who are interested:
-pH: 7.8
-GH: 4 degrees
-KH: 5 degrees
-Temperature: 25 Celcius
-TDS: 154


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

Nope...that's life in the shrimp world. Males constantly chase down the recently molted female because of the hormones in the water, and until they catch her. Some females will die because of the harassment. It might be better to just have 1 male 1 female in the box, then at least the female has a little peace, but with several males she will be constantly harassed until she finally just stops from exhaustion.


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Ahh ok :\ well thanks for clarifying that

To be honest, I only caught her and placed her in the box because she was almost jumping out of the tank to get away from the males. I put 2 males in the box with her and one finally caught her and calmed down after that.

I've now left her in the breeder box alone for now to observe her and to give her some time to recover. The males in the tank were still flying around looking for her so hopefully she didn't get too stressed out from the whole thing and berries up normally


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Unfortunately (and probably predictably to some), she's dropped the eggs. 

Is this mainly due to stress and/or being a new mother or can this also be due to things I can control and improve (e.g., water parameters)?

I'll try to raise these eggs artificially, but I've heard that the earlier they drop, the less likely they are able to become successful hatches.

I guess my success was short-lived  I'd feel really bad if I stressed her out too much and caused this.


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

Sometimes new mothers will drop the 1st clutch (this happens with crayfish too) its a learning curve. She will have molted again after losing them so she will be in the same boat again very shortly...this time just leave the one male in the box with her, put a couple of other females with her, then the male won't be bugging her all the time. She will feel safer with company 

Shrimps drop eggs/die on a regular basis from lots of reasons. Some females lose eggs because they are not healthy enough to carry them (bad nutrition)

Hatching eggs can be done successfully (I recently did it myself) but getting the baby shrimp to adulthood is a whole other thing....that depends on the environment and not something you can control.

Eggs closer to hatching date (30 days) will stand a better chance of survival than ones just produced. Better to let her rest a bit then try again, or just put her back in the main tank and let nature take its course. When we try to manipulate the natural balance of a tank we often disturb the balance and end up creating problems for our self.


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Thanks again for taking the time to offer your advice.

I've mostly left the shrimp to do their own thing now and there have been a few occasions where the males start swimming like crazy after a female. It doesn't seem like any ever catch up to her though before she finds a great hiding spot to rest. Maybe this is the actual reason as to why I never/rarely see berried shrimp  It's not that the parameters aren't good enough, it's more so that they can't catch the female. Is this common and/or fixable? I feel bad saying that because I know it's a stressful time for the female, but I'd like the population to grow!

The eggs that were dropped are being tumbled in a homemade tumbler at the moment. I've been checking everyday for fungus and it's been about a week now with no sign of fuzz  so I'm very hopeful. The eggs have started getting a dark spot in them so I'm hoping that's a sign of development within them. I've never had the chance to observe shrimp eggs develop so it's just a guess.

If the eggs do manage to hatch successfully in a few weeks or so, I'd be willing to detail what I did. It'd be quite a long shot though because these eggs were dropped from the mother pretty much immediately.

On another note, the molts in the tank still have an orangeish tinge to them. I'm supposing that this might not be an actual molt issue, but rather just what happens when these blue shrimp molt. I haven't had any die due to molting though, unless they've been eaten too quickly for me to notice.


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Still getting those orange molts. Actually had tons of molts today (low atmospheric pressure?) and 3 have died after not having deaths for many days. 

Two of the dead shrimp had white rings around their heads  All whiskers were long and intact so I don't think it was due to a bacterial infection. Other than the slight white ring, they seem like normal shrimp so I'm not sure what type of molting issue it is. GH is steady at around 4 degrees. My other tank with lower GH hasn't ever had this issue :\.

What are the symptoms of copper poisoning? Usually I think poisoning leads to jumpy, twitchy shrimp and quicker deaths so I'm doubtful this is the problem. Maybe overfeeding?

On the plus side, I found a new red shrimplet and I've never had shrimplets conceived AND born in my tank before so something must be going right. It's possible one of these deaths is due to a female being harassed too much. It's a fairly small tank with not much cover.


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