# Red neocaridina stopped breeding



## alstare2000 (Feb 16, 2013)

Looking for some advice from more experienced hobbyist for this tank.

I have had steady growth of nice painted and fire reds colony in my 40G planted tank.
Since the tank was set up 7 months ago I had 2 144 plecos that turned out to be a pair. Now they are about 2.5-2.75" which never seemed to care too much for shrimp or vice versa they come out ate then went back to chewing on the drift wood.

I have noticed few weeks ago that I didn't see any young shrimp babies. I thought possibly plecos were snacking on them a bit which I considered and was ok with it but thought unlikely lot of places and plants for them to hide.

I paid more attention past few days and noticed that on a top of not seeing any babies I don't see any saddled or berried females which got me thinking if I did hit population limit or I'm not feeding them enough possibly to breed further?

Currently (hard to count) but I'd say there is 150 -200max shrimp that are young adult size which I think is not too bad for 40g breeder tank. Lot of plants, water condition is great as well and seems there is so much more space for them.

When I feed them they just keep eating and there never seems any food to be actually left over (plus the snails join the meal as well with plecos). I feed them with about 1/2 NLS wafer or hikari algae wafer daily, on other days some snow flake food or pinch of NLS crustacean formula. Last 3 weeks I left my dad in charge of my tanks and they were getting 1/2 of wafer every 2 days as I was away for vacation and didn't wanted water to go bad from overfeeding.

What you guys think ?


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## woopderson (Feb 12, 2014)

Hi Alstare,

I don't know much about plecos so I am afraid that i am unable to weigh in on the effect they might have. Perhaps the plecos have munched the babies by accident? 

Aside from that:

1. Have you tested the water paramters?
2. Tried performing a water change?
3. Swap in some oher food?
4. What is the temps like?
5. How many shrimps did you start with? Perhas get a couple ones from a store or a forum member to replenish the gene pool?

Hope this helps!


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## alstare2000 (Feb 16, 2013)

Answers below in the quote.

I think I will mix in some new blood in won't hurt to try so thank you for pointing that out.

I think it's possibly me going on vacation and maybe no WC and same food for 3-4 weeks ( I didn't wanted to complicate things for my older dad). Thank you for replying.

Any idea roughly what kind of population 40g would support and how often I should add some new shrimps to the gene mix ?



woopderson said:


> Hi Alstare,
> 
> 1. Have you tested the water paramters? Yes it's perfect
> 2. Tried performing a water change? Did when I came back from Vac.
> ...


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## woopderson (Feb 12, 2014)

No problem, glad to help!

A 40 breeder should be able to support way more than what you have in there. My 26g had over 400 shrimps at one point to give you an idea.

I believe it is approximately every 10 generations you can sell some and put in some new ones.


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## alstare2000 (Feb 16, 2013)

Got it I'd say I'm probably on 2-3rd generation of already initially mixed group it's like starting with 3 different families 

I'll see what happens after they get some TLC


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## woopderson (Feb 12, 2014)

Sounds good, keep us updated


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## alstare2000 (Feb 16, 2013)

Here comes an update....

So it has been dry 2-3 months for my shrimps. I think they were just not in the mood in the summer. 
Few weeks ago I noticed few berried females so I hope everything will be going in a good direction when it comes to breeding.

I have hit another bump with this tank, past week I found 3 dead shrimps adult ones. Didn't seem like there was a molt issue (if I understand correctly I would see some partial molt ?)

Tested water: Amonia, Nitrite 0's. Nitrate 0.5
TDS 150, GH 89.5 and KH 53.7 (this is normally much higher with my tap water that I use so possibly issue or it's still ok range for Neos ?)

I think possibly they feel bit intimidated by a pleco I had since it was about 1.5" and grew now to almost 3" so I'm selling this guy so that could be possibly a problem for not having berried females. No idea about deaths tho.

Any thoughts ?


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

I'm by no means an expert in shrimps so I'd love to tune into this thread to see what others have to say on this issue as well. 

From those parameters, it seems like your water is well within the safe area for shrimp. Is the temperature stable? Do you have a heater that could be broken and releasing toxins into the water?

How often do you feed your shrimp and what kind of food? I recently saw people mentioning that a high protein diet might not be ideal as it causes the shrimp to grow too quickly. It was also mentioned that feeding sparingly was the better way to go. Again, I have no real experience with this, but it's some stuff I've read recently.

I've also been reading on some shrimp forums about the possibility of introducing foreign bacteria or compounds unintentionally when adding new livestock to a tank with already established livestock. 

People have been noticing that the current shrimp in the tank are more likely to die off as opposed to the new additions and they're suspecting that it could be due to introducing bacteria that the new livestock/shrimp are carrying and are "immune" to, whereas the older shrimp already in the tank are vulnerable to this newly introduced bacteria. 

To me it sounds a bit backwards  I always thought the new livestock would be more vulnerable, but I don't know much about shrimp other than what I've read. Personally, I have experienced 2 of my older shrimps dying when new shrimps were introduced so there might be some truth to this somehow, but maybe due to a different explanation.


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## alstare2000 (Feb 16, 2013)

Yes forgot to mention temp is fairly stable about 25-25.5 and heater working ok.

I had no new shrimps added for this tank since May.

I could have a problem with maybe feeding them bit too much but all the food usually seems gone within few hours. Pleco snacks on some and few assassins eat that food as well. Nerite snails only seem interested in grazing on the algae on the glass.

I feed NLS shrimp food, or wafers, also Hikiri shrimp cuisine and algae wafers a bit of Repashy soilent green. Same food as my yellow shrimps in a separate 46gal and that tank is booming with new shrimps etc. 

Only differance between the tanks is different light rotation and no pleco lol.

Oh one thing I will mention this tank is in a basement it's a 40gal planted tank. I have 2x T5HO bulbs only keeping on about 6 hrs/day to keep algae in check is this enough light? Possibly these guys need just need longer period of light since it's pretty dark in the basement unless someone is using it.


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Hmm I'm interested in the lighting period as well. I wonder if that has any effect on them.

I'm stumped  The argument with the overfeeding is that I read that they're natural scavengers and will just gorge on food if it's readily available so they can get a bit too big for their shells and be forced to molt too often. People were recommending maybe feeding only 4 times a week and it's something I'm experimenting with starting this week 

I hope someone else can chime in with some answers! It seems like new information on these guys is still being found.


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