# Yellow Neocaridina not breeding



## alstare2000

Hi guys so I thought I'll see wisdom regarding my yellow shrimps.
It has been about 3 months since my post regarding them dieing off found here:

http://gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109986

So the last batch after all the changes I did grew up and pretty much now I have about 20 young adults. They did grew at different rates but I didn't loose any in past months. And are eating active when I talk to them they say they are happy lol.

Is it too soon to start seeing some berried shrimps ? I'd say they are about 4 months old, or maybe I"m doing something wrong. I fed them 2 a week and small WC every 2-3 weeks as it seems to be enough (I did it weekly before but stopped due to deaths). I have increased feeding to every other day now small portions tho few days ago.

Tank is 10gal with plants and mosses. 
Water: Amonia and Nitrite 0, Nitrate 2-5 TDS at 260 
(Can't test these so this is from my last tests PH usally about 7.4-7.6 KH 107.4 ppm GH 161.1 ppm)

Thanks.


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## Atom

I'm having the exact same problem with my cherry shrimp. Had them for 3 months and I've never seen any berried, but saddles are visible. I'll be tuning into this thread for help too 

I might move some over to a smaller tank without fish in it to see if that helps them, but the conditions in my larger tank seems to be ideal other than fish maybe spooking them out 

Any fish in your shrimp tank or is it shrimp only?


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## alstare2000

If you see saddles I think it's a good sign already I don't even see that on any of mine. 
It's a 10Gal shrimp only tank.


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## Atom

Oh :\ sorry to hear that then I've got no clue unless they're all males or too old, which seems unlikely.

Is there any way shrimps will stop reproducing if the population is getting too inbred? I've heard of this in a few species, but I'm not sure if shrimp exhibit this (I kinda doubt it).


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## woopderson

Hio alstare! Glad to hear your shrimps are all surviving 

You should see berried females any time now. Something you can try is playing with tds levels. Try bringing it down to around 200 just for fun, but so slowly. But firstly:

What do you feed them?


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## alstare2000

woopderson said:


> Hio alstare! Glad to hear your shrimps are all surviving
> 
> You should see berried females any time now. Some things you can try is playing with tds levels. Try bringing it down to around 200 just for fun, but so slowly.
> 
> What do you feed them?


Mostly they get NLS Crustacean formula and then Hikari Shrimp Cuisine, and then once in a while they get Hikari algae waffer (small piece that is) and repashy soilent green. Till maybe last few days I was feeding them about twice a week since they were really small and I have lot of algae for them to graze on. But thinking that maybe they not getting enough nutrients and that's affecting breeding I started feeding very small amounts every couple days.


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## woopderson

Hmmm, this could be. Is the Replashy food a protein based food?


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## alstare2000

woopderson said:


> Hmmm, this could be. Is the Replashy food a protein based food?


This type "Soilent Green" is for algae eating fish and I'd say my shrimp see it maybe once every 1.5 weeks.


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## woopderson

Perhaps then they are missing a protein component in their diet?

I feed a vegetable protein based food, called Lowkeys Spiral

http://www.shrimpfever.com/shop/food/lowkeys-spiral-food-30g/

But there are lots of others that I have yet to try. Like MK-Breed Cheesburger! It has a pretty high protein content that I would be curious to try out after I finish my Lowkeys.

http://shrimpwiki.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&path=63&product_id=125


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## woopderson

Scratch that, that Repashy has high protein as well.

From their site:
Guaranteed Analysis: Crude Protein min. 40%, Crude Fat min. 8%, Crude Fiber max. 8%, Moisture max. 8%, Ash max. 12%.

So then I would say it isn't protein. 

My next guess is to try lowering the TDS a bit to see what happens. I doubt that is the issue, though. It may just be a matter of time until you see berries, as everything else in your tank checks out.


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## alstare2000

Had a chance to test current PH and Hardness.
Ph is 7.8
KH at 89.5
GH at 214.8 (last number on my chart) isn't that bit high ?

Thanks


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## woopderson

What are you using to test kh and gh??? They both should be sub 12!


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## alstare2000

api kh was 5 drops and gh was 12 drops and these numbers are from the chart at the end.


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## woopderson

Ahhh gotcha, I misread what you posted before. Those numbers seem ok to me. You could try water changing out for pure RO in order to bring them down a bit. 

This is proving to be a tough case! If after water changing with some RO to lower KH/GH a bit, see questions below:


Is the tank open top? Potentially something getting in from around the tank?

Where are you getting your water from, and how are you treating it before you drip in?

Are the shrimp roaming around the tank, or are they all hiding? 
--The parameters could be fine, but they are either shy because they feel there are too few shrimpy friends, or there is another source of stress. I noticed my Taiwan bees hid even though they were healthy, until I added some more shrimp in.


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## alstare2000

Tank is covered lot of green inside and shrimps are pretty active always moving around and grazing on things.
I think I'll take the advice and at least do RO on the parts that evaporate to bring the hardness down.
One more reason could be that they are still too young and I just need to be more patient lol.
Will keep everyone posted how it works out....


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## woopderson

I really do hope that it works out. If they are happy and active it should only be a matter of time, especially knowing that your parameters are good. Another thing you could do to give an extra little incentive for them is to drip in some breeding liquid. It is based on chitin and it gets them in the mood for lovin'. 

You most likely won't need the stuff, once they start breeding the population will explode.


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## Atom

Definitely keep us updated! I'm willing to try some of these out too to see if things are helped along as well.


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## Atom

After reading a bit online, some people believe that the shrimp slow down or stop breeding around the winter months. So maybe that on top of having them being fairly new in the tank is what's happening here?

People mentioned that it didn't matter if the tank was temperature regulated or not; the shrimp just "knew" it was winter somehow (pressure related?).

Anyway good luck to you! Maybe you've had berried shrimp already, but if your shrimp are still like mine, then we might have to be patient and wait until spring comes


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## woopderson

Lets hope then that my blue bolts also have soem spring babies


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## alstare2000

Yep still nothing... I'm keeping them happy with food and trying to lower the hardness and just give them bit of time.... maybe they know they are related lol....


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## Tamtep

I have experimented same, some might take longer than others. Ex: my full blue rili took 3 months before berried even I saw saddles developed.

Just keep right temp and stable water params and they will get berried soon. Patience is key my friend 



alstare2000 said:


> Yep still nothing... I'm keeping them happy with food and trying to lower the hardness and just give them bit of time.... maybe they know they are related lol....


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## Atom

I may have just had some luck with my shrimp breeding, but I'm not sure 

I saw a female on my sponge filter with two male shrimp on top. I thought they might've been eating or harassing her because I'd never seen this before so I used a turkey baster to gently squirt some water at them. 

They separated and went to the gravel, but the two males still chased the female, who was slightly inactive/slow. 

Did I interrupt something here? I was worried that they may have been eating her because I've heard that sick/dying shrimp may get eaten by healthier shrimp and she wasn't moving much until a fish came over to inspect them.

If they were breeding, the only thing I changed was adding some frogbit and hornwort that I just picked up from a forum member tonight  if that's the case that was pretty much an instant response from the shrimp.


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## woopderson

I don't know if frogbit would have caused the mating, but that could be what they were trying to do. Did you see a molt anywhere are the tank?


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## Atom

I saw 2-3 molts this morning. I was thinking maybe more plant cover made them bolder perhaps?

 I've really got no idea. The female has now been left alone, but she's just staying relatively still on a strand of java moss. Do they tire out after getting chased? Or is there a possibility that she might actually be sick?

Sorry about the thread hijack D: Maybe if they turned out to be mating you could add a few plants or cover in your aquarium and replicate the results


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## woopderson

Keep your eyes open


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## alstare2000

Atom said:


> I saw 2-3 molts this morning. I was thinking maybe more plant cover made them bolder perhaps?
> 
> I've really got no idea. The female has now been left alone, but she's just staying relatively still on a strand of java moss. Do they tire out after getting chased? Or is there a possibility that she might actually be sick?
> 
> Sorry about the thread hijack D: Maybe if they turned out to be mating you could add a few plants or cover in your aquarium and replicate the results


No problem at all and good luck, mine just eat and crap lol, I have quiet bit of plants and 3 types of mosses (maybe they can't decide on the spot lol) but yep still nothing.
On the other hand I got 2 females and few males gifted from a member from here (RCS painted fire red), they are in my 40g not 10g where yellows are and they bred. Lot of shrimplets swimming around as big as 0.5 they seem to grow like crazy.


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## Atom

I've heard that yellows can be harder to breed, but I'm not sure why. Maybe the conditions are slightly different? I guess you could try to put a few yellows in a breeder box or something in the RCS tank to keep them separated, but under the same conditions to see how it goes.

That's pretty odd though so good luck with the yellows!


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## woopderson

I have not hear about the yellows breeding differently, very interesting! Now that my 20g has 20 of them, with some saddled females I will report back with my results. I have only had them for about 3 weeks.



Atom said:


> I've heard that yellows can be harder to breed, but I'm not sure why. Maybe the conditions are slightly different? I guess you could try to put a few yellows in a breeder box or something in the RCS tank to keep them separated, but under the same conditions to see how it goes.
> 
> That's pretty odd though so good luck with the yellows!


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## alstare2000

Another update; 
Not sure if it's the spring in the air or what but noticed saddles forming on 3 of my females.

On the down side tank is full of small critters they are on glass in the gravel on plants they look like small flees very active. 
I always seen few in the tank but I guess due to increased feeding and me finally moving from internal filter to sponge they just exploded in population. 
I hope they are not harmful but still unsightly to see.


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## woopderson

Could very well be! My guess is you should have a berried female in the coming weeks 



alstare2000 said:


> Another update;
> Not sure if it's the spring in the air or what but noticed saddles forming on 3 of my females.
> 
> On the down side tank is full of small critters they are on glass in the gravel on plants they look like small flees very active.
> I always seen few in the tank but I guess due to increased feeding and me finally moving from internal filter to sponge they just exploded in population.
> I hope they are not harmful but still unsightly to see.


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## Atom

Good luck  I've been noticing more breeding as well, but no berries still.

The little flea-like creatures could be copepods/cyclops. I've got em in my tank as well I think they came with the java moss and multiplied due to leftover food as well. I've heard they're harmless and some fish even eat them. They breed pretty quickly though so I'm not sure what to do with them if they end up getting out of hand.


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## alstare2000

Thanks for naming them 

I looked it up on youtube videos and they look just like you mentioned copepods/cyclops.


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## bettaforu

they are scuds....darn aggrevating little things. Once in your tank you will have a hard time eliminating them, they breed like rabbits (worse actually)
They come on plants, and sometimes I believe eggs are in soil that we buy 

If you can put a small water bottle inside the tank with string attached to the top of the tank and drop an algae wafer inside, just let it lie on its side, then every day haul it out carefully and dump the contents into a container....net out any of your shrimps that have ventured inside. 

If you have fish you can feed the scuds to them to eat....Killiefish and Bettas LOVE them.
Mine got so bad I netted out all my shrimps and put my Killiefish pair in the tank, when I
got up the next morning I could hardly see any scuds anywhere...couple of days later, my
Killie's were looking at me as if to say "what happened to the smorgasbord, we're hungry"
Not a scud in the tank left. I was able to return my shrimps without any problems. Killie's are great to have around, mouth like a whale LOL.

I had to do this for days on end once they got into my 20g long. I also watched them steal food from my shrimps and harass my berried females, so try to get them out before you get over-run with them.
Good luck.


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## alstare2000

Thanks for some ideas regarding these scuds, I think the water bottle system would have all my shrimps inside every time so I may put couple neon tetras inside you think they would go for them if hungry ? Also since these shrimps are fully grown I don't think the neon tetras should bug them but if they would I have fry saver that I can use for them.

Don't really have any other fish to temperately use lol


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## Atom

If they really are scuds instead of cyclops, you can try putting a piece of cucumber in the tank and letting it sit for a while and yanking it out. Any shrimp will swim off of it, but the scuds will usually hang on to the cucumber.

Here's a video of some guy doing that:


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## alstare2000

I thought cyclops and scuds were the same things.

Had to look up your video and definitely whatever this guy is fishing out is not what I have mine are white very small and active swimming around jumping don't seem to bother shrimp, just lot of them on the plants glass and drift wood. I would imagine if I put in couple hungry tetras they may go after them ? hopefully it wouldn't be the shrimpies. When I put piece of wafer or other food for shrimp, shrimp are the only things which are jumping on it to eat it.

I'm having thoughts of moving these guys into my 46gal to see if things work better (only have 7 tetras in it and plants).

When I compare the red cherry shrimp that I have in my 40g they seem like different species. Red ones breed around the clock grow supper quick too I have barried shrimp that were born about 2 months ago. Yellow ones different story they seem to grow at 1/3 rate of my reds. I'm thinking that maybe they don't like that 10G environment. And I'd like to see a nice colony of yellows since I had them since Jul last year.



Atom said:


> If they really are scuds instead of cyclops, you can try putting a piece of cucumber in the tank and letting it sit for a while and yanking it out. Any shrimp will swim off of it, but the scuds will usually hang on to the cucumber.
> 
> Here's a video of some guy doing that:


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## alstare2000

Been 10 days since my last post so I figured I will do another update.

It's beyond my understanding but about 3 females that had saddles no longer show them, nor they are berried. They are about 5 months old now.

To make myself feel better I ended up grabbing 8 blue diamond juvies  and 
I'll be redoing this 10g tank for blue diamonds and moving the yellow shrimp to my 46gal to see if makes things better. 

I have a batch of about 20 yellow neos there and couple females got berried as soon as I bought them couple weeks ago. Only problem is they seem to be lower quality yellows as the ones I have in 10g are pretty bright and not that transparent, so that's a bit of a bummer.


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## Atom

Wow that really is strange 

I haven't seen any berries in my batch of shrimp still either. Your newer batch of 20 yellow neos, were they put in the same tank as the non-berrying neos or in a different one? If it's the same one and only they berried out of the bunch, that's really strange indeed. 

Let us know how it goes with the move and blue diamonds!


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## alstare2000

They are in the different tank in my 46gal that I'm going to make shrimp only tank. Its established tank running for close to a year.
The new arrivals that I got last week Mar 17 there was couple females that already had saddles and now they are berried for last few days.

It will be interesting to see what will happen once I move my original group from that 10 gal to 46 gal tank. Too bad that probably their quality will suffer but I rather have that then these females wasting away


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## alstare2000

Another update hopefully I'm not boring everyone with my updates but maybe one day someone will have similar problem and will see this post.

I moved my original group of about 20 shrimps from the 10 Gal. to 46 Gal. and most of the females from that group now have saddles after 2 weeks.

I think it points out once again for me to redo this 10 Gal. tank from the scratch, even though all the water parameters seem the same as the 46 Gal. tank there is something I guess that they didn't like.


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## Atom

I personally enjoy the updates and these posts are useful to me considering I've been having similar issues so don't worry about it .

Unfortunately, I lost all the shrimp in my main tank last night  so that's pretty much the end of updating on my end. I suspect copper or some other toxic chemical managed to get into the water during top-offs. The fish and ghost shrimp are fine though 

Hopefully those saddles turn into berries soon! I've been noticing way more breeding activity in my tanks lately maybe due to the change of seasons. Saw my danios spawn for the first time last night  Let us know if berries appear in the near future.


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## woopderson

For sure, keep us updated! Its nice to know how fellow keepers are doing, so we can share what we learn and try different things


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## alstare2000

Looks like one of the berried females I seen on Mar 20 had some shrimplets, I first spotted them on Apr 6 but pictures are from today and they are more adventurous and grazing on some algae.

I take it as a good sign that my other group that I have had since last year and moved from 10G to 46G will be berried soon and have shrimplets as well.

Cheers all


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## woopderson

Congrats! Glad to hear you have finally had some success


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## Atom

Congrats


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## bettaforu

Yes, that's babies for sure...congrats. Now the rest of them should start
breeding too. However in a 46gallon its going to be very hard to see them.


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## alstare2000

I think this is my last update for this post lol.

Babies are growing and doing well. Tank looks very lively and busy with all that yellow that really stands out against all the green plants and black substrate.

Five of the females that were in 10 gal tank (my original group) are now berried, and many more seem to have saddles so probably will get there soon as well.

Once my blue diamonds get bigger so its easier for me to get them I'll be redoing that 10G tank. I guess it shows that sometimes everything checks off on paper or test tubes... but still is not attractive or healthy for our shrimp.

Thanks all again for great advice I got here... Cheers


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## woopderson

Really glad to hear that! A big congras


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## alstare2000

Ok I know I said no more updates but here is one more with couple of pics.

All shrimps are doing great in the 46Gal tank and my colony grew from about ~30 to about ~60 from what I could see and count.

Cheers All


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## raym

Awesome!! Like the updates.


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## woopderson

The shrimp look fantastic!


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