# my pregnant shrimp is missing



## mach_calamity (May 26, 2009)

hi guys, my crystal black shrimp was berried for like a month, and now shes missing... i was expecting her to give birth any day now, and now i can't find her. 

i have a 10 gallon tank with about 10 other crystal red shrimps, and a few babies. heavily planted, no predators.

what do u guys think may have happened. if she died, shouldn't i be able to find the body? do pregnant shrimps hide somewhere before they give birth? i am trying to figure this out, it is very frustrating.


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## feiyang (Jan 25, 2008)

Give it some time, maybe she is hiding now and will show up later. I always have trouble to find all my shrimps in tank.


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## Strick (Apr 6, 2009)

mach_calamity said:


> ...heavily planted...


There you go. Answered your own question.

Berried females can be very shy and can stay spooked for a long time if they're startled. She'll wander into view eventually.


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## fishboy87 (Feb 19, 2008)

Strick said:


> There you go. Answered your own question.
> 
> Berried females can be very shy and can stay spooked for a long time if they're startled. She'll wander into view eventually.


What he said ^


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## mach_calamity (May 26, 2009)

ok so after 3 days of searching i finally found her. it seems as if she has come out of hiding, but all the eggs under her belly are gone, and i don't see any baby shrimps. any ideas?


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## Aquarist_Fist (Jul 22, 2008)

Two options:

1. You don't see baby shrimp because they are keeping their heads down. Cherry babies do this the first couple of days.

2. The mother dropped her eggs. This happens occasionally, and there is not much you can do except providing for ideal conditions.

1 is much more likely. If an adult shrimp manages to hide from you for days, what do you expect from babies?


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## Strick (Apr 6, 2009)

So... what happened, mach calamity? Do you have shrimplets?


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## mach_calamity (May 26, 2009)

hi, well i found the mother, like i said. it was weird because she is the only black shrimp i have and everyday i would be able to find her with no problem. however for those three days, she was GONE. i looked everywhere in the tank and was 99% sure she was dead. now its back to normal.

I was expecting a lot of babies because i saw a large number of eggs under her belly. maybe like 20! i do see some new shrimplets but not that many. more like 5... although there may be more hiding. 

btw this was her first time being berried, i raised her from a baby. this is probably normal, right?


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## Strick (Apr 6, 2009)

It's probably not normal if only 1/4 of her eggs hatched, but I'm more likely to believe that most of them are just staying hidden. My last hatch was a week old before I ever saw more than 1 or 2 at a time (there were 15...)


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## bklyndrvr (May 24, 2008)

My crs babies are very good at hiding. I could always seem to find my RCS babies, but when my CRS first gave birth, I thought I lost many of them, but now that they are a little more grown up, I see many of them from that batch.


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## kangshiang (Jun 28, 2006)

pregnant shrimp always hiding....you just couldn't find out now, but don't worry....
Only if you are not lucky, otherwise it should be somewhere in your tank.


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