# Why won't my cherry shrimp breed?



## Silock (Feb 10, 2012)

I must be the only person in the world that can't breed them. No luck in my 1 year 30g planted tank, so I thought I'd start a 5g tank to breed some. It's been 4 months and no luck. 

The only fish are fancy guppies.

Temp 76
PH 7.5 (maybe too high?)
KH 6
GH 13

No amm, nit or trates. Heavily planted, of course. Plenty of java moss for the babies to hide in. What am I doing wrong?


----------



## mistahoo (Apr 25, 2012)

Ph is perfect. Not sure what kh or gh they like. Maybe the fancy guppies are eating the babies? The females do have large mouths.

Sent from my spaceship using Tapatalk 2.


----------



## DBlauj (Apr 17, 2012)

I had some with almost the same set up with no fish and they bred for me. How often are you feeding them? I fed mine at least once a day with rotating diet of algae waffers, zucchini, pellets, and flakes. Honestly any fish big enough will pick off shrimplets. I'd try removing the guppies first.


----------



## Nubster (Aug 9, 2011)

Sure you have both females and males?


----------



## danielt (Dec 19, 2012)

See any females with saddles? Or berried? How often and what you feed them? Pictures of the tank might help as well.


----------



## ekimf (Oct 5, 2012)

Increase your feeding times, it was like that with my planted tank. I started feeding more and they started to get berried!


----------



## MABJ (Mar 30, 2012)

I saw two increase feeding time or feed once a day recommendation. 

An appropriate amount of food should only be fed once every two to four days. 

I feed every four and I get shrimp to breed. An established tank will have plenty of biofilm. 

Try a big water change, try removing fish. Most people recommend fishless aquariums for shrimping.


----------



## Nubster (Aug 9, 2011)

Yeah, such a small tank, it's possible the shrimp are too stressed because of the fish. They are probably under constant threat of being eaten. I certainly wouldn't be in the mood to breed if I was always having to watch over my back to make sure there wasn't something there getting ready to take a bite out of my arse.


----------



## Kinection (Dec 1, 2012)

I agree, check to see if you have male and female. The guppies are probably stressing them out, especially in a small tank.


----------



## randyl (Feb 1, 2012)

I got a male chocolate for my 6 pretty nice female chocolate....and there's no breeding for 4 weeks....and I found the "male" got saddled yesterday. No wonder. 

So, first, make sure you have both male and female.


----------



## DrakeScree (Jan 30, 2013)

Is it possible for GH to be too high? For some reason I thought it should be between 3 and 6.

My cherries were breeding in PH 7.6, KH 9, GH 0, Temp 76 with light Co2. 12g tank w/12 neons. They were breeding like crazy for about 4 months. Then the fish turned on them. Got rid of the fish since then.

(I've changed my parameters since then)


----------



## Nubster (Aug 9, 2011)

For cherries it's not too high but getting close.


----------



## Silock (Feb 10, 2012)

It must be the guppies then. I have twenty shrimp in there, and there are male and female. None are berried or saddled. They get fed twice a day, once spirulina flakes, once freeze dried shrimp. 

I figured they would be okay with the guppies since they're so small and there are more than enough places for them to hide. It would be one thing if the babies were getting eaten, but for there not to be any babies at all is different.


----------



## CookieM (Feb 7, 2012)

Breeding usually occur when the water parameters is stable and at the right condition for whatever shrimp you have. Stresses is the number cause of non-breeding usually cause by water parameter. In this case you have guppies that add up as a double edge sword toward the shrimp. Even if they breed shrimplets won't survive the guppies.

I once made a mistake by introducing 10 guppies to about 300 RCS colonies back couple years ago. After a month my shrimps reduced to only a few big adult hiding, tank was heavily planted tank. Guppies just dig their way through the plants.


----------



## MABJ (Mar 30, 2012)

Also 2 times a day is a large amount of overfeed, unless that's for your guppies.


----------



## Julianzh (Jul 28, 2011)

Maybe remove the guppies and see if they breed.


----------



## zoo minsi (Jan 1, 2006)

i know its been said a few times but get rid of the guppies, your adult shrimp might be ok with them but baby shrimp are soooo small there flat out isnt a fish out there that couldnt get babies in there mouth. 

when i first got baby shrimp i would have never even known if the one i saw wasnt on a bright green leaf right up against the glass, there crazy small.

also like otheres have said have you seen any females berried? and how many shrimp do you have its possible they could be all male/female if the numbers low enough.


----------



## danielt (Dec 19, 2012)

Females get the saddle regardless if they feel like breeding or not. If you don't have any shrimp with saddles and they are about a inch long already then you don't have any females.

I don't agree with the general consensus of fish preying on the shrimp or stress them out so they don't breed but there is a bio load of a fish species that poops a lot. Twice a day feeding is also a no-no for shrimp unless you went over board with filtering and I mean 3 double sponge filters or some heavy duty bio media like seachem matrix or eheim substratpro.

If that's not the case, your shrimp are busy with surviving an environment which slowly kills them, last thing on their mind is to "shake the tail"


----------



## Silock (Feb 10, 2012)

danielt said:


> Females get the saddle regardless if they feel like breeding or not. If you don't have any shrimp with saddles and they are about a inch long already then you don't have any females.
> 
> I don't agree with the general consensus of fish preying on the shrimp or stress them out so they don't breed but there is a bio load of a fish species that poops a lot. Twice a day feeding is also a no-no for shrimp unless you went over board with filtering and I mean 3 double sponge filters or some heavy duty bio media like seachem matrix or eheim substratpro.
> 
> If that's not the case, your shrimp are busy with surviving an environment which slowly kills them, last thing on their mind is to "shake the tail"


Why would feeding the guppies be killing the shrimp? There is no amm/tri/trate. The plants eat it all. But yes, there's a sponge filter and an AQ20 on the 5g tank. It is very over filtered.


----------



## Kinection (Dec 1, 2012)

Silock said:


> Why would feeding the guppies be killing the shrimp? There is no amm/tri/trate. The plants eat it all. But yes, there's a sponge filter and an AQ20 on the 5g tank. It is very over filtered.


 Overfeeding kills shrimp, not normal feeding. The important thing here is that, you need to know if you have both genders of shrimp.


----------



## DrakeScree (Jan 30, 2013)

If ammonia is 0, how can overfeeding kill anything? I thought that overfeeding kills when the food rots and creates ammonia


----------



## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Shrimp are scavengers, and aren't made to eat that much. But because they are opportunistic, they will eat anything when given the chance.

There are two camps in shrimping. 

One believes that overfeeding creates microspikes and cycles which can kill shrimp.

The other that shrimp can actually die if they overfeed since their bodies are not made to eat that much.


----------



## ravensgate (May 24, 2012)

Then there is the other train of thought that feeding too much can induce premature molting or too frequent of molting.

I feed my cherry tank once daily but only 3 tiny pellets...why? Because there are CPOs in there..don't feed the CPOs and they kill each other and all the shrimp. There are 3 CPOs in the tank and probably 30-40 adult shrimp and over 100 babies. That tank is also HEAVILY planted

I feed my tiger/tibee tank daily because if I don't their aggression goes through the roof. I've got way too many babies in there to take a chance. I do try to give them at least one day off a week as a starve day. But again, small amounts are key. The CRS tank gets fed 2-3 times a week and that's it. So it sorta varies based on the situation of each of my tanks. Those tanks are not as heavily planted as my cherry tank.


----------



## DrakeScree (Jan 30, 2013)

Two schools of thought, both resulting in death. Haha. 

Odd to think that anything would eat itself to death. Or that over eating causes premature molting (hay, it happens to everyone /drum roll)


----------



## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

whats the water change schedule like?


----------



## Nubster (Aug 9, 2011)

Point is, there are many SUCCESSFUL shrimp keepers here and I'd dare say the majority feed only a few times per week to maybe everyother day, and certainly not twice a day. Take that for what it's worth. Heck, sometimes I don't even feed for a whole week to 10 days and I've never had an issue with my neos dying.


----------



## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

Nubster said:


> Point is, there are many SUCCESSFUL shrimp keepers here and I'd dare say the majority feed only a few times per week to maybe everyother day, and certainly not twice a day. Take that for what it's worth. Heck, sometimes I don't even feed for a whole week to 10 days and I've never had an issue with my neos dying.


true yet off topic. My shrimp tank is lightly fed twice a day mainly because fish are present. they feed on whatever is left. been this way for over a year... I think the OP's issue is that his/her shrimp aren't berrying. 

QUOTE=DrakeScree;2903082]If ammonia is 0, how can overfeeding kill anything? I thought that overfeeding kills when the food rots and creates ammonia[/QUOTE]

1. water contamination leading to waste and toxicity build up in the tank, generally in the substrate...

2. a high protein diet leads to accelerated growth and pre-molt deaths where the shells aren't ready to be shed. 

Both are less of an issue if feedings are sparce and infrequent.


----------



## ravensgate (May 24, 2012)

Too many water changes and vacuuming of the substrate is what kept my cherries from breeding for the first 3 months. Also if you aren't seeing saddles they are either males or no males are present. I've had two OEBT females that have not saddled for two months and my only conclusion is because no males were in the tank. Added some males last week and they are finally developing saddles again. There were other species of males in the tank just no OEBT males. Coincidental or not that's what happened in my tank.


----------



## danielt (Dec 19, 2012)

Silock said:


> Why would feeding the guppies be killing the shrimp? There is no amm/tri/trate. The plants eat it all. But yes, there's a sponge filter and an AQ20 on the 5g tank. It is very over filtered.


I have the shrimp tank 80% - 90% full of plants and moss. The plants eat ammonia but not as fast as you think. Not fast enough to not make an impact on the shrimp. I have on a 40L tank a 4L canister filter full of Eheim SubstratPro, and everytime I over fed, the shrimp showed me.

And I don't have any guppies in there.

One thing to note is the shrimp are sensible in two places. Ammonia and nitrate. Let's say the bio filtering absorbs any ammonia spike that might occur, I'm assuming the nitrate will become a problem rather soon. Nitrate will also be absorbed by plants but not if they have plenty ammonia available.

I don't have enough experience to compare myself with breeders or people keeping shrimp for some time now but I see my shrimp being active all the time regardless if I feed them or not. I'm inclined to think shrimp do not die because they ate too much since they're eating all the time, whether it is food or bio film.


----------



## shrimpzoodotcom (Jan 28, 2013)

they probably wont breed with the guppies, guppies eat shrimp and stress thrm out.
they are probably more worried about hiding than breeding.

i would lower the ph to around 7
lower gh and kh a lot.
keep temps at 72-78
hope this helps


----------



## Nubster (Aug 9, 2011)

shrimpzoodotcom said:


> they probably wont breed with the guppies, guppies eat shrimp and stress thrm out.
> they are probably more worried about hiding than breeding.
> 
> i would lower the ph to around 7
> ...


pH is fine at 7.5. Mine is 7.6 and I get lots of breeding. GH/KH might be slightly high but still within the acceptable range. That's not to say that lowering it might help. Temp of 76 might be a tad high as well. I'd lower to 70-72 and see what happens.


----------



## evilhorde (Feb 3, 2012)

Was it ever proven that there is a female in the bunch?
Skimming through here, I don't recall seeing any confirmation of that.

If some cherries are saddled,then you have some girls. 
In this case, I would say that you need more safe places for the babies to grow before they are all devoured by the hellish guppy terror! A thich wad of hornwort should do it.

If none get 'saddled', then you need to find some cherry girls.

Edit: I just realized that we are talking about a 5 gallon tank here. No amount of hornwort is going to save the babies from the guppies in a 5 gallon tank.


----------



## raesunrae (Sep 11, 2012)

randyl said:


> I got a male chocolate for my 6 pretty nice female chocolate....and there's no breeding for 4 weeks....and I found the "male" got saddled yesterday. No wonder.
> 
> So, first, make sure you have both male and female.


I'm sorry but that is too funny!


----------

