# Shrimp forming eggs



## Ugly Genius (Sep 27, 2003)

Have you ever seen a shrimp forming it's eggs? I saw it happen with one on my Tiger Shrimp just now and it's a lot quicker than I would have imagined. It takes less than an hour to go from a clear abdomen to one filled with eggs.

Initially, I thought the shrimp was molting as it was relatively motionless save a sharp arching of it's back. (That, or a painfully difficult bowel movement!) However, I noticed a small section of brown in it's front abdomen area. As I watched I actually saw the brown area grow in size until about twenty minutes later, the entire abdomen was filled with tiny brown eggs and the shrimp started moving about the tank again.

I always imagined the egg-forming process to take days to occur. I didn't think the shrimp would look not pregnant one moment and fully pregnant the next.

Neat thing to see.


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## markopolo (Jun 2, 2008)

wow thats pretty sweet :thumbsup:


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## cwilfinger (Jul 8, 2008)

I had seen a rcs that had a huge saddle and 2 eggs in her swimmeretts. It was a quick glance and It did not register until a few minutes later that she had a saddle AND eggs in her swimmeretts. By the time I got back to the tank, she had dissappeared. I "ASSUMED" that it took hours if not days to transfer the eggs - not minutes. Cool find though...


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## Ebichua (May 13, 2008)

I have seen it happen to a snowball before. I tried to take pics but it was just too difficult to get a clear shot. It was indeed pretty neat 
The saddle slowly goes downward from the front (head area) to the abdomen and it scoots itself backwards as more eggs from the saddle continue to push forward. The whole process takes a couple of minutes.


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## Ugly Genius (Sep 27, 2003)

Apparently, it takes exactly 30 days for a Tiger Shrimp to form eggs and release her babies. I saw the itsy-bitsy shirmp swimming about this morning -- exactly thirty days after I witnessed her forming her eggs. She must have released them sometime last night. So I guess it's twenty-nine and a half days from eggs to fry.


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## Ebichua (May 13, 2008)

Ugly Genius said:


> Apparently, it takes exactly 30 days for a Tiger Shrimp to form eggs and release her babies. I saw the itsy-bitsy shirmp swimming about this morning -- exactly thirty days after I witnessed her forming her eggs. She must have released them sometime last night. So I guess it's twenty-nine and a half days from eggs to fry.


My tigers hit exactly 30 days as well.
Early on, when I first started keeping them, I wanted to monitor their birth-to-berry cycle. It came to be exactly 30 days for my pregnant tigers to release. Interesting how you had similar results!


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## southerndesert (Sep 9, 2007)

Yes I too have seen a Bee Shrimp (Caridina cf. cantonensis) berry and the timing sounds similar. I also as mentioned tried for photos to share, but the shrimp stayed hidden and even more so after seeing the camera pressed to the glass....


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## parkman7 (Dec 28, 2008)

*Shrimp eggs*

My Yamato/ Amano take only 10-12days from making eggs to releasing the larva. But these are lower order zoes not full shrimplets. Although I have read some keepers who's Yamato do not hatch until 28days. I think it depends very much on temperature. I keep them at 27^C normally. 

Anyone seen the shrimp making the eggs know how they get from the saddle to the swimmers? I have never seen this happen, just see eggs in the morning. Maybe my shrimp are more shy.

Regards


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## SeaSerpant (Feb 20, 2008)

Thats crazy. 
You know what i found funny. My dad has this 2.5g betta tank (trying to get him get a bigger one) and i gave him one of my female shrimp (RCS). And about a month later my dad had kept bugging me to give him some more and i went to look in his tank and i saw more shrimp. I'm like what in the world? I was convinced that it was pregnant before or it had asexually reproduced but there was no saddle. A week later my dad finnaly told me that he snuck into my room and stole some of my shrimp.

But my shrimp reproduce about every other day so i can't really tell how long it takes for them to reproduce.


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## cwilfinger (Jul 8, 2008)

My snowballs recently reached maturity. It takes exactly 20 days for the eggs to hatch, once they move to the saddle. Also around the 14th day, I started to see "eyes" on the eggs. 
As Ugly Genius stated at the beginning of this thread, The shrimps arch their backs when they are transferring the eggs from saddle to swimmeretts. The one snowball that I watched, arched everytime she transferred an egg. She'd arch then rest, arch then rest...... Pretty cool to watch. The eggs are also attched by a single thin thread. I'm not sure if they are attched to the mother directly or if they are attched to each other.


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## parkman7 (Dec 28, 2008)

The eggs are attached to each other in my Yamatos. Also other shrimp with larva are the same. Not sure about the snowball shrimp, but probably the same also. I know this because I have attempted to breed the Yamato a few times. If the female drops the eggs a bit early they are aways in a guey clump. (Ever had shrimp egg sushimi?) It seems they are more attached to each other than to the females body, since she has to move her swimmers to keep them from falling out.
On another note, I gave up trying to breed the Yamoto. They are really too cheap to put that much effort into breeding them. I always had the larva die after the first week, or immediately after putting in Sea/brackish water. (I tried many different salinities too!)


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