BABY SHRIMP???

[YAMA]

I'm new to shrimp keeping and the only shrimp in my tank are cherry shrimp and 3 amano shrimp.  I was getting ready to do a water change earlier and saw these tiny little clear/beige "things".  I took a video so I could zoom in to see what they were.  I've always read that cherries are still red when little and that amanos will not hatch eggs in freshwater.  Is it true that cherries are red when they're tiny or are these tiny cherry shrimp?  Now....I'm scared to do a water change because they're so little.  Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

[Anchor_fist]

I don't know much about shrimp, however my father in-law raises them and that appears to be a baby cherry shrimp. I'm not sure how to go about doing a water change though

[lefty o]

i cant speak in all cases, but ive finally gotten a bunch of them to hatch out. red cherry shrimp , babies are all clear/whiteish in the zero to one week old range.

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Congrats on your first shrimplets! It’ll be fun when you have a whole colony that started from just 3. 
 

Amanos absolutely need brackish water to hatch the eggs and raise. I have a male and female and the amount of  eggs I’ve seen on her over the years is insane. I’d be rich if I cracked the code to hatch them in freshwater!

As far as water changes, consider something like this:

It’s just a piece of 3/8” vinyl tubing, and then I cut a piece of a coarse sponge pad a little bigger than the tubing. Shove that piece of sponge into the tubing, leaving the end flared out of the tubing. This has helped tremendously over the years. Water still flows well, but I don’t fear sucking up shrimplets or fry, and I can still drain water hands-free.

If you cut the sponge too small it gets sucked up into the hose and is a pain to get back out, or could get siphoned all the way through and then there’s no protection. Too big and it’ll restrict the flow too much. You have to Goldie Locks it (get it just right), but it’s been great for me.

 

Edited May 12 by AllFishNoBrakes

[lefty o]

On 5/11/2024 at 10:47 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

Congrats on your first shrimplets! It’ll be fun when you have a whole colony that started from just 3. 
 

Amanos absolutely need brackish water to hatch the eggs and raise. I have a male and female and the amount of  eggs I’ve seen on her over the years is insane. I’d be rich if I cracked the code to hatch them in freshwater!

As far as water changes, consider something like this:

It’s just a piece of 3/8” vinyl tubing, and then I cut a piece of a coarse sponge pad a little bigger than the tubing. Shove that piece of sponge into the tubing, leaving the end flared out of the tubing. This has helped tremendously over the years. Water still flows well, but I don’t fear sucking up shrimplets or fry, and I can still drain water hands-free.

If you cut the sponge too small it gets sucked up into the hose and is a pain to get back out, or could get siphoned all the way through and then there’s no protection. Too big and it’ll restrict the flow too much. You have to Goldie Locks it (get it just right), but it’s been great for me.

 

sponge into the end of the syphon hose is a genius idea.

[AllFishNoBrakes]

On 5/11/2024 at 10:35 PM, lefty o said:

sponge into the end of the syphon hose is a genius idea.

Thanks! It has done me well. 
 

For my Angelfish fry, I do the exact same thing. Except, it’s a piece of airline tubing and a much smaller piece of sponge. Same concept, and works great! I just use 2 pieces of airline tubing and put them both in the tank to drain water faster. 
 

Unfortunately, I got the idea due to a mistake I made. Super early in my hobby, I had a female Betta named Sushi. I was doing a water change, and looked away for literally a couple of seconds, and she got curious and swam up to the tubing while I was looking away. She got sucked through the tubing and unfortunately didn’t make it. Ever since then I’ve used the sponge in the tubing and have never had another issue. 
 

Same concept for this bad boy I built, too:

I have 2 of these so I can just stick it over the rim, start the siphon, and use (2) 5 gallon buckets to drain tanks. The hose on this one is probably 8’ long so that’s a big help. I have this bigger one, and then a smaller one for smaller tanks. Rolled up piece of sponge in the end works wonders. 

[Schuyler]

Sometimes cherries will throw random other colors especially if they're mixed or low grade. It may just need time to color up.

It's almost certainly not an amano because they're really hard to breed even if you're actively trying.

[JettsPapa]

I siphon the water into a white bucket when doing water changes.  That makes it pretty easy to see small shrimp and guppy fry.  They don't seem to suffer any ill effects from the trip through the hose.  I net them out of the bucket and return them to the tank.

I prefer this to using something over the end of the hose, since the water flow pressing against them if they get trapped there can damage them.