bee shrimps with eggs

[kms]

It may be a stupid question, but do bee shrimps need a male to have their eggs fertilized, I had a bee which berried last month and gave birth to 6 shrimplets, now they are about 5 mm is size, just today I see it berried with over 20 eggs, the only problem is the mother bee is they only adult in the tank with two blue Bolts at 12 mm, also I do not know whether the Blue Bolts are male or female.  All the others shrimps have been removed.

 

Edited May 6, 2019 by kms

[sdlTBfanUK]

As far as I am aware they need a male. It is exciting to have new shrimplets! One of the blue bolts may be a male I suppose and mated if it is old enough?

Great picture.

I would guess they still produce eggs even if there is no male in the tank but assume those eggs just will get dropped? Hopefully someone with greater knowledge will let you know!

Simon

[jayc]

What Simon said.

If there are no other males apart from the Blue Bolts, then these offspring will be Michlings.

I can see the need for yet another tank coming up 

Edited May 6, 2019 by jayc

[kms]

13 minutes ago, jayc said:

What Simon said.

If there are no other males apart from the Blue Bolts, then these offspring will be Michlings.

I can see the need for yet another tank coming up 

I intend to clean up the present tank, so I just purchased another tank yesterday, apparently these aqua soil is very limited in Hong Kong especial the ADA Arizona and the premium black, have to wait till mid to end of may, so I'm held back until I get these.

I was thinking about the blue bolts, but they are too small and too early to mate, anyway time will tell.

[sdlTBfanUK]

Were the previous shrimplets you have crystal reds?

I imagine she won't carry the eggs for long if they aren't fertilised so she may just one day not have the eggs any more.

The alternative is way more exciting, that they are fertilised and you can have the excitement of not knowing what they will look like when they are born, but being Taiwan bee they won't be boring whatever they look like, as JayC says they may be mischlings......... and if my memory serves correctly you were wanting a mixed tank?

Hope everything else is going to plan and well.

Simon

[kms]

23 minutes ago, sdlTBfanUK said:

Were the previous shrimplets you have crystal reds?

I imagine she won't carry the eggs for long if they aren't fertilised so she may just one day not have the eggs any more.

The alternative is way more exciting, that they are fertilised and you can have the excitement of not knowing what they will look like when they are born, but being Taiwan bee they won't be boring whatever they look like, as JayC says they may be mischlings......... and if my memory serves correctly you were wanting a mixed tank?

Hope everything else is going to plan and well.

Simon

I almost forgot to post about the previous shrimplets, there were 6 in total, about 6mm each insize, and about the so call ghost white bee, haven't  seen it now, so either it died, or as jayC mentioned, it changed color. I'm happy to say they are eating and doing well, all red and white.

I will posted photos later on.

[kms]

These are photo's of my first batch of babies, 6 in total. somehow tinypic is giving me error on uploading. The babies are anything from 5mm to 8mm in size.

 

https://imgur.com/a/h2h42Cx

Edited May 9, 2019 by kms

[sdlTBfanUK]

Great photos, good to here it is going well still. Very good colour on the baby shrimps too!

Simon

[kms]

3 hours ago, sdlTBfanUK said:

Great photos, good to here it is going well still. Very good colour on the baby shrimps too!

Simon

I personally happy with the results, although I only got 6 of them, when others usually get around 20 shrimplets. As a first time beginner its go enough for me. and with a TDS at 265, now my TDS is around 185, i'm slowly reducing it, hopefully I will get more in the next batch.

The mother is doing well, still carrying the eggs.

[kms]

Update

I only have 4 babies, I have spotted two of the smaller one's died, probably the change in water killed them.

On the good side, the other 4 are doing well, and I think the father is the wine red, the photo's show the colors of the babies, and during these few days, I have noticed the Blue Bolt and babies stay near the mother, and whiles the mother does not attack babies, it does go after the Blue Bolt.

[sdlTBfanUK]

I don't think you need to worry about the adults with the babies the adults don't harm the baby shrimps. They certainly have fantastic colour as babies go, so I wouldn't be surprised if the father was a red wine as the red is very good. You take great photos.

Fingers crossed the remaining 4 do really well, babies are very fragile!

Simon

[jayc]

Looks like she is berried again. 

[kms]

30 minutes ago, jayc said:

Looks like she is berried again. 

Yep, just less than a week, not sure if they are fertilized, as the tank probably has no male.

 

Will have to see.

[sdlTBfanUK]

You two have good eye site if you can see the shrimp is berried, though my machine only has an 11 inch screen so that may not help me?

Are the eggs yellow or grey, can you see? I believe they start yellow (the yolk) and then go greyer as the yolk is used up and will be greyish/clear when hatched.

Simon

 

[kms]

they are grey color.

[sdlTBfanUK]

I'm a bit reluctant to say this as I am no expert, but that would indicate to me that those eggs are more than a week old, if you believe the yolk theory. Plus the photo posted 6 may showed grey eggs as well, so if that is the same shrimp as in yesterdays photo there is a possibility those eggs will hatch soon??????????????????

Don't get too excited but you may be in for a few more shrimplets soon.

I will keep my fingers crossed, and I believe the yolk/yellow eggs to be accurate (it makes sense to  me anyway), but as I state, I am no expert on this aspect, fingers crossed though!

Simon

edit, looking at the photo of those babies, they could be older than you think at that size?

Edited May 13, 2019 by sdlTBfanUK

[kms]

The mother had those eggs about 6th, the few days before the photo's, the mother was missing or hiding. About those babies, it about right, before two of them died a few days ago, two was about 5-6mm, and four was about 8mm.

[sdlTBfanUK]

OK, thanks for clarifying. Hope the 4 remaining babies are still doing well.

Simon

[jayc]

Would you believe me if I told you that shrimp can retain the male's sperm for a period of time to inseminate a second batch of eggs?

I can't prove it as fact, just my observation and it is not uncommon in the Invertebrate world. It's easier to observe in glass shrimps. I can't prove it because I can't see shrimp sperm, let alone shrimp sperm inside a female.

But it would explain your situation @kms.

 

The eggs develop in the female's ovaries, near the top (top as in from our point of view if we look at it from top down). We can see the yellowish unfertilised eggs and we colloquially call this the "Saddle". As the male fertilises the female, the sperm is stored in a "pouch" (that's not the technical term by the way). The eggs become fertilised when they pass through the sperm on the way to the brood pouch formed by pleopods. We call this the "Berried" stage when we can see the fertilised eggs externally.

Interesting huh?

 

 

[sdlTBfanUK]

Thats very interesting JayC. I had heard that on a youtube video but wasn't sure whether it was true or not as I watch a lot of them and only heard it the once, so didn't mention it prior!

You may have solved KMS mystery?

Do you know whether the yolk theory is correct, where the eggs start yellow (yolk) and go greyer (clear as they are all born clear) as they get older as the yolk is absorbed by the shrimp. Again, something I saw on a video and it made complete sense to me, but do you know? I have seen it with the red cherry so know that is true but do the others do it, it is hard to see eggs/saddle with bee shrimp?

Simon

[jayc]

5 hours ago, sdlTBfanUK said:

Do you know whether the yolk theory is correct, where the eggs start yellow (yolk) and go greyer (clear as they are all born clear) as they get older as the yolk is absorbed by the shrimp.

That's true, but the don't all go grey, it depends on the type of shrimp. Some go brown, or even green.

[kms]

Just taken these photo this morning of all the shrimps I have, except the Blue Bolt.

The mother shrimp has brown/grey egg.

 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2019 by kms

[kms]

This is an update, just I only have 3 babies left, and I have just purchased 3 more shrimp, 2 wine Red and one red bolt/golden.

The two light reds are the babies, the dark red are the wine Red.

[Shrimp the world]

Hope you get some numbers back, in the tank .. you will be cross breeding lines tho but breeding is good tho 

[kms]

I still have a bee that I forgot to mention, it has eggs for a whiles, they should hatch soon.