Cherry Shrimp biology?

[NoGi]

So who understands the biology of shrimp? If a cherry goes from saddled to berried, what happens if the male didn't get to her in time? Will she still carry the eggs for a few weeks or will she drop them sooner?

[Heavyd]

I've asked a similar question on AL. I asked whether she would get berried at all, or just hold on to the eggs inside her. No one there had any definitive answers.

[wayne6442]

My experience is that she will carry them for up to a week and then drop them. I watche one of my girls actually berry and no males got to her she dropped her eggs within a week. I have also had two others who did the same, a yellow female in an all female tank and one of my orange girls just last week.

[NoGi]

Hmmmm I've now got a bunch of yellows saddled and berried and now facing the opposite problem to before. I can't find many males in my tank. Hoping they are just hiding and I haven't got a 4ft tank full of girls only. That's going to make the breeding a little tough.

[Trav80]

I thought that after mating has occurred this triggers the eggs to make their way from the saddle to the underside of the tail and along the way the eggs are fertilised. Sometimes the male doesn't leave his "little swimmers" so the eggs are not fertilised and the female will drop them shortly after they make it to the underside of her tail. This can occur if the male or female are young and still inexperienced or other factors like he missed the spot, shot duds, poor water quality etc.

This is how I thought the magic happened, but I might be wrong. If so please correct me :)

[blindfisherman]

I have had a saddled female in with a couple of males and she has been there for a couple of months without getting berried.

I think that they are able to hold themselves in that saddled stage indefinitely until they get a male to fertilise the eggs then they become berried.

[Trav80]

Has she moulted while in there with the males?

[blindfisherman]

Has she moulted while in there with the males?

I have seen at least 7 moults between the 3 of them... I have been too busy to monitor them to see who has moulted when.

[NoGi]

On a slightly similar note, I had 2 berried females that dropped their load but today I found a yellow shrimplet. Just one though. The 2 females looked like they were only carrying half a load too. The current batch of berried ladies are full of eggs

[Trav80]

I found this, it might help.

http://www.planetinverts.com/shrimp_reproduction.html