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Cherry shrimp invasion!

4 replies

TittyNotSusan · 29/03/2014 15:56

Any advice on what to do with some very happy cherry shrimp who are a bit too full of the joys of spring?!

I bought three about a month ago. We now have approx 25 cherry shrimp and all the babies are rapidly catching up to the adults in size.

Any idea how long they take to reach reproductive age? Are we going to have 5000 shrimp by the end of the year?

I also have 6 neons and a plec. They seem happy enough all in there together. I have bought some shrimp food, but whenever I put it in the tank, the neons go mad for it and then look a bit bloated and odd sized so I've stopped feeding it. The shrimp seem to be OK with the algae on the rock and in the filter.

I have a 70l tank. Do I need to get rid of some / all of the shrimp?

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EauRouge · 29/03/2014 16:10

Sell them! I sell mine on Ebay or FB for £1 each. I was selling so many, I set up a tank just for shrimp breeding. They do breed fairly fast but not so fast that you'll get overrun. If you do get into selling them then you'll need to add some new ones every now and again to refresh the gene pool.

I just feed my shrimps fish food, they seem to do fine on it.

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TittyNotSusan · 29/03/2014 16:19

Really? Wow - I'm sitting on a shrimp gold mine!

Do you post them? Are they OK? I don't like the thought of them getting chucked around by a postman.

I'd happily give them away locally (Manchester / High Peak area) if anyone wants them.

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EauRouge · 29/03/2014 16:27

I don't post them, but I know some people do. Most of mine are sold through a local aquarium group on Facebook. I usually end up doing a deal like 20 for £15 or similar if I've got too many to give away. The only things I've had to buy are fish bags (you can get them in bulk on ebay) and a smaller net.

You won't make tons of money but it's nice to have a tenner in my pocket every now and again!

Make sure you use your own photo when you're selling, there are different grades of cherry shrimp and there are some geeks enthusiasts that will pay a lot of money for a high grade shrimp. If you breed your own then they're likely to just be bog standard low-grade cherry shrimps. Nothing wrong with that, they are still colourful, but not worth as much. You can line-breed to improve quality if you want, but most people are happy with low-grade shrimp.