Saddled and Berried

Could someone with more shrimp experience possibly explain this, as it basically destroys my understanding of shrimp reproduction. This little girl was saddled, then berried, and is now saddled again in addition to still being berried? I'm confused...

Not the best pic, she isn't a fan of being out and visible away from the driftwood very often.

 

I have no clue but am interested as I will have shrimp soon too. Here's a bump!

 

Bump, anyone have ideas on this? She's still both saddled and berried.

 

I'm only tossing out a guess here, but it may be possible she is either doubling up on production since you have an awesome tank, or the berried tail is loaded with duds.

 

Should hopefully know some time soon. We're close to the time she should be dropping the babies, and she's still like this.

 

Should hopefully know some time soon. We're close to the time she should be dropping the babies, and she's still like this.

Has there been any change? I'm super curious.

 

Other than the eggs getting bigger and the saddle getting more obvious, nope, no change yet. Honestly it's starting to have me a bit worried...

 

I'd give it another week before getting worried. She's gotta keep those eggs safe before she can call out to the shrimp daddies to knock her up again.

 

That's so weird, hopefully it resolves itself soon.

 

Good news! She had her babies yesterday. She didn't have the eggs anymore, so wasn't sure if there was something wrong with them or not, but I just saw one of the new little shrimplettes

 

Yay! Congrats!

 

Thanks, now I can stop being worried about her as much. Poor thing, nothing like being pregnant and ready for someone to get you right back to that point. Hopefully her body/legs will at least somewhat get back to the right shape first (first pregnancy and she is apparently very fertile).

 

And here she is today. I suppose no rest for the wicked, lol.

 

First thing I noticed was the snail in the background lol. I really need to do a proper shrimp tank one day.

 

Can't tell from the picture, but the snail is my poor little girl who was being abused by the fish. I've never seen a snail starving herself to death, but she was definitely in the process of it. She's doing very well with recovering, but there's still a lot of shell damage that is in the process of healing.

 

Can't tell from the picture, but the snail is my poor little girl who was being abused by the fish. I've never seen a snail starving herself to death, but she was definitely in the process of it. She's doing very well with recovering, but there's still a lot of shell damage that is in the process of healing.

Awe poor thing. Glad she is doing better.

 

Congrats!

And poor snail!

 

Thank you. Yes, it was definitely unexpected for the poor little girl. And then, once she realized it was only snails and shrimp, she started going through a full green bean by herself daily, sometimes two.

 

I wonder if my fish are picking on my snails and causing them to stay in their shells! Hmm

 

Part of why I suggested the breeder box in your thread about them. Gives them somewhere that's still cycled the fish can't get and where there's less flow. Of course, also makes it easier to keep an eye on them

 

Part of why I suggested the breeder box in your thread about them. Gives them somewhere that's still cycled the fish can't get and where there's less flow. Of course, also makes it easier to keep an eye on them

I just hadn't thought of the fish being the reason ... I kept thinking maybe it was water quality for some reason. I'll try that.

 

Don't worry, I didn't even realize that it was the case with that little one until the fish was out of the tank and she started acting like she hadn't eaten and gorging herself. I kept being confused because I would put food in, it would go basically untouched, and she was having some real shell damage despite there being plenty of calcium.

 

Quick update for anyone following this, the little shrimp is doing well. She is going for round 3, so I can only assume I have a very fertile little girl here. Her first set is almost breeding age themselves now, the second set is just starting to get some color.