FIRST berried golden girl

[HumanArtRebel1020]

I finallly have a berried female in my cycled ten gallon tank !!  She is my first pregnant shrimp ever and is the oldest . She got pretty old before i could get males in the tank. How should i go about this . How should i raise the shrimplets to get the best outcome as possible !!? Feeding and water care. I currently have 3 guppies in the tank as well. They dont currenly eat my shrimp, including juvies. 

[JSak]

Congratulations! Getting your first berried shrimp is always exciting and it usually means that you may be getting more soon if you have other females in the tank. If you want the best possible outcome I'd remove the guppies. Baby shrimp are extremely small and don't like to move very much when they're first born, making them easy targets if they're not already hiding among plants. You could also remove the berried female and put her in another tank, but I'd prefer moving the guppies to reduce stress on the female. You could also keep the guppies in the tank if you don't have another tank or don't want to move them, but baby survival rates improve greatly in shrimp-only tanks. My baby shrimp (especially neos) like to cling to the side of the glass to pick at algae, which makes them very vulnerable to predation. I've had cherry shrimp with nano fish such as CPDs and I thought they were breeding well until I decided to take the fish out, then my colony exploded. I started to notice the baby shrimp in the tank more either clinging to the side of the glass or grazing on the plants. I assumed it was because the threat of predation was gone. The babies may have been there the whole time hiding, but I noticed a significant difference in 2 tanks that previously had fish. If you plan to keep your guppies in the tank I'd recommend putting lots of plants. Java moss is my go to plant as sort of "mold" it into different positions in the tank. I've heard of lots of people who keep fish, especially guppies, with shrimp. They have good breeding from the shrimp, but usually admit that they tend to breed better without the guppies.

 

As for feeding I recommend powdered foods like Bacter AE. It's basically ground up biofilm, which is the natural food source for adult and baby shrimps. However, if you have a good amount of plants in the tank you don't necessarily need baby-specific food. Personally, I alternate between feeding a pellet food one day then a powdered food the next to ensure that the babies that can't get access to the pellet food can get their nutrients. However, I keep shrimp for maximum growth and breeding, so my feeding schedule is more than necessary. As for water changes, I wouldn't change your normal water change routine. If your shrimps managed to breed and produce eggs in the water you have them in, the babies should do fine as well. Above all I find that shrimps prefer stability over pristine water conditions. In my early days of shrimp keeping I would change 20%-25% of my water if I saw a dead shrimp or 2, which caused more deaths because I'd keep changing their water parameters. Now, I try to drip new water into the tanks so that the shrimp acclimate to the new water slowly. It takes way longer, but I feel that the shrimp do much better since they're not experiencing rapid changes, but again I go for maximum breeding potential so I try to do whatever I can to make the shrimps as happy as possible, which is definitely not required.

 

The fact that you got your shrimp to breed is a really good sign that you created an ideal environment for them. I usually worry about a new type of shrimp I get until I see my first berried female. I'd say keep doing what you're doing! 

[HumanArtRebel1020]

Thankyou so much!! This was such a helpful response:)

[HumanArtRebel1020]

Woke up yesterday to see she didnt hold her clutch:(