The case of the missing shrimp eggs

[Mr. Crayfish]

Hi. I recently got 3 neon yellow shrimp(Neocaridina, 2 females and one male). They are in a 10 gallon aquarium with 7 ember tetras, a mexican dwarf crayfish, a ghost shrimp, and a single male orange sakura shrimp ( he was the last survivor of the awful reaccuring incident of eco-complete poisoning). It has been 16 days. One female has gone missing, and I found her berried. Same thing happened with the other. No more than a week had passed before both shrimp were berried (although one of the females had fewer eggs, all of which were a lot larger than the other shrimp's). When I went to sleep last night, both females were pregnant . When I woke up, the one with the larger eggs was no longer berried. With the amount of research I've done, I can be assured the eggs didn't hatch. Did she just drop them?

[JSak]

Hi Mr. Crayfish. First thing I ask when people have problems with their shrimp are their parameters. From what I've researched shrimps tend to drop their eggs when they're stressed out. I've also heard that they may also just drop their eggs if they're younger and still learning how to be "good parents". I've had experiences where the water I keep my shrimp is ideal for the type of shrimp and they managed to breed and produce a berried female, however over time she slowly lost her eggs until there were only a few or none left. However, after a couple of weeks the same shrimp became berried again and was able to produce babies. Do you notice if the fish or the crayfish bother the shrimp? I'm not too familiar with dwarf crayfish so I'm not sure how they'd interact with shrimps, but the other inhabitants could be stressing the shrimps and causing them to drop their eggs. Those would be my first thoughts based off of what you've shared. 

[Mr. Crayfish]

8 hours ago, JSak said:

Hi Mr. Crayfish. First thing I ask when people have problems with their shrimp are their parameters. From what I've researched shrimps tend to drop their eggs when they're stressed out. I've also heard that they may also just drop their eggs if they're younger and still learning how to be "good parents". I've had experiences where the water I keep my shrimp is ideal for the type of shrimp and they managed to breed and produce a berried female, however over time she slowly lost her eggs until there were only a few or none left. However, after a couple of weeks the same shrimp became berried again and was able to produce babies. Do you notice if the fish or the crayfish bother the shrimp? I'm not too familiar with dwarf crayfish so I'm not sure how they'd interact with shrimps, but the other inhabitants could be stressing the shrimps and causing them to drop their eggs. Those would be my first thoughts based off of what you've shared. 

I use remineralized RO water:

• PH: 7
• GH: ~125
• KH: Don't remember but seemed normal.
• Nitrite:0
• Nitrate: 0

The ember tetras are too busy to bother the shrimp.The only time the shrimp and the crayfish interact is when the shrimp is near the crayfish. The crayfish opens his claws and the shrimp swim away. The ghost shrimp doesn't show much interest in anything except food. A few weeks earlier, the ghost shrimp was berried but lost her eggs with a day. The other berried female is defiantly larger, properly older, and therefore more experienced. But I don't know much.

[JSak]

Hmm parameters seem good for the neos especially since you're using remineralized RO water. The only other thing that I can think of is that they're still going through the stress of moving in and acclimating to their new environment. As long as the shrimps seem to be healthy I'd wait to see if the same thing happens when they breed again. If they bred once and appear healthy they should breed again. In the instances where my shrimps dropped their first clutch of eggs they generally held onto their next clutch until they hatched. 

[HumanArtRebel1020]

This such a strange case. The same thing happened to me. my one large female  finally became pregnant with full berries. Than  two weeks after only had 3 under her and started fanning very slowly. I discovered her dead the next morning. She was old . If you know your shrimp is mid aged, she may have just dropped them.

[HumanArtRebel1020]

However my other younger female shrimp currently had just revieved babies  and she is  a yellow as well in a tank full of guppies. I collected 6 after a sudden  birth thinking she dropped them. If this is your first batch of shrimp babies they will be TRULY seemingly difficult to spot. The only reason I found 4 at first, then 6 was because I fully cleaned the tank removing all plants and seen some dot (the shrimplet) float out of flow to the black substrate lol.  I prob discarded of the others while cleaning and had no idea .