Cherry Shrimp- Age/Size males can breed?

[heatherbee]

I have a tank of mostly painted fire red cherries that was mixed with sakuras. I took out the non fire males to increase my chances of getting pfr babies and I've got 4-5 batches of babies. I plan to remove the lesser quality to my other tank once they're grown a bit as it has some fish that will eat them if they're too small. Right now I've only got one berried and a ton with saddles the past week or so that I've been impatiently waiting on.  Today I noticed the males racing and this includes a ton of little males too. I'm unsure of exact age but the ones I'm questioning are say 1/2-1".... what age/size are they able to do the deed? There's a lot of them I will be moving but I thought I had a good bit more time!  So does anyone know what age or size I should be moving them? If I could guess the oldest babies are 4-6 weeks. I couldn't find my answer anywhere online! 

[heatherbee]

Well they flew around the tank for about 3 days and have stopped now. Hadn't spotted a newly berried female but my tank has a lot of hiding spots so I probably just hadn't seen her yet. I would still love to know what age/size they start breeding though!

[Soothing Shrimp]

I use the rule of threes for neos. 

 

Roughly 3 weeks berried

 

Roughly 3 months till breeding.

[heatherbee]

Thank you!  I'll start trying to get the few older ones that aren't  perfect to the other tank. Luckily it seems nearly all are going to be ok to be left to breed as the batches of babies following the first one are all looking better and better Ive gotten very lucky with the quality at a local shop so once I had a good group of about 12 going I moved the couple grown males that weren't PFR & that was within the first couple weeks. I didn't realize the huge difference in grades until I had my first few. I sort of accidentally fell into this after loving my Amanos and wanting some shrimp that could breed in freshwater. It's sad to see those beautiful amano eggs just go to waste. I wish the cherries got to Amano size though. That'd be neat!

[Pokeshrimp]

Thank you! I'll start trying to get the few older ones that aren't perfect to the other tank. Luckily it seems nearly all are going to be ok to be left to breed as the batches of babies following the first one are all looking better and better Ive gotten very lucky with the quality at a local shop so once I had a good group of about 12 going I moved the couple grown males that weren't PFR & that was within the first couple weeks. I didn't realize the huge difference in grades until I had my first few. I sort of accidentally fell into this after loving my Amanos and wanting some shrimp that could breed in freshwater. It's sad to see those beautiful amano eggs just go to waste. I wish the cherries got to Amano size though. That'd be neat!

You can start breeding them for size. That'll be an iinteresting project, haven't seen that done before.

[heatherbee]

Hey that's a good idea! I was just thinking it'd be awesome to see them as big as the amanos. I'm very new to shrimp and am not even positive how long it takes until the cherries are full grown but I've had the amanos for about 7 months and the cherries about 3. The amanos look about 3x bigger to me comparing female to female.