When checking out the Cherry Shrimps in your tank, you may notice that some of the females may be carrying eggs. So, should you separate these egg carriers from the rest of the inhabitants in your tank? You can find out in this article from Aquarium Blueprints.
Tank Mates
The biggest factor you should consider, when it comes to whether or not you should separate the pregnant shrimps in your aquarium, is the tank mates. We recommend that you keep Cherries on their own. You should also be able to house them safely with slow moving aquatic snails.
A vast majority of pet fish won’t be compatible with dwarf shrimps. Even if your fish won’t eat your adult shrimps, they may go after the smaller newborns. Furthermore, the fast-moving fish may end up spooking the pregnant females, causing them to drop their eggs.
Filter Intake
When it comes to baby shrimps, you should also make sure that they don’t get sucked into your filter. As easy way to prevent this from happening is to get a pre-filter sponge and plug it into the filter intake.
Feeding
You may also have to worry about food as the newborns will have to compete against adult shrimps, as well as other tank inhabitants, during meal time. This too can be easily solved by using a product like Bacter AE, which will provide biofilms as a food source that will grow all over the tank.
Stress Factor
If you decide to move a pregnant Cherry Shrimp into a new tank, then you risk stressing her out, especially if the water parameters aren’t the same.
Now to mention that capturing a shrimp is extremely difficult and could easily scare the female enough to drop her eggs.
If you have other species in your tank that you think may harm your pregnant or newborn shrimps, then we recommend that you re-home the other species instead of trying to removing the pregnant shrimp from the tank.
Recap
We don’t recommend separating the pregnant female shrimp as the capturing and transferring process can induce a lot of stress. Not to mention that, if you decided to put them in a separate tank, then you could end up causing shock if the water parameters aren’t identical between the new and old aquarium.
Instead, we suggest that you remove any fish or other species that may cause harm to the pregnant females or newborns from the tank.
Alternatively, you can provide a lot of hiding spaces for your shrimps to make it harder for them to get eaten. To build these safe havens, you can use rock piles, live plants and décor.
When raising the baby shrimps, you need to make sure that you have some way to prevent them from getting in your filter as they are born extremely small. For best results, you can add a pre-filter sponge to your filter intake or simply use a sponge filter.
When it comes to feeding, we recommend using Bacter AE to grow biofilm all over your tank. These films should give the babies enough food to survive without having to compete during meal times.