How to Breed Red Cherry Shrimp

How to Breed Red Cherry Shrimp - Breeding red cherry shrimp is as easy as putting a pair of adult male and female together in an aquarium. You can observe the eggs developing in the female's ovaries as a white or yellow triangular "saddle" marking on her back.

When she is ready to lay the eggs, she releases pheromones into the water to signal her availability to males. The male shrimp in the tank will often become agitated, swimming very actively about as they search for the source of the pheromones. After a brief mating process, the female lays her eggs and affixes them to her swimmerettes.

Breeding Red Cherry Shrimp
The eggs turn darker and darker until the young shrimp hatch after about three weeks. When the young hatch, they are tiny (~1 mm) copies of the adults. They have no planktonic larval stage.

They spend their first few days of life hiding among plants, where they are almost invisible, nibbling on the biofilm on the plants. They then emerge and graze on algae on tank surfaces and ornaments.