Crystals Breeding Or Just A Ride?

[Pteronarcys]

I was looking into my nano tank to watch the shrimp and I notice a smaller crystal shrimp riding on top of a larger one. The one on the back had a good grip and stayed on for more than 10mins. I have never seen shrimp do this. I know they breed but I have yet to see it happen. With my neocaridinas I get new babies all the time but have never seen them mate. I am new to having crystal shrimp and perhaps this is how they do it? I was actually looking up how to sex them on my phone when I noticed this behaviour. I have only had these guys a few weeks and they haven't berried and there hasn't been any babies yet. I am assuming the larger ones are females as you see in neocaridinas.

Web sites say that neocaridinas face each other and the act of breeding is only a few seconds. These caridinas might be different, I don't know. Perhaps the one was just going for a ride. I snapped some pics and video with my phone.

http://vid745.photobucket.com/albums/xx99/rjpesq76/20140817_191652.mp4

http://vid745.photobucket.com/albums/xx99/rjpesq76/20140817_191547-2.mp4

[jumpsmasher]

It certainty looks like the male is attempting to do so but female is either not ready or not playing along. The challenge for him is to turn her over and knock her up from underneath. A strong male might be able to hold on to a female like your photo and than turn her over but most often I find they do it by sneaking up from under the female while she is swimming - and like you said it only happens in a split of a second.

When the female is ready to mate she release some sort of pheromones that drives the male crazy. Usually this happens just before she molts and you will see all the males "dancing" around the tank. The female is generally hiding/resting at this point as she just molted - she is also fairly weak at this point. If a male seek her out within the next little while, you would have a berried female in a few hours. Although not always the case, the female can only be berried during this time as once the new shell harden, it is much harder for the male to fertilize the female.

bee shrimps "Dancing"

I had a male pumpkin shrimp hold on to the female for a good 15 minutes while in a mating position.. the female ended up with the largest batch of eggs I ever seen!

Edited August 18, 2014 by jumpsmasher

[Pteronarcys]

So you are saying once the shell or carapace hardens.. it is the ultimate "c*ck block"

[jumpsmasher]

Lol yes you can say that.. Basically if the female doesn't get berried shortly after molting she probably won't get berried until the next molts - on young shrimps this is usually every 2-3 weeks..

[Claudiohv]

It certainty looks like the male is attempting to do so but female is either not ready or not playing along. The challenge for him is to turn her over and knock her up from underneath. A strong male might be able to hold on to a female like your photo and than turn her over but most often I find they do it by sneaking up from under the female while she is swimming - and like you said it only happens in a split of a second.

When the female is ready to mate she release some sort of pheromones that drives the male crazy. Usually this happens just before she molts and you will see all the males "dancing" around the tank. The female is generally hiding/resting at this point as she just molted - she is also fairly weak at this point. If a male seek her out within the next little while, you would have a berried female in a few hours. Although not always the case, the female can only be berried during this time as once the new shell harden, it is much harder for the male to fertilize the female.

I had a male pumpkin shrimp hold on to the female for a good 15 minutes while in a mating position.. the female ended up with the largest batch of eggs I ever seen!

Thats pretty funny !