Just realized that my Cherry Shrimp had babies

[L.Iorin]

I swear I didn't notice before lol. Now I'm worrying if I sucked up some of them when cleaning, but I don't recall seeing anything moving.

They're all small, but I don't think they could be called "fry" anymore. The smallest I could see is 2 ml? Maybe 3? With orange colouring.

Sooo, I wasn't fully expecting them, if I'm honest. I thought you needed to encourage them first by raising the temperature. Anyway, what should I do now? to make sure the aquarium doesn't crash. I assume I need to measure everything just in case?

It's worth noting my aquarium is not heavily stocked. Other than 7 original shrimp, some cherry barbs, and some pest snails, there isn't much. People usually don't notice I have fish in it. Nitrates are very low. There's plenty of plants, and some annoying hair algae.

So other than testing the water, and maybe scooping up some to give to relatives or back to stores once they grow up a bit more, is there anything else to do or worry about?

 

[Essjay]

I wouldn't even bother testing the water. The only thing you need to do is check the old water when you do a water change. I siphon the old water into a bucket, then empty the bucket with a translucent plastic jug so I can see even newly hatched shrimplets. I use a 1 ml pipette with the narrow end cut off to rescue them from the jug into a cup of tank water, though if I manage to siphon up larger shrimps I use the pipette to remove any bits from the jug then decant the shrimp into the cup.
But I do realise this is easy for me with a 23 litre shrimp tank, it would be a lot more time consuming with a large tank and several buckets of water.


Edit to add - if the shrimp numbers get too large then yes, just give them away/sell them.

 

[DAnCSF]

Congrats just enjoy