Cherry shrimps wont breed!

[hardlytangerine]

Bahh, this is really frustrating me! I had two Cherry shrimp in my 110liter (29 us gallon) for a while.. these were two shrimps that I had just plopped in there as I didn't have a tank for them at the time. For some reason they managed to stay away from being eaten, and I rarely saw them. One night, I finally saw them and as I now had another tank, I decided I'd try to get some shrimp lovin' going on.

I moved them to a 4 us gallon (15 liter) tank, that was already well cycled and has lots of live plants.. I don't use any sort of water-"medication" as Ive read they can be harsh on shrimp (hardly any chlorine and such in our water here..so we dont need Aqua safe and the likes)

when I moved these cherry shrimp, I noticed the female was preggers, and few days later I found ONE baby shrimp..

I bought some more shrimp and now I've got five shrimps (plus some snails) in this tank, but they WONT BREED!

The females (two or three) all have their saddles visible, but none of the males seem interested.. at all. I give them food made for shrimp, they get pre-boiled frozen peas, bits of squash and spinach sometimes, they get bloodworms too.. I've got a patch of java moss growin on a piece of bog wood, but the java moss has not grown out yet...there are lots of live plants (only live plants) but NO romance!

Since its a small aquarium, I do water changes atleast once a week, but I try to do it more often.. and I try to keep the water at the same temperature... I also try to keep the water a bit hard (with minerals and such) since there are snails.

Has anyone had troubles breeding cherry shrimp? I KNOW it's supposed to be super easy, but I've had them in this tank for three months now and nobody is interested in the females! :-0 (the filtermedia is supposedly shrimp-fry safe)

I'm wondering, could it be that the shrimp wont spawn because there is not enough java moss? The moss is growing extremely slow so that could take aaages! I also have a plant there, Egeria densa, which supposedly releases some sort of stuff that is good for fish, could this be harmful for shrimp? I've never heard of that before but I mean.. there's gotta be something that stops them from spawning?

[MLBfan]

How long have they been in the tank? Also, with the dechlorinator, are you saying you don't use any but there is chlorine in your water?

[hardlytangerine]

There is little to no chlorine in the water here (well there most likely IS, but it's minimal), especially in small towns like where i live in Norway. I sometimes use just a slight drop if I do a 50% water change in the community tank...even in the bigger cities here, serious fishkeepers dont normally use it because of the low levels of chlorine.

so I dont use it in the shrimp tank. Should I? I think I read somewhere that shrimp are sensitive to these water conditioners and such. I use cold tap water that I mix with boiled water to get the right temperature. (and I dont use any plant-vitamins since it contains copper etc)

My shrimp have been in the tank maybe three months. I bought this tank around christmas, but didn't set it up until the start of january.. I used a cycled filter media so I kickstarted the filter back then :)

[wijnands]

Hmm..

Well, I've got no moss and my shrimp breed like rabbits. What kind of filter are you running? And what's the minerals exactly?

[hardlytangerine]

I'm using the AquaEl Fanfilter Micro, but I'm using a sponge from an Eheim air filter-somethingsomething - I just cut the sponge to fit into the AquaEl. (and obviously I made sure the sponge was jampacked with all that bacteria and such from the previous filter hehe)

The one that seems to be male is probably too young (it was the one who grew up in the tank) but there should be one or two more males and they dont seem to want to be fathers :-0

[hardlytangerine]

edit button wont work today! :'(

- but I forgot to add, - the mineral stone I use are small white "chalky" stones Ive bought at the pet store, meant to be put in the aquarium to make the water harder. I also have some powder that should make water harder but because the tank is so small I only use a small amount of this with the water changes (because water here is quite soft)

[imma24]

Maybe you're fussing around with the pH too much and it's stressing them too much to want to breed - just my 2cents.

[hardlytangerine]

I'm not doing anything with the pH though..the pH level in our tap water is around 7 and I dont add anything to change it. (though the bogwood might lower it a bit I guess) tho if you ment the gh level? Then yeah maybe I should stop adding the powder? could that be stressing to them?

[Lady Hobbs]

What color is the gravel? I mention that because cherry shrimp don't show true colors unless they're on black substrate. I had brown stones and could hardly see the babies because they were also brown. I also had to use a magnifying glass to see the babies. They are extremely small and good hiders and may be in notches in that bogwood.

[MLBfan]

Well products such as prime remove chlorine, chloromine AND ammonia. Although if the tank is cycled, I doubt ammonia isn't the issue.