# Witnessed RCS moving eggs from saddle to "under-carriage"! Lots of questions



## yum (Feb 11, 2008)

*Witnessed RCS moving eggs from saddle to "under-carriage"! Lots of questions*

I just saw one of my big females transferring her eggs from her saddle to her "under-carriage" or swimmeretts (sp?)

At first I thought she was molting b/c she was hanging out on the side of a piece of driftwood arching her back crazily. I had a funny thought that she looked constipated.  But then I noticed she was holding something round in her front claws and then she'd pass them along to the back legs and then flutter her swimming fins and I could see eggs shifting around. wow. so neat! my first time!

I was very worried about keeping shrimp in a NPT with no filter as many here have said that they require sparkling clean water. So, I chose Cherry Shrimp as they were noted as being extremely hardy.

Too early to declare success? The tank has been running since Feb 28th with just light, heater and tons of plants and I started with 7 RCS - one turned out to be female, then added 5 more juveniles 2 weeks ago. They were all pretty colorless (I'm guessing from stress of being transferred to a swapmeet) but gained color as they adapted to the tank. All doing well, I have had 2 hatchings so far and they seem to be extremely red from birth. I take this to be a great sign.

I now count 3 large adult females all in various states of bearing saddles to eggs. I count at least a dozen juveniles and a few 1/8" newborns flittering in and out of the java moss.

As I said, I was really worried about my water quality (and I don't really monitor it closely) but with this much spawning action, is it safe to say they are doing more than "ok"? I have done a few water tests and they all came up zero ammonia levels. I do a 4 gallon water change every 3 weeks or so when I trim the plants and top off from my counter top Brita filter.

My original female, Big Red, has been getting more and more red with every week that passes, her babies are also extremely red. The new females I added are starting color up but are more orange hued, can I expect them to color up as time goes on?

Anyways, thanks to this forum I'm a complete shrimp addict now.:heh:


----------



## oblongshrimp (Aug 8, 2006)

*Re: Witnessed RCS moving eggs from saddle to "under-carriage"! Lots of questions*

welcome to the club


----------

