My second berried Blue Jelly Shrimp has just hatched her eggs two days before I was expecting them. She has only been berried for 22 days, that is two days less than my first Blue Jelly. She was hiding inside the coconut cave, it seems to be the favoured place for my Berried Shrimps to hang out and they have not only passed their eggs down from their saddle to their Pleopods inside there, and spent a lot of time in there whilst berried, but they also seem to retreat back inside when it is hatching time.

I have managed to spot three tiny little shrimplets from this new batch, and I am surprised at the size difference between them and my first batch of shrimplets. I had not realised how much they had grown. It is not so much the length that has changed, it is more that the older ones seem to have bulked out and look more stocky in build, though I think they are also a little longer.

The first thing I noticed was a tiny thing floating at the top of the tank. I managed to fish it out and put in onto a piece of paper. Looking under a microscope (yes, I really am that obsessive), I could see that it was a larval looking shrimp, it had teh overall body shape, but no legs. AT first I assumed that it was a Ninja Shrimps shrimplet as they cannot survive in freshwater. I then noticed my Blue Jelly was just inside the cave and was looking paler than she had been looking earlier. That was when I saw two tiny Blue Jelly Shrimplets sitting just outside the Coconut cave and realised that what I had fished out must have been a Blue Jelly Shrimplet that had not fully developed for whatever reason.

After having gone into hiding for a day or so, one of my Tigers that I thought was saddled is now berried and happily wondering around hungrily chasing down every last bit of food in the tank. The Tigers don't seem to show their saddles as clearly as the Blue Jellies and it is not totally clear from these images but you can see the slight shape of the eggs in the saddle. One of the main differences I have noticed between the Blue Jellies and the Tigers is the timescale between the saddles showing and the shrimps being berried. The Tigers seem to have gone from the first to second stage much quicker, just a matter of a few days, whereas the Blue Jellies took between 2 and 3 weeks, however, this could be that the Tiger female may be more mature than the Blue Jelly Females, so again I will have to keep and eye on this timescale next time (or with future off spring).

A berried female Tiger Shrimp. The Orange eggs show up clearly on the Pleopods

My second female Blue Jelly Shrimp has finally lost her saddle (apart from one or two rogue eggs that have yet to move) and is now happily carrying her collection of bright yellow eggs.

When looking at mummy number one, her eggs seem to be showing some small shadow shaped inside so it looks like the babies are starting to develop quite nicely.

No signs yet of any saddles with the Tiger Shrimp, but I have only had them for a little over a week so it is quite soon to be expecting anything from them, though the tank is being littered on a daily basis with old shrimp shells (at least one or two each day) so there is good signs of growing going on in there and today's water testing showed that the water is keeping very stable and clear so all is going well so far.

With the (hopefully) imminent arrivals coming I am trying to get everything set up ready for the babies. With this in mind I have added a new plant, a round pellia as I read that its broad leaves are perfect for holding the tiny food particles for the shrimplets. After adding it to the tanks it has always had at least one of my shrimps on it so they are loving this plant already, just hope they leave some food for the babies.