hey need help please

[jenreef]

ok i have two blood red fire shimp. i was woundering if they are a school shrimp or if my shrimp are a pair because i did not buy them as a pair and now they do not leave each others side. and one is bigger than the other. how can i tell if they are male or female?

 

[Leviathan_XE]

They're both. They have the organs for both but can't reproduce without a partner. If one has eggs it needs the other to fertilize them and vice versa.

 

[jenreef]

ok thank do think mine will mate or its like winning the lottery

 

[Leviathan_XE]

More than likely yes they will, but don't get your hopes up on rearing the offspring. It's a difficult and time consuming process. You''l see them carrying eggs under the abdomen first. Sometimes they'll carry them only to drop them, but when they are fertilized you'll see them get bigger and bigger until they're ready to hatch. When this happens(usually at night) they'll do what I can only describe as a wierd, little dance to shake the larva free. But the larva are extremely small and have almost NO chance for survival in the typical tank. What larvae don't get eaten buy your fish, corals, seahorses, etc....(and trust me they WILL eat them like candy) will get chopped up by the equipment that we have, pumps, powerheads, skimmers and the like. It's best if you just think of them as another food source like all you can eat night with the family.
There was a thread on here where someone documented the rearing process, just search for it. But you have to remove them and rear them in their own tank, grow phyto for them and the list goes on, even then you're lucky if you get less than 1/3 of them to survive.