If you want your cherry shrimps to thrive, you’ll have to know what is the best temperature for them. Here’s what I found out after doing some research:
The best temperature for cherry shrimps is 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celcius). The ideal temperature range for them is between 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit.
Now, I’ll dive a bit deeper and discuss how temperature affects different aspects of cherry shrimps.
What Happens With Warmer Temperature?
The first thing that happens when cherry shrimps are in warmer temperature is, their growth rate starts to accelerate. When you go beyond 72 degrees Fahrenheit, you’ll see a substantial increase in growth rate.
This growth rate continues up to about 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Meaning, You’ll see a peak of the growth rate at about 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Beyond that, the temperature won’t have that much of an impact on the growth rate.
However, is a quick growth rate a good thing? I don’t think so. Many problems come with a substantial quick growth rate. Here are some:
- The main problem that occurs with a quick growth rate is the molting problem. The probability of failed molting increases. Also, with increasing temperature, cherry shrimps like to molt more. Each molting process takes a substantial amount of energy. As a result, when the shrimps are molting too often, they don’t have any reservoir of energy left. This leads to many other problems.
- With warmer temperature, Cherry shrimp breeding rate increases too. However, the quality of the offspring decreases drastically. It is because of the lower life quality of the shrimps.
- As I’ve mentioned before, with warmer temperature, shrimps molt more often. This leaves the cherry shrimps weak and stressed all the time. These two things result in very poor life quality of your cherry shrimps which affect their offspring.
- With increased temperature, the probability of diseases including bacterial infection increases too.
What Happens With Colder Temperature?
With colder temperatures, the bodily functions of cherry shrimps start to slow down. It is not actually a bad thing for us.
Here are some of the things that happen with colder temperature:
- The growth rate starts to slow down. Meaning, the molting process occurs less frequently. This way, the shrimps have enough time to reserve energy for their next molting.
- The breeding rate decreases. However, the quality of the offsprings stays nice.
- Your shrimps will enjoy a very high-quality life as there’ll be no stress and anxiety because of the too frequent molting process.
- The probability of bacterial infection and other diseases decline with a cooler temperature.
How Temperature Affects The Sex Ratio Of Cherry Shrimp?
There are two major sex-determining factors in cherry shrimps: environmental and genetic. Withing the environmental factors, the most important ones are temperature and photoperiod.
Temperature and photoperiod maintain and stimulate the rate of reproducing processes in cherry shrimps, including the gametogenesis. Temperature also plays a role in the formation of gametes sex.
This way, the temperature greatly affects the sex ratio (male to female ratio) in cherry shrimps.
After extensive research done by the researchers, the following information was derived:
With increasing temperature, the ratio of male shrimps starts to increase more than females. However, the range between 28 to 32 degrees Celcius is dangerous for cherry shrimps.
Within this temperature range, cherry shrimps experience a very molting high rate. Beyond the 32 degrees Celcius mark, female cherry shrimps cannot keep their eggs and even get berried.
Tips: The best temperature range for breeding cherry shrimps is between 21 to 24 degrees celcius.
Why Temperature Affects Sex Ratio?
We can look at this from another perspective. Let’s see how nature plays a big role here.
During the rainy season, the lake, rivers and other water bodies start to cool down. This is the best time for shrimps and other living creatures as foods are abundant.
This optimum condition triggers all the water living creatures to breed. Hence, the shrimps start to breed more and make more offsprings. In this case, the female cherry shrimps get more priority.
On the other hand, during the warmer season, the population starts to get sustained. As a result, a survival mode occurs within the living creatures. This gives more priority to males.
You can also see this in your aquarium. If you are changing the water in the tank with a bit of cooler water, it can trigger the breeding of cherry shrimps.
However, that doesn’t mean you should dump a bunch of ices in there. Just try to stay within the recommended temperature range for the best quality offspring.
Temperature & Egg Development Of Cherry Shrimps
Recently a study was carried out. A group of researchers created three environments for cherry shrimps. The 3 environments were in 3 different temperatures: 20, 23 and 26 degrees Celcius.
The study was conducted for 3 months. After 3 months, researchers found out many new information regrading egg and hatchling periods between temperature.
- It was seen that with higher temperatures, the number of eggs developed increased. One female produced about 55 eggs which was the maximum record.
- The hatchling period was greatly affected by the temperature too. With lower temperatures, the hatchling period lasted longer. The higher the temperature was, the shorter was the hatchling period.
- The development rate of egg increased with higher temperatures. In higher temperatures, the output time of the shrimp eggs got much quicker.
- It is important to know that, with the lower hatchling period, comes various problems. Some of them are lower survival rates of the shrimplets, lower quality shrimplets, deformities of the embryo, etc.
How Temperature Affects The Survival Rate of Shrimplets?
Unfortunately with higher temperatures, the survival rate of the shrimplets declined a lot. This is due to many reasons. The main reason is, when the temperature is higher, the shrimp remains in constant stress due to the too frequent molting process.
This ultimately affects the shrimplets and their quality gets worse. Which in all, decreases the survival rate of the shrimplets.
So, it is better to keep the tank temperature within the favorable range for cherry shrimps.
3 Temperature Zones For Cherry Shrimps
Red Temperature Zone (76 to 80 Degrees Fahrenheit or 25 to 27 Degrees Celcius)
- The mortality rate goes higher
- The survival rate of the eggs get lower
- Shrimps remain in constant stress
- affects the coloration
- Earlier sexual maturity but with a smaller body size
Green Temperature Zone (70 to 75 Degrees Fahrenheit or 21 to 24 Degrees Celcius)
- Creates an optimum environment for the eggs as well as the shrimps
- Good coloration is expected
- Lower mortality rate
- Shrimps remain comfortable and calm
Blue Temperature Zone (67 to 69 Degrees Fahrenheit or 19 to 20 Degrees Celcius)
- Egg development rate gets slower
- The sexual maturity period slows down too
- Reaches a larger size when the shrimps are sexually matured
Conclusion
So, we can see how temperature can affect various aspects of cherry shrimps. If you want your cherry shrimps to be happy and have the highest quality offsprings, you’ll definitely need to keep them in the optimum temperature they need.
