berried shrimps!

End of last week I noticed something different about my amano shrimps. The two largest were definitely berried- carrying eggs in their swimmeretes. Looking close I could see small dots in the center of each tiny egg- rows and rows of them thick under the shrimp. Here's the best I could do at photos. On one shrimp the eggs looked very pale grey or clear-

and when she perched underneath an aponogeton leaf, the eggs looked green from the light coming through the leaf tissue!

The other shrimp, her eggs appeared to be orange. I don't know what causes the variation- the stage of development?

Here you can see both of them- the one with orange eggs on the left, the one with white eggs on the right, lower part of the intake sponge. Up top on the intake tube there's a smaller amano shrimp.

The shrimp were flipping their swimmerete legs to fan the eggs, a motion that seemed odd when I first saw it, that's what made me notice. I really wanted to see the moment they dropped the eggs or released the larval zoes- which won't survive if not transitioned to salt water and back again- a very painstaking process I've read about, so I'm not planning on saving/raising any baby shrimps. They would just be fish snacks- but I missed the moment. Next day the shrimps' swimming legs looked free of burden, and they were rubbing/cleaning them in another motion I hadn't seen before. Well, maybe there will be a next time. I've read that once they start producing eggs, the female shrimps are constantly carrying some.

Younger amano and an older one- they're catching up fast!