Shrimp

neocaridina

caridina

First things first: the species of shrimp you select will determine how easy it is to keep and breed. I break down the selection into three categories-

Neocaridina shrimp
Caridina shrimp
“other”

In addition to being the species that I keep, Neocaridina is the easiest and cheapest to purchase of the three, and they will be the focus of this guide.

Neocaridina Shrimps:-

Have you heard that Neocaridina Davidi is the easiest shrimp to keep? But yet, you either have no success in breeding them or even have a hard time keeping them alive? Let us share with you today, all you need to know about Neocaridina. For those who have success in these shrimps, some information here might surprise you.

Neocaridina Davidi or commonly known as neo shrimps, is one that your local fish shop would sell. They come in various colours which adds a lot of contrast to you tank. These beautiful shrimps are priced reasonably and gives you every reason to put them in your tank. So let’s find out more about them today with it’s history first.

History

Neocaridina in it’s wild form, has a pale brownish colour. They are usually caught in slow moving shallow streams. One Japanese hobbyist, through many years of selective breeding, had manage to breed one of it into a pale red colour, and named it cherry shrimps. Slowly, these cherry shrimps went into mass production and other hobbyist even refine the red to be more intense, calling them sakura shrimps, and eventually fire red.

As the prices for these red shrimps have dropped drastically due to high supply, breeders have to start thinking of other ways to make these shrimps more lucrative. Breeders started to breed them selectively again and created new colours out of them.The next colour that came out was golden back yellow shrimps. There is little information about where this shrimp came about, but breeders from Thailand created several good lineage of these shrimps. Soon, they were mass produced both in Thailand and Taiwan for commercial trade.

Yellow neos comes in two version, one with a golden line all the way from the head to tail, while the other is just one tone of yellow. They came out with two names to classify and grade them accordingly. The one with golden line is called Golden Back Yellow Shrimp while the other is just Yellow Shrimp. Golden backs fetch a higher price than the other and through my observations, they tend to be the most sensitive out of all the neo shrimps.

Shrimp Behavior/Compatibility

Dwarf freshwater shrimp are active and almost always engaged in harvesting algae or some other food source. Most species stay relatively small, so they are vulnerable to predation by larger fish. Many shrimp enthusiasts set up dedicated shrimp aquariums with no fish at all, however, some species of freshwater shrimp can be kept with small, non-aggressive, non-predatory fish such as:

Emerald dwarf rasboras
Boraras rasboras
Celestial danios
Ember tetras
Endlers livebearers
Sparkling gouramis
Blue-eyed rainbowfish
Otocinclus
Pygmy corydoras catfish

Parameters

Neocaridina shrimps can live in a wide range of parameters. They are quick to adapt to different environment. A suitable range to keep them would be as follows:

pH: 6.2 – 7.5

gH: 3-6

kH: 0-4

TDS: 70-500

Temperature: 24-30 deg

Although they can live in different range of water, it would be good to acclimatise them properly before adding them into your tank. Neocaridina that are imported from Taiwan tend to live better in higher pH, probably due to the water conditions in where they are bred.

Neocaridina are bred in cement ponds over in Taiwan. The farms are usually situated at the southern side of Taiwan as they have better water and better weather there. I learnt from the farmers that the water comes from the natural spring around the area, the usual TDS that comes from it is about 300-400ppm. When it rains, it goes up to 500-600ppm.

Breeding

A good breeding ratio for these shrimps would be 1male to 3female. Having too many males in the tank will stress out the female during moulting and cause her to die. If you tank is small, it is always good to have some hiding space for shrimplets to hide. Neocaridina are a tad more aggressive than Caridina shrimps, which is why having some plants like ferns, or even driftwood would be good for them.

When the female is ready to breed, you can notice a yellowish colour right behind the head and it is term as a saddle. When the male successfully fertilise the saddle, the female will push it down to it’s belly and become eggs. The eggs will hatch approximately about 25-29 days depending on parameters.

Once the shrimplets have hatched, don’t worry about them, they feed on microorganism that is in your tank. During this period, I would usually introduce powder food so my shrimplets get a fair share of the food as well. Shrimplets have difficulties fighting for food with adults, so powder food really helps in their growth rate.