When blue shrimp become orange

Annako · Post by **Annako** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 12:23 pm

Well, last month when I got my cherry shrimp from a local shrimp maker, I also got a bag of the blue shrimp. I knew they were not going to be blue and i knew they were not dyed blue. They appear in colour as ghost shrimp and that is what i expected. I wanted to check these non blue colour blue shrimp out. I mean like everyone and their grandma has red coloured shrimp these days and I find that ghost looking shrimp are kinda underrated and I wanted to observe these guy and take note on beahavior, colourations, and reproduction. Unfortuantely i do not have many.

Lately, I have noticed some of these females have become an orangish/tanish non-ghost shrimp colour. I wonder what that is about. I still have yet to determine id this is something temporary or caused by environmental factors or the true colours coming trhough. As behavior, they seem to be more shy than my reds(or maybe they are harder to spot, who knows, i still have yet to determine this)

Anyone else here keep "blue shrimp" and notice anything as contributers to colour change or just information on the neocaridina species that are sold as blue shrimp (even if they are not dyed blue). Just want to see what the blue shrimp keeping pros have to say about them.

Thanks!

Post by **Mustafa** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 1:19 pm

People call all kinds of shrimp "blue" shrimp to increase ther marketability, which includes various species of Neocaridina sp. which are everything else but blue, even when freshly caught/imported. So, it's impossible to generalize about what your shrimp should look like. Hence, since we have no clue what shrimp you have, we can't really comment in any intelligent way.

What I refer to here as "blue" shrimp are the shrimp that arrive in the US as truly blue colored shrimp and their offspring. Although there may even be several species of Neocaridina sp. involved in those shipments, we can at least narrow it down to the animals that are either blue imports or their offspring (not blue).

Annako · Post by **Annako** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 1:31 pm

thanks. I will talk with my shrimp supply person about the blues again especailly about what he bred them from, etc. It is a Neocardina in its body as far as I can tell, but I am new to Neocaridina. As for picture, I only have one very bad picture, They like to hide in my rock pile so photography opportunity is limited.

Since the supplier also breeds cherries it can be possible they are just undesireable red with horrible(for a red) colouration? Sometimes I think this may be possible, but, yet again, I would have to ask...

I am pretty sure that picture doesn't help much.

My largest "blue" shrimp

A shot with no flash.

blurry comparision to my palaemonetes.

I hope that was not too many shots.

marusempai · Post by **marusempai** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 3:02 pm

I'm a noob at shrimp, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I've seen these listed as black, blue, red, or green midget shrimp (Caridina sp.), and they are almost always actually the color in your pictures. They do vary in color a lot though, so if you used a healthy dose of imagination they might come in those colors.

That being said, they're still nice looking shrimp.

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 3:30 pm

Those peachy colored things going down their backs are eggs. Looks like you'll see eggs on their bellies before too long. These don't look like cherry shrimp to me, and I've never seen a cherry shrimp get eggs all the way down the tail like that. These may produce zoes (larva) rather than little shrimp. My amanos show eggs like that. When the eggs appear compare them to the cherry shrimp eggs. If the eggs are really tiny and lots of them, they will likely be zoes. If they are large & few, like 20-30 you'll likely end up with shrimplets.

Post by **Mustafa** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 5:05 pm

Thanks for the pictures. Now everything is quite clear. Those are hybrids of red cherry and some type of Neocaridina sp.. The coloration of the shrimp (some are reddish, correct me if I am wrong) and the coloration of the developing eggs in the ovaries, eggs look almost yellowish, gave it away. These are some typical features of red cherry hybrids. Hybrids can actually look very interesting (I have two populations of hybrids myself) but whoever breeds them should be honest about it and sell them as such instead of giving them some name they find somewhere (or make up) and never mention the mixed heritage of the shrimp.
Most people who leave out this crucial information will keep insisting that they don't have hybrids even if all the evidence speaks against it.

Hybrids are very common since the shipments of red cherries that the vast majority of petstores and importers get are "contaminated" with some wild-type Neocaridina sp., mostly just the wild form of the red cherry, Neocaridina denticulata sinensis, but sometimes entirely different, but closely related, Neocaridina species. Badflash and Newjohn (and I'm sure many others) can tell you about it as they received such hybridized shrimp as "red cherry" shrimp from online sellers before.

What most likely happened is that the guy you bought the shrimp from separated the red offspring of his hybridized "red cherry" population and is now selling the non-red ones as "blue" shrimp....just as you suspected.

Badflash...the space that eggs can take up in the ovaries can vary depending on diet. I have many red cherries where the eggs stretch all the way down the back. The shrimp in the pictures are not unusual in that regard.

Neonshrimp · Post by **Neonshrimp** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 5:16 pm

They do vary in color a lot though, so if you used a healthy dose of imagination they might come in those colors.

No kidding

They don't look like they have any particular color at all!

Most people who leave out this crucial information will keep insisting that they don't have hybrids even if all the evidence speaks against it.

Thanks for the warning

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 5:42 pm

Mustafa wrote:Badflash...the space that eggs can take up in the ovaries can vary depending on diet. I have many red cherries where the eggs stretch all the way down the back. The shrimp in the pictures are not unusual in that regard.

Wow, never seen this in any of my cherries. They end up loaded with eggs, but the ovaries never extend more than half way down the back. That's pretty interesting.

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 5:48 pm

Set up another tank and separate out the cherries that are clearly red from the others, otherwise the entire population will eventually be hybrids. If a female has eggs, leave her with the hybrids until they hatch and get her out before she molts again. It took me more that 6 months to get mine sorted out with a few juvie browns mixed in. Because most of the males are so pale I ended up pulling out just the females and getting a few fresh males from a known population.

Newjohn · Post by **Newjohn** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 5:54 pm

Mustafa
The second Photo, Looks to be different Shrimp, compared to the other Photo's.

They look to have a Straight Line "There Spine".

And yes, I have had the Joy of sorting out the "Hybrids" from my RCS.
The Shrimp that I have sorted out have markings. They range in color from a reddish brown, Black, and a Olive Green.
And there Egg color ranges from Dark Green, Mint Green, And a Pinkish.

If you want RCS, make sure you sort out the Females that do not have Yellow Eggs.
The sooner you start the eaiser it will be.

I have had my RCS well over a year, and I still get a few Hybrid looking Offspring.

Good Luck
John

Post by **Mustafa** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 5:56 pm

badflash wrote:but the ovaries never extend more than half way down the back. That's pretty interesting.

Actually, the ovaries don't extend all that much beyond the halfpoint of the shrimp in the above picture either. You might have gotten fooled by the filled intestines of the shrimp, which are similarly colored as the ovaries in this picture. It might seem to you as if the intestinal content is just a continuation of the ovaries, but it isnt. Either way, what you see in the pic is normal.

Post by **Mustafa** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 6:02 pm

Newjohn wrote:Mustafa
The second Photo, Looks to be different Shrimp, compared to the other Photo's.

They look to have a Straight Line "There Spine".

They are not different shrimp. That "line" down the "spine" is just their intestinal content shining through. Hybrid shrimp can have various colorations ranging from reddish, clear, grey, to greenish...but they look very different from the really wild-type shrimp. And I have seen and keep many wild type Neocaridina sp.. The shrimp in the above pictures could perfectly be from the same clutch and even from the same mother.

Newjohn · Post by **Newjohn** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 6:14 pm

Lets try this again.

I did not mean the intestinal content line.

The head of the Shrimp in the other photos seems to be more of a curve.
and the Shrimp in the second Photo seems to be more inline with the back, like a Caridina Species.

I am still trying to be able to tell the different Species apart.

John

Post by **Mustafa** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 6:21 pm

That's not a good way to differentiate. What you consider "straight" and "curved" depends , many times, on how the shrimp choose to sit. The "head" of the same shrimp can look streait or "curved" at different times and seen from different angles.

Anyway, they are the same hybrids either way.

Annako · Post by **Annako** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 6:38 pm

yeah... when i got them they were sepearate and told to keep seperate(obviously). As for the eggs, in my tank of reds all the girls are saddled up also. They have been there for a week. hooray! anxiously awaiting for them to drop to the swimmers. I keep the browns with my axoltols and some palaemonetes. The reds are in a 20 gal long. o.O Didn't feel like buying another tank so i used my spare. This will be my shrimp farm. I got my eye on a female that is super red and I am also fond of one that has a clear "stripe" between the bodey and head.

I am quite fond of these little hybrids. I must be getting smarter to be able to guess they may be the hybrid. I just find it intereting when i got them they were ghost shrimp colours and now they are brownish something or other. Well, I am just glad I didn't pay a price for that that was more than a doz. ghost shrimps arround here. I am going to pay close attention to their offspring that manage to survive in the community they live in.

Thanks for the help!
The more you know...