Blue dream turning brown?

[yassy]

Today,I found 2 molts in my blue dream tank and found this guy. Almost brown-black. I am certain this color of shrimp was not in the tank before.

 

Once molt, darker blue dream gets this color or is it because my substrate is black color, all of my blue dream would turn this color eventually? I have very bright sky blue colored Dream blue shrimp. Sky blue shrimp stays bright blue.... Darker ocean blue stays ocean blue but what  is happening on this guy?

 

I did not want him to breed this color in the tank so took him out for now.

[Fish Folk]

10 minutes ago, yassy said:

Today,I found 2 molts in my blue dream tank and found this guy. Almost brown-black. I am certain this color of shrimp was not in the tank before.

 

Once molt, darker blue dream gets this color or is it because my substrate is black color, all of my blue dream would turn this color eventually? I have very bright sky blue colored Dream blue shrimp. Sky blue shrimp stays bright blue.... Darker ocean blue stays ocean blue but what  is happening on this guy?

 

I did not want him to breed this color in the tank so took him out for now.

Interesting situation! If I'm playing Sherlock to your mystery . . . there seem just a few possibilities to weigh:

(1) You bought this shrimp blue, but over time -- due unspecified factors -- it is changing coloration. Color matching may be going on, dietary change, stress (?), or a deeper genetic cause.

(2) You did not intend to buy this shrimp, but it came as a tiny "freeloader" on something else you bought. Now it is grown, and the coloration is coming out.

(3) Perhaps this shrimp was born in your tank, and the mixed genetics of its rents are manifesting now that it is maturing.

As for color changes in our Neocaridinas, I notice that an imbalance in diet or a deficiency in certain minerals can render their exoskeletons a bit off-color. For example, our Cherry Reds sometimes develop a pinkish lining on certain skeleton joints. I presume this is more due to some deficiencies than to genetic outworking. I have also noticed that some of the Cherry Shrimp, over time, will have young that are more natural tan colorations. But when some of these have been removed and set up in their own environments (e.g. we use neocaridinas as sort of "nurse droids" for Killifish egg jugs) the shrimp begin to display a lot of colors.

[yassy]

Hmm, I do not know what happened. I only keeping shrimp for 6 months and only 2 places I got shrimp from are LRB and Flip Aquatics. Both of them had shipment that had tiny tiny shrimp came with;I only saw blue dot when they came.

This guy is not tiny shrimp but more like juvenile size and I did not notice the color until today...

 

But I never had shrimp being born and so far, I succeeded only to the point shrimp gets berried in my tank.

 

That being said, yesterday, I saw berried shrimp about 2 of them but today, the ones I thought she was is not having egg in her tummy.So, she might have birthed baby shrimp but also possible she might have dropped egg,I do not know.I have not had tiny baby shrimp being birthed yet.

 

I know I saw 2 molts this morning but not sure if any of those belong to him either.

 

He is very active and eats and swim fine but..

 

I should put him back to blue tank?Or separate from the tank of blue dream?

 

Thank you.

[Brandy]

You should separate if you don't want that color. I suspect it was either a hitchiker as @Fish Folk says, or it is a cross breed. That color is sometimes sold as "chocolate" I think. On one of the charts, I remember that being the ancestor of a particular line of blues, he might be a throwback. You could rehome him if you like, but I wouldn't let him (her?) breed with the blues.

[Fish Folk]

Here’s one commonly shared neocaridina chart...

[yassy]

Thank you! I too remember I heard blue dream was bred from chocolate shrimp so, it is some kind of revert back too, but since I have only blue dream in the tank, it got me wondering why...

By the way, I found baby shrimp today in blue dream tank.I only spotted 2 so far.