Question for expert shrimp breeders!

[KentFishFanUK]

Ok so I have a mix of colours in my cherry shrimp colony - started out as some orange and some green and the future generations have been all sorts of variations. 

Today I noticed one in particular that looks especially amazing, I think it was a male (it was rather large but couldn't see a saddle or anything) that was half green and half orange - top half was green and the bottom half orange, I didn't even realise neos could be multicoloured in that way (except rili's which interestingly I have a few of that have developed by chance, but they are coloured and clear rather than two different colours plus the 'stripes' are vertical these were horizontal). 

Is it possible to try and breed this one to target that same colour/pattern? I'm guessing if it's even possible it's probably one of those things I unfortunately won't have time for but I love the idea of establishing a line that breeds true looking like this one did. 

Any thoughts/ideas?

If I can find him again (he's in my new scaped 75 Gallon) I'll try and get a picture to add! 

[tolstoy21]

You would need to isolate that shrimp from the rest if the colony. Pick 5 or so of the healthiest, best looking females and add those to the new tank with the male. The females wont have the same coloration as the male, so pick ones that exemplify some other characteristics you like and might want to carry forward-- size, shape, opacity of color, vibrance of color, leg coloration, etc.  Let these breed. (Make sure none of these females are currently berried).

Once you have offspring that are old enough to inspect, see if any of those carry the characteristics of the male you're most interested in. If so, hold onto the females of those and back-breed them to the original male. If none visually carry the males characteristic's, then just back-breed the 5 or so healthiest looking offspring. These should carry the males genetics and possibly those will express themselves in the next generation.  

Move all the other shrimp out of that tank except the ones you want to breed to the original male. Rinse and repeat until you finally begin to realize and stabilize the characteristics you are looking for. 

I've never done this with neocaradina, and have only started down this path myself with some of my higher quality crystal reds, but I think that's the basic method. 

Now, I could be 100% wrong about everything I just typed, but I believe this is the method.  If I'm wrong . . . . someone please correct me!  🙂 

I'm guessing this could take a long time, and/or never succeed.  But nothing worth doing was ever easy, right?

Good luck and hopefully I'm not leading you astray!