Shadow's Shrimp Journal or how I learned to love the Neocaridina

[Shadow]

Here are my findings from starting and being pretty successful with my shrimp breeding project.

I started this breeding project before my new job in the month I took off. I wanted to see if I could start breeding similar color strains and crossing them to get some interesting color variations within that spectrum ie Orange Sakura x Pumpkin Spice(both orange spectrum). This is how I set up each tank...

All are in 5 gal tanks... prob could improve those to 10 gal unless you want to do frequent water changes. I do them 2x a week, most tanks just need water top off but some require change of 50% or more due to the water becoming super cloudy. Substrate I started first 3 tanks with Fluval Stratum, but due to its dustiness in the start I moved to Aqueon Shrimp/Plant base. Its way better at keeping clean and during water changes/additions the water doesn't become cloudy or murky. Besides this substrate all have a AOC sponge filter inside, small size. I stocked each one with the following: Tourmaline & Red Bee Balls(Mineral balls), Almond & Jackfruit leaves(boil & let sit for 2 days to get a nice film on them, the shrimp love it!), Alder & Filao cones(Again boil & sit), Cholla wood pieces for little hotels(3 inch pieces again boil & sit), Catappa Bark(SURPRISE! Boil & sit) and all have at least 1 Marimo Moss ball in them. All have either additional Java Moss or Subwassertang inside as well. I have including feeding dishes which I alternate with dehydrated veggies of differing types that I get from my shrimp lollies guy from Etsy, canned(NO SALT ADDED) green beans & shrimp food alternating between Sera Shrimp Food & Pollen Granules. 

Lastly...3 of my tanks have exploded with success, 1 is close to those numbers while the other 2, one is thriving now and adding new babies with the last one having dead loss for some reason(I cannot explain it).

3 thriving(in video below...ENJOY!):

Orange Sakura x Pumpkin Spice

Blue Rili x Blue Jelly

Blue Carbon Rili 

1 close:

Green Rili(I will soon add Green Jade to this mix)

1 gaining and doing well:

Black Rose(4 berried and some new babies)

1 having issues:

Yellow Goldbacks(This is the only one I bought female only shrimp to add in, after that they just died off to where now I believe its just 4 males...will add more to increase numbers after it cools off down here)

Now before I drop that video I mentioned above, I need to now learn how to list and ship these buggers. Keep an eye in the WTB/WTS section as I might do some kind of free thing to test my shipping skills. Anyways, enjoy the info I included on my project...hope it helps others! 🙂 

 

@nabokovfan87 @Guppysnail @Lennie @Chick-In-Of-TheSea @Fish Folk tagging y'all just cuz. ❤️ 

OH! and all have mostly red rooted floaters in them and some duckweed lol. 

Edited August 27, 2023 by Shadow

[nabokovfan87]

Looks awesome. Congratulations on the progress.  They love that food!

 

On 8/27/2023 at 12:14 PM, Shadow said:

1 having issues:

Yellow Goldbacks(This is the only one I bought female only shrimp to add in, after that they just died off to where now I believe its just 4 males...will add more to increase numbers after it cools off down here)

Check on your GH/KH when you can for all the tanks to see if you see anything.

[JChristophersAdventures]

@Shadow Are you sure those are shrimp tanks... sounds more like a 5-star Intercontinental Hotel for shrimp, to me! lol

[Shadow]

On 8/27/2023 at 5:46 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Looks awesome. Congratulations on the progress.  They love that food!

 

Check on your GH/KH when you can for all the tanks to see if you see anything.

I check those numbers weekly and have a goal in mind with them. I prefer to keep GH between 4-8 & KH between 3-15. I even have a dry erase board for my weekly checks before water changes for TDS, GH & KH. 

Oh and TDS between 150-300. 🙂 

[Shadow]

Black Rose and Green Rilis are both breeding A LOT now. So now all my tanks are really poppin off. Just hope I can figure out the selling them thing soon, as I am soon to be overrun. LOL!

[Shadow]

So UPDATE and its a doozy...

I have broke down and combined all my blue neo projects. I have gotten some INSANE designs with my Blue Velvet x Blue Carbon Rili plus a few more from my Blue Rili x Blue Dream x Blue Velvet. I decided to add my culls to random tanks around the house and take the 50 or so interesting ones add them to their own tank to try to breed out what I am seeing that I like. Many of the Blue Velvet x Blue Carbon Rilis have produced insanely carbon dark blue rilis with white eyes and white feet, not clear, white. Very similar to what some of my caridinas look like. Oh and yes, I now have Caridinas. I bought Red King Kong x Red Pandas, some very nice ones. I am currently cycling two other tanks for the next two types I plan to get: Blue Bolts & Orange Eye Royal Blue Tigers. I moved all my Orange crossbreeds to random tanks as they never really produced any great colorations. Also, I think I had either all female or all male Golds as they never reproduced and just got extremely giant in size...was only 3 of them and added them to one tank with some guppies. Now my only ongoing neos are my one big tank of interesting blue crosses I am trying to isolate, my Green Rili tank which I am about to cull from soon and my Black Rose tank which I am ongoing culling to keep a deep deep black line. 

More to come! Stay tuned!!! 

[Shadow]

My newly established Blue Hybrid breeding tank with crosses from a combination of Blue Dream, Blue Rili, Blue Carbon, Blue Carbon Rili and Blue Jelly. I've gotten some pretty interesting crossbreeds from this and consistently cull anything that isn't blue in nature. Have some lighter colored jellies I need to remove next, but all in all getting great results. Posted this in another post I started, but wanted to leave it here for all following as well. 🙂 
 

 

[PluckyD]

Hello, nice project! I just wanted to share that I’ve had similar experience with goldenbacks. I tried 4-5 times in different set ups and even in tanks that had successful colonies of other shrimp, but my goldenbacks always died off over several months, even when I saw a couple get berried. I always order from a seller who seems to have a more meyer lemon color strain (as opposed to neon yellow) and figured maybe they just don’t like my water.
 

I have neos in all my other tanks with colonies of orange (also a mix of pumpkin and orange sakura), green (emerald, not jade), blues, and reds, but those goldenbacks elude me. 

[Shadow]

On 1/3/2024 at 2:20 AM, PluckyD said:

Hello, nice project! I just wanted to share that I’ve had similar experience with goldenbacks. I tried 4-5 times in different set ups and even in tanks that had successful colonies of other shrimp, but my goldenbacks always died off over several months, even when I saw a couple get berried. I always order from a seller who seems to have a more meyer lemon color strain (as opposed to neon yellow) and figured maybe they just don’t like my water.
 

I have neos in all my other tanks with colonies of orange (also a mix of pumpkin and orange sakura), green (emerald, not jade), blues, and reds, but those goldenbacks elude me. 

Yea its insane. The 3 I have left are HUGE, like Amano big. They are thriving even after being moved to multiple tanks. I keep all 3 together. All my others breed like wildfire. Not sure what the difference is with the Goldenbacks. 

[nabokovfan87]

If they are that big I would think they might not be neocaridina. Neo vs. amano at the same scale.

 

[Shadow]

Yea I keep both Green Algae and Amano in multiple tanks, so def know the size and these are def that big @nabokovfan87. They look exactly how Goldenbacks are color wise but are giant af. The ones that were in there with them were the same size at one point, smaller, but when the rest died off, those 3 got BIG. 

[PluckyD]

I don't know if mine were monster big like yours @Shadow, but my survivors also tend to be on the larger end of the Neo size scale and I assumed were female. They are also definitely Neos because they seem to interbreed with the other colors okay -- I keep a tank of mixed colors for culls (where my remaining Goldenbacks now reside), and I end up with goldenback mutts.

Edited January 3 by PluckyD

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/3/2024 at 8:45 AM, Shadow said:

Yea I keep both Green Algae and Amano in multiple tanks, so def know the size and these are def that big @nabokovfan87. They look exactly how Goldenbacks are color wise but are giant af. The ones that were in there with them were the same size at one point, smaller, but when the rest died off, those 3 got BIG. 

Found something cool for ya.

https://www.garnelio.de/en/blog/shrimp/neocaridina-xxl-fact-or-fake

[MrGibson]

That’s absurd! I’ve never seen neos anywhere near that big. It’d be interesting to try and pair them up with other colors and see if you get any big shrimp in colors other than yellow. I’m rather curious what the genetics of these are. Hopefully someone is able to breed a ton of them at some point. 
 

Also your mish mash blue tank is super interesting. I may end up following suit on something like that and seeing what happens. I’ll report back if I ever get around to it!