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A Guide To Crystal Red Shrimp

riioKen said:
Little update, I've bought a RO system. I'm transitioning the tank water to 100% RO, right now I'm using MgSO4 and CaSO4, 0 KH.

Last week I did 50% WC, GH is 7 (still 50% ro and 50% tap) and KH is 3.

The TDS from Ro unit is ~20ppm (scale500), I add GH 5 (3:1 ratio), I don't add any alkalinity due to aquasoil. GH 5 should give me around 110-130ppm of tds (+20ppm from RO)

This way I should be able to have CRS. But now I have some doubts.
The tank has cpd, ember tetra, otos and pygmy.

  • embers (10) swim mid to top, rarely see them at the bottom. Should be safe
  • cpd (8) are always at substrate level, they eat from the substrate
  • pygmy (6) are safe, they ignore everything in the tank

The tank is 90g 110x50x60h, Dutch style inspired.

I want a clean up crew made by shrimp, I have 1 amano, I plan to add more friend to this guy (maybe 9 more, so 10 in total for 90g of water)

But what about CRS? Would they be just a snack for cpd or I'll be able to have a colony?
Photo of the tank below.

I would like to add Rummynose but they are hunters, and very active, maybe aren't even less safe for CRS.
Click to expand...

Any specific reason why you want CRS in particular? The more robust Neocaridina species will likely fair far better in your medium hard water - where CRS do better closer to zero KH - and are available in a variety of colours. The fish will predate on some baby shrimp for sure, but if you start with a decent amount of Neo's (20-30) you should have them out-breeding any predation in no time.
 
Wookii said:
Any specific reason why you want CRS in particular? The more robust Neocaridina species will likely fair far better in your medium hard water - where CRS do better closer to zero KH - and are available in a variety of colours.
Click to expand...
I've bought an Ro unit, and the water that I'm adding is GH 5 and KH 0, technically, the water check is passed.

About the "why" CRS, just aesthetics, I like them.


Wookii said:
The fish will predate on some baby shrimp for sure, but if you start with a decent amount of Neo's (20-30) you should have them out-breeding any predation in no time.
Click to expand...
Is this true with CRS too?
 
Wookii said:
Any specific reason why you want CRS in particular? The more robust Neocaridina species will likely fair far better in your medium hard water - where CRS do better closer to zero KH - and are available in a variety of colours. The fish will predate on some baby shrimp for sure, but if you start with a decent amount of Neo's (20-30) you should have them out-breeding any predation in no time.
Click to expand...
In addition to what I've added above, will CRS have problems with dutch style fertilization style? (Not full EI, more like low EI ~15ppm weekly)
 
riioKen said:
I've bought an Ro unit, and the water that I'm adding is GH 5 and KH 0, technically, the water check is passed.

About the "why" CRS, just aesthetics, I like them.
Click to expand...

Oh right, I thought when you said:

riioKen said:
Last week I did 50% WC, GH is 7 (still 50% ro and 50% tap) and KH is 3.
Click to expand...

. . . you meant you were doing 50/50 RO/Tap water changes for GH 7, KH 3.

If you just changing with pure RO remineralised to GH 5 you should be fine for CRS,
riioKen said:
Is this true with CRS too?
Click to expand...

It may be - they are a bit more picky than Neo's, and I've never managed to get Caridina to breed with full fat CO2 injection (though never specifically CRS), but you may have more luck.
 
Wookii said:
you meant you were doing 50/50 RO/Tap water changes for GH 7, KH 3.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm still transitioning to full RO, in 1/2 week I'll be able to reach KH 0. My WC are 100% RO, but I'm doing it slowly.


Wookii said:
It may be - they are a bit more picky than Neo's, and I've never managed to get Caridina to breed with full fat CO2 injection (though never specifically CRS), but you may have more luck.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I heard that, they are very expensive too lol.

if I use full RO, and reminalize to only GH 5, should I check tds too? I mean, often my tds is a bit off, giving strange result, I'm dosing following IFC calculator to GH 5.
 
riioKen said:
Little update, I've bought a RO system. I'm transitioning the tank water to 100% RO, right now I'm using MgSO4 and CaSO4, 0 KH.

Last week I did 50% WC, GH is 7 (still 50% ro and 50% tap) and KH is 3.

The TDS from Ro unit is ~20ppm (scale500), I add GH 5 (3:1 ratio), I don't add any alkalinity due to aquasoil. GH 5 should give me around 110-130ppm of tds (+20ppm from RO)

This way I should be able to have CRS. But now I have some doubts.
The tank has cpd, ember tetra, otos and pygmy.

  • embers (10) swim mid to top, rarely see them at the bottom. Should be safe
  • cpd (8) are always at substrate level, they eat from the substrate
  • pygmy (6) are safe, they ignore everything in the tank

The tank is 90g 110x50x60h, Dutch style inspired.

I want a clean up crew made by shrimp, I have 1 amano, I plan to add more friend to this guy (maybe 9 more, so 10 in total for 90g of water)

But what about CRS? Would they be just a snack for cpd or I'll be able to have a colony?
Photo of the tank below.

I would like to add Rummynose but they are hunters, and very active, maybe aren't even less safe for CRS.
Click to expand...


I am having pretty good success with Crystal Red Shrimps / Bee shrimps - They are breeding well... I keep them with Tiger shrimps and Cherry shrimps, Embers and some very large Cardinal and Black Neon Tetras - both pretty bold micro predators which probably take some of the babies.

None of fishes you keep should be a problem for juvenile or adult Crystal Red Shrimps, but the Pearl Danios (cpd?) and Pygmy Corydoras might pick the babies.

As far as water parameters goes, around 150-250 us/cm (75-125 ppm TDS if your conversion is 0.5) and a dGH of 4-5 in an Ca:Mg ratio of 3:1 works just fine.

Now if you're injecting CO2, I would be careful not to have the injection rate too high - CRS are known to be more sensitive to higher injection rates.

Other than that, just keep your water parameters consistent, well oxygenated and provide a varied diet.

And don't introduce any shrimps before your water parameters are settled ... that includes whatever your soil may be leaching at this point! ... be patient!

Cheers,
Michael
 
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MichaelJ said:
I am having pretty good success with Crystal Red Shrimps / Bee shrimps - They are breeding well... I keep them with Tiger shrimps
Click to expand...

Have you had any interbreeeding Michael - they could throw up some interesting variations!
 
Wookii said:
They wouldn’t be my first choice. How big is your tank?
Click to expand...
90g (330L, probably around 280L with substrate, considering 50L of tropica soil), 110x50x60h, dutch style inspired.

Last photos is now, just for reference, about the depth
 

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Wookii said:
Have you had any interbreeeding Michael - they could throw up some interesting variations!
Click to expand...

Hi @Wookii, I haven't noticed any interbreeding. Shrimps of different genus would not interbreed. So in my shrimp tank it would only be likely between the Tiger and the Crystal/Bee both being Caridina genus but not the Cherry which are Neocaridina. Of course, the various variants (colors) of Cherry shrimps that I have, happily interbreeds but usually the colors of the offspring are quite dull resembling their wild coloration - a reason why some keepers prefer to stick with just one color.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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riioKen said:
Will Rummynose be too large, active and "aggressive" for them?
Click to expand...


I have a shoal of rummynose in my other tanks (no shrimps in that tank). Rummynose are very active and tend to forage towards the lower part / bottom of the tank and will pick baby shrimps, but could also spook both juveniles and adult shrimps unless you have very dense vegetation at the bottom.

As @Wookii said, not a first choice with shrimps.

Cheers,
Michael
 
riioKen said:
90g (330L, probably around 280L with substrate, considering 50L of tropica soil), 110x50x60h, dutch style inspired.

Last photos is now, just for reference, about the depth
Click to expand...
Looks good.... I would add more plants 🙂 How long have you had the tank running?

Cheers,
Michael
 
MichaelJ said:
So in my shrimp tank it would only be likely between the Tiger and the Crystal/Bee both being Caridina genus
Click to expand...

Yeah, but that’s what I meant - if you have T. Bees, Crystals and Tigers you have all three main strain s of Caridina, so it’s potentially a proper shrimp style “keys in the pot” type party! Literally any random mix could be thrown out.
 
Wookii said:
Yeah, but that’s what I meant - if you have T. Bees, Crystals and Tigers you have all three main strain s of Caridina, so it’s potentially a proper shrimp style “keys in the pot” type party! Literally any random mix could be thrown out.
Click to expand...
Right on! Well, right now I only see Tiger juveniles that look like Tigers and Crystal juveniles that look like Crystal's... Tank is super densely planted, so who knows what lurks in there... 👍

Cheers,
Michael
 
Wait, I'm still new into the world of "breeding". I know that if different color of Neos interbreed, often the color that pop out is less grade or even near wild caught. So if you want to preserve the color, you need to pick a color and have only that in the tank.

But for caridina? You can have in the same tank CRS, Taiwan bee (CRS is a type of Taiwan bee right?) and tiger, and the interbreed are not "wild color"?

For example, if I put in the same tank, CRS and tiger, I can get even galaxy pinto?
 
riioKen said:
Wait, I'm still new into the world of "breeding". I know that if different color of Neos interbreed, often the color that pop out is less grade or even near wild caught. So if you want to preserve the color, you need to pick a color and have only that in the tank.

But for caridina? You can have in the same tank CRS, Taiwan bee (CRS is a type of Taiwan bee right?) and tiger, and the interbreed are not "wild color"?

For example, if I put in the same tank, CRS and tiger, I can get even galaxy pinto?
Click to expand...

In theory, yes:

1701503686909.jpeg

But to get something specific like a Pinto, you’d need to extract certainly colour mutations, and then interbreed further:

1701503773030.jpeg
 
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