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Neocaridina Heteropoda

 

 

Many thanks to Xema Romero Leon & Aquatika Bitacoras for allowing the use of all of the photos on this page. Please visit their website for a lot of great photography and information on different aspects of the freshwater aquarium. Thanks again Xema!

 

Information by wood :

The Neocaridina Heteropoda species is the wild-type invertebrate of the common Red Cherry Shrimp and Yellow Shrimp. Both of the species were selectively bred from this wild-type in order to obtain their solid red and solid yellow coloration. If you look closely at each of the photos you can see some coloration of either yellow or red. Over a period of time certain colors were bred out in order to achieve the selectively bred coloration.

In effect this is the origin of the Red Cherry Shrimp and Yellow Shrimp. The hard part is explaining how exactly a breeder is able to selectively breed a species and achieve a solid color of his choice. This must be a very difficult task. This wild-type variety has a camoflauged coloration to it to obviously help it hide in the wild. If you look at the first photo below you will see how well the two females are able to blend in with the rock. Such a scattered coloration must make it extremely difficult to breed out and fill a new variety with solid coloration. Please note the coloration of the male below. The male looks very similar to a male Red Cherry Shrimp in coloration.

This species should not be housed with any Neocaridina species. If you allow this to interbreed with other species of the same genus then you will end up with a "hybrid" shrimp, otherwise looking similar to the wild variety.

As I gather more information and experience in the selective breeding arena I will update this page as well as post my experience with selective breeding. What fascinates me the most is that the wild variety has green eggs, the Red Cherry Shrimp has yellow or green eggs, but the Yellow Shrimp always has yellow eggs. I would love to know what plays a factor in the egg coloration.

Wouldn't it be cool to selectively breed a solid bronze coloration?

 

Females on rock

 

Male

 

Green Saddled Female