Caridina Cantonensis - Crystal Red, Bee, Tiger etc.

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• Care

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In this article, I won't go into detail trying to describe the different all the different types of shrimp there is out there. There is much ...

ughh.... Ok... nope its not deja vu. If you have read the Neocaridina pages, you'll notice that this is almost a facsimile of that article.. because most of it IS the same. The major difference in care is that their water conditions are slightly different. You will see some paragraphs here that look exactly like the other shrimp pages, because the info is pertinent to both. (really because i'm too lazy to come up with new stuff every page. So ok... now that i've reassured you that this is no "butterfly effect", carry on......

There is much documentation already out there that already describes them by people who are more qualified than myself I will just skim through some of the ones that I have kept, but bulk of this article will be focused on my personal experience in shrimp keeping, together with some do's and don'ts which i have learned along the way.

If you want some good information and support about shrimp, let me suggest you check out a good forum such as www.shrimpnow.com.

Intro

For those who didn't know, Caridina Cantonensis is the scientific name for Crystal Red Shrimp (CRS), Tiger Shrimp, Black Bee Shrimp (Crystal Black) etc. These are some of the most desireable shrimp in the hobby because of their beauty, but be forwarned, unless the water that flows out of your tap is perfect, be prepared to do a little bit of work.

White Bee Shrimp:

After a couple of months of keeping Cherries and Yellows, I was ready to move onto something new. Not surprisingly, while on www.shrimpnow.com learning how to keep my cherries alive, I couldn't help but be mesmerized by the beautiful pics of the beautiful Crystal red shrimp there. I hung around the forum a bit to learn more about the species and got very useful advice from everyone before enbarking on my CRS journey. There was one bit of advice however which I very foolishly decided not to heed.

"Start with cheap low grade CRS and if you manage to keep them alive, only then should you go for the higher grade ones!"

Being the pig headed dumba$$ that I am, I figure that I was ready for the big boys toys. Went on aquabid and got my self 10 S grade CRS and felt very proud of myself. By now you know what happened.... didn't last more than 2 weeks..... I'm not going to say how much money went down the drain.

Lower Grade CRS:

The moral of the story is... these guys are sensitive. They require a lower pH than Neocaridina Sp. like Cherries. Usually not an option for most of us Big City Dwellers. If you have wellwater that flows through limestone... you can pretty much forget about these guys unless you commit to pre-conditioning the water to lower the pH first. I wrote an article about lowering pH chemically; you can check it out here. Or if availble to you, you can use Indian Almond / Oak Leaves or Peat Filtration.

Bottom line, do your research and if needed, commit to doing some water prep. If you put in the effort, it will be heavily rewarded:

Higher Grade CRS:

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Care

AQUISITION

Even though more and more people are breeding these successfully, prices for good quality specimens still dissuade people from investing. Just check out www.aquabid.com and you'll see what I mean. Even though normal tigers are beginning to be more and more common, be prepared to dig a little deeper into your pockets to get some of the more "exotic" ones.

Increasingly, LFS are beginning to bring in more and more med-low grade CRS and normal tigers. These are great places to go looking for your first critters because they will be somewhat accostomed to the local water conditions. If the local water needs adjustment, the LFS owner can tell you exactly how he prepares the water. Because shrimp are generally sensitive shippers,m always allow them to remain at the LFS for a week or so before bringing them home. If you have a good rapport with the LFS owner, he may even allow you to reserve some and pick it up next week.

However, if you want to get higher quality CRS and more exotic morphs like blue tigers, golden eye tigers, crystal white etc, then i would suggest starting with www.aquabid.com to at least get a feel of the market price.

Golden Eye Tiger:

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ACCLIMATION

Never "HARD" acclimate these guys by simply equalizing temperature and dumping them in. Always "Soft" acclimate gradulaly. Either the drip or float method works equally well with the common domestic Caridina Cantonensis. (I'm not discussing Dripping or Floating here... do a google search and you'll get hundreds of articles).

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WATER PARAMETERS

Water parameters for these guys are a little out of the normal range for most of us across the US (especially in the big cities), but with a little effort, most of us will be able to attain these parameters.

pH med-low 6's to low 8's
Temp 65 F to low 70's F
Medium Hardness

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FEEDING

Shrimp are not too picky. They very accustomed to big box pet store pet food. Flake, pellets, algae disks are generally accepted. Although these guys can be voracious eaters, be careful that you do not over feed. If you feed them in the morning and you get home after work and there's still food left uneaten, then you have probably over fed them. Cut down the quantity accordingly.

Eating Sinking Pellets:

Once in a while, i like to give them a treat of fresh / frozen veggies. Cucumber, zucchini, carrots, broccoli, sugar snap peas and spinach leaves are just some of the treats that they get. If your veggies are too hard (like carrots) it helps to par-boil them in order to soften them up before feeding. I like to buy these veggies frozen if possible. This way i won't be under pressure to finish all the veggies before they go bad in the fridge. Frozen veggies are also pretty simple to prepare. The freezing process probably produces ice crystals which break down the cell walls of the veggies which helps with softening them up for feeding.

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BREEDING

As I so often tell people ......LEAVE THEM ALONE!!!! (deja vu....)

Constantly changing temperature, pH, lighting and stuff just stresses them that much more. Neocaridina species of shrimp breed quite readily. As long as your keep the water parameters constant and within the range given above, they should eventually breed for you. Gestation is approximately 3-4 weeks depending on the temperature of the water. I find that higher temps generally mean a shorter gestation.

Gold Eye Blue Tiger Berried:

Due to the fact that because of the coloration, it is usually not easy to see the "saddles" (ovaries). Hence it is usally more difficult to sex these guys compared to Neocaridina sp. using the "saddle" method. A better, although not as accurate, way is to look at the shape of the bellies (or the "undercarriage" as i lke to call it).

Mature females will very often have a convex undercarriage where the shell plating of the body extends further downward producing the impression that it has a pot belly:

Males and Immature females have a relatively straight undercarriage as you can see:

As eggs mature, they will get more and more translucent in color, to a point where you might have to look REALLY closely to see if the female is still carrying the eggs. Eggs that are ready to hatch are pretty much "see-through" but if you look closely you should be able to make out two little eyes within each egg.

These guys give birth to little shrimplets without going through a larval stage which makes things very much easier for everyone. You may want to crush up some food so that it may be more manageable for the tiny tiny shrimp. A large clump of java moss helps to grow some bacteria or trap small bits of food which the shrimplets can continually graze on.

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PLUG

On the urging of my friends, I started this website by putting together the original (and quite successful) B. Macrostoma pages. Since then it has grown by quite a bit. All this time I've provided all this info and lots of free e-mail support to anyone who needed help. The advertising on this page helps out a little to offset the cost of webhosting. So if you see something that you may be interested in listed within the Google Ads banners, then please don't hesitate to check it out.

I thank you all for your great interest in my articles and I hope to keep hearing from you guys, even if it is just dropping me a note to say hi. God Bless!

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