Soothing Shrimp

neos will often stop breeding for the winter.

I'm doing the same. Powder is nice, but liquid is much much easier.

This led to my experiment with astaxanthin. Result was I now keep astax away from my neos.

I've seen that on a neo or two after a bad molt.

Great stuff. I know you can buy it from horse food suppliers, but I'm cautious because of pesticides.that don't harm mammals may affect inverts.

I think you asked a very difficult question without realizing it. There are many many different blues in the neo shrimp world. While those don't look to be BV, the best you can do is to find a shrimp that looks like yours, do a test breeding and see if the offspring are similar.

Yes, purple does exist in saltwater shrimp. I've also seen some kk that supposedly have purple (although others state it is light reflection) and some purple cherries. I used to have a line I was working with called Plums. So this is an interesting question with a simple but complex answer. In my experiments with neos, I have noticed two kinds of pigment. One in the tissue that colors it. One on the shell that colors it. The shell pigments have some basic colors. For example- red. This color in its purest form equals a red shrimp. The color though is actually pointillism. Made up of little dots. Stand far enough back and it looks like a solid color. The more dots squeezed into an area makes the color look more dense. As an example, if a shell has dots of both red and yellow in roughly equal proportions, it can look orange. The color is not "mixed"- it just looks mixed from our perspective. Now let's take the color of tissue for example. Far less is known about these colors, but in a nutshell a yellow shrimp is often a transparent shell with yellow tissue. Same with the original BV, etc. Now if we take a thin pigmented see through shell, and add a body color under it, it creates a third phenotype. An example is a true bloody mary that has a thin red shell and red body tissue. Or perhaps a thin red shell with a yellow body making in theory a fire orange. To create purple, it is possible to have a thin red shell with a blue body, or - more commonly- a thin blue shell with red body. Thus the mixing of red/blue creates the purple look. These are most of the purples I have seen. Having said that, this type of shell/body mixing is extremely unstable, and will take an incredibly long time to be a true breeding strain. Why? Pigmented shell density has a tendency to vary from shrimp to shrimp. Some pigment is more dense, while others are less dense. This affects the overall color of the shrimp. This is also the reason why most people don't have stable PFR lines, but rather a mixture of fire reds and painteds from a single clutch. Now, having said this, we can also say that it may be possible to have two pigments on the same shell create purple IF one color is not dominant over another one making it impossible to have both at exist at once. In other words, if genetics says you can EITHER have RED or BLUE for the dots of pigment in addition to yellow dots, then you have orange or green jades, but not purple. But if genetics don't care, then that is certanly a way to do it. Of course there is also the chance of a true mutation occurring. For instance, I have Nessies that look to have a true green pigment. Purple may be possible, as well. Mutations are rare and far in between though. Once one occurs, you treat it like gold because who knows what may come from cross breedings or out of the line further down the road. I will say that very rarely are one offs sold from breeders, for the simple reason unless you work with breeding the shrimp, you don't know if it is a "sport." A mutation not reproducible. So if you are lucky enough to buy a "sport" from someone, you take the gamble you may not ever be able to reproduce the phenotype even with back breeding. Sometimes the gambles do pay off though. And yes, you are right. Just breeding two shrimp together doesn't make instant success. You can work for years on a line and not have it turn out the way you want it. I've done that multiple times. But when they do, it is so worth the work! I hope this helps some.

Excellant information! Thank you.

Water changes can be great or a downfall. Stability is key. So if your water change has the exact same params, you can change it often. I change about between 2 weeks and a month, because every time there is a wc, something seen or unseen may be changed some.

I have just used different amounts to adjust gh for neo and cards. 1 remin has done it all for me. I don't use driftwwod, ial and alder in my neo tanks. Just moss in the back corner. I'm sure tannins would drive the ph lower, but since I don't use tannins in general, ph stays around neutral.

On my phone, but I'll play.

LOL How many cases did you order, shrimple?

Looks like that happened in route. Good she hasn't dropped her eggs.

I do gh+ for my neos. I tried the gh/kh but my neo breeding not only went down, but stopped.

We had some post here that she saw her micro crab eat her shrimp alive.

Acclimation Not knowing water params Unseeded filters Using tap water from my area And making spinach the diet for my yellows which turned them funky colors. All this caused my first 9 tanks to die years ago. I just didn't have basic knowledge. Now the worst mistake for someone new is not being on a shrimp forum. True, it's a hands on learning curve, but with so many people to turn to for help in pm or posts, the various opinions, experience and knowledge is fantastic!

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Shrimp often die during the learning phase.

How often do you guys recommend? Often companies say things to use products up faster.

How often do you guys recommend for established tanks?

Great to have you here!

Call the brown dormant then if you'd like (I personally consider it dying when browning) , but it is not unusual for moss to go brown and then come back again in the right conditions. At least it has for me. Maybe H4N can weigh in here?

Doesn't look like BV to me. BV is more aqua, while this is more royal.

Congrats!

So many different versions of pintos. It could be one. Doesn't look TB.