Electrokate

Thanks, so are shrimp like insects with the XX-XO system, and is the female the XX? I am guessing so... and that whatever is making the orange male shrimp is sex linked recessive. I guess there is also always the possibility that it's coincidence, or there is a lethal gene, so that a female having two expressions of orange would not develop properly. Lethal genes are a PITA for calculating odds. And coincidence happens. Kate

I am wondering if anyone can tell me if Neocaridina have the same type of gender determining genetics as vertebrates IE XX XY chromosomes for gender or is it different in invertebrates? I have some Bloody Mary culls that are quite orange and always it's males. I put two of them in a 5.5 gallon with a nice standard female red and all the babies are red, I can remove a female from the F1 (is that a term in invertebrates? I am used to breeding fish and birds...) generation and put with one of these new orange males and see what happens, assuming it's a simple thing of the female being a carrier of a recessive trait. If this was birds I would guess that the male only needs one gene to express it and it is sex linked recessive. It may also be epigenetic. I don't know if the original two males I put in darkened to classic red or if they died and two of their offspring are what I am seeing but I haven't seen the orange guys for a long while. So maybe the orange was temporary. I also had a pink female with a pale pink back stripe, put her in a 5 and a pale male and got all normal Bloody Mary with one exception out of like 100 babies. That project is a lot of generations in and not yielding anything but stuff to trade to the fish store I don't like back stripes on Bloody Mary shrimp. That pink female was awesome. Thanks, Kate

Did you ever find them? My Bloody Mary line throws shrimp that look like that.

thanks... I do like the dark ones particularly with rili but I don't know if it's fair to sell them til I know the reason. Will check out the salty shrimp stuff. I have been so skeptical of mineral supplements after my years of reef keeping... shops sell a 1.5 cup jar of baking soda for 26 bucks if it has the right brand label on it. Ditto calcium, and super dilute forms of iodine. I mostly tried this experiment because I didn't know what was killing the snowballs. Tried multiple tanks with a line that had been solid for years, and it was down to one pair, the female being very old. They are slowly coming back, estimate maybe half a dozen per month grow to adulthood. They would regularly die at all ages and be found next to a fresh moult so am assuming the two were related, and what survives is primarily female, suspect a genetic sex linked problem as in other white animals I have bred that sort of thing crops up... lethal genes in such inbred lines. Speculating of course. I don't see well so might not notice some parasites and I know the farms in Asia are getting high numbers despite not keeping them in optimum conditions (in some farms) so I figured I would do what the successful people are doing for a while. Also I like to experiment. I did try crossing out the snowballs to blue dream rili. Two generations in all I got were more snowballs. Guessing since their success at reproducing has been so low that if they did breed at all I lost the offspring. I have a nice planted tank with no critters, will move the best of the reds to that and see what they do. The genetics thing though... didn't see dark young ones til suddenly there are many and of all sizes. I guess the dark ones can go in the rili tank. Thanks, Kate

They are in a 5, a 10 and a 20L, all darkened. Not every shrimp in the tank but a significant number and possibly it's increasing. Took a couple pics, not the greatest but in the first one you see that almost black female on the right.

Hi I have had a solid healthy line of bloody mary shrimp going for a few years that is darkening in color dramatically over the last few months, and I am trying to find out why. One possible reason: about half a year ago I began hardening their water mostly due to losses in my snowball tank and partly due to our very soft water here in Portland OR. I have been hardening it with marine aquarium salt. I read the following article, and thought they might benefit from more mineral and salt content, and assumed the trace amounts of extra minerals in Kent Sea Salt would have a negligible effect. https://scialert.net/fulltextmobile/?doi=ajava.2013.108.115 The addition raises Gh to 5 or 6, Kh to 4 or 5, and salinity to barely detectable with a refractometer. In the last few months I have also diversified their diet from primarily Sera pellets with a few trial runs of higher end stuff here and there to alternating Sera with assorted Shrimp King products. Since making these changes the snowball line has recovered and is reproducing, I have not seen mortality in the bloody mary line, but the bloody mary shrimp have darkened. The darkening is mainly in the back 2/3, not the head, and back stripe is not affected. So in many cases I now have jade green to black shrimp with maroon back stripe, occasionally one with vertical stripes. I also had a line of rili bloody mary's I was experimenting with and they when darkened are still fully clear within the rili pattern, so I don't think this is a pathology affecting internal tissue. My question is, does anyone have knowledge of why this may have happened? Diet? Chemistry? I am going to isolate a group of them and reduce the mineral content over time through plain water changes to see what happens. In the meantime I don't know if I made an error not culling enough, or what. Thoughts?

You too... looking forward to the break so I can catch up on fish tank work

I am going to defer to more experienced persons on this one... I do want to get PRL at some point but it's not going to kill me to wait. I really need black crystals more as it appears all of mine are female... not going to get much out of them this way

I'm chicken about shipping right before the holiday although I don't know if the USPS people get days off anymore... do you use an insulated box? I could send you one if you don't have any. Could try a heat pack but not sure it's necessary. I'd have it delivered to my job so that it doesn't sit outside. Thanks, Kate

I am actually looking for neon yellow and PRL, do you have both? I can wait til you have adequate numbers... looking for a dozen of each shipped to Portland OR. They don't need to be full adults but would be nice to be able to get a fairly 50/50 gender ratio after past experiences with other sellers... so old enough to make a fair guess at gender. Thanks, Kate B

Hi, two questions First off is anyone working with a rili strain of bloody mary shrimp? In one of my tanks there are 4 or 5 juveniles with a band of clear through the middle third of the body like a rili and nice strong solid bloody mary pigment everywhere else... am going to isolate and work with them. I have a few tanks of bloody mary shrimp I am playing with and about to move the best to a new tank then cull. I am wondering if there is a standard for this variety regarding back stripe? I have one very old female with a stripe that is complete and several females with partials, but in photos I see bloody mary shrimp with no stripes. I am inclined to steer away from them esthetically, is that the goal others are shooting for or should I go for the full stripes? Full stripes make the shrimp look duller to me. I am googling "Shrimp show judging criteria" hoping to find what is used internationally, I was trained to judge another species and know these documents exist but am not yet finding anything, if anyone knows where one is let me know please Thanks, Kate

are any of these available at this time?

I'm still interested, wrote a few months ago as a PM... Thanks, Kate

Yes I was not trying to criticize her, I wanted to buy from her to avoid the scammers on ebay, aquabid and amazon! I am assured she is reputable, and sorry to hear life is getting in the way. Far as the site goes I think that if my site or signature line (when I have had one) has broken links I always want to know immediately before people assume it's an old defunct site and buy or communicate elsewhere. Definitely done with the people who sell infected imported shrimp at a premium price on other sites, and trying to start over. Been at this for a couple years, have solid lines of bloody mary and snowball and now looking to get CRS, CBS or panda, blue dream or blue dream rili and neon yellow. Not planning on being really into the grading and specialty lines of Caridina species, mostly in it for my own amusement and selling on craigslist or to my friend's fish store. I just want to sell enough to cover my habit

Hi, I tried looking at your link "shrimplife.net" and all that pops up is "guest area please enter your password below". I looked in your sponsor page and there is a shrimp in stock post from march, which has a link that gets me into your site, but I don't see any package deals listed. Is there still a chance of getting this package? How do I order and pay for it? Or should I just order mischlings at 4 apiece plus shipping at this point? I am really only interested in getting a line of CBS not anything fancy, but I keep getting ripped off on amazon and aquabid by people selling shrimp with parasites or in one case not at all. Really would rather buy from trusted and reputable sources from now on Thanks, Kate