Blue bodied orange Rili?

[T0adman]

So, I read that I’d you cross red Rili with blue velvets, you can get red Rili with blue bodies. Would the same work with orange Rili? 

My wife is a Broncos fan and if i could make bronco shrimp, she’d be pretty excited. 

[JSak]

I'd say it's possible but I've never seen anything like that, so it most likely will take a lot of time and dedication to be able to do that. I've heard of people selectively breeding certain colorations/patterns in shrimp that took them years to get a stable line that produces babies that have the desired coloration/patterns as the adults. You'll most likely end up with a lot of wild looking neos, which you'll probably have to cull out, before you might get one shrimp with a tiny amount of blue between the orange coloration. If you're able to do that I think a lot of people would be pretty excited as well, but I don't think most people have the tank space, time and/or dedication to be able to produce a new variation of shrimp that produces a consistent and stable line of babies. Also, from what it sounds like caridinas seem more likely to produce unique patterns over wild types compared to neos. It seems like once you mix 2 different colors of neos you'll get wild type babies from the first batch. 

 

That being said, the thing I'm most excited about is having "experiment tanks" where I add different color and pattern variations of shrimp and progressively working the line to see if I can get anything unique out of it. For that I'd be dedicating a whole tank just for those crosses, and I wouldn't expect to see any exciting results until at least a few months in if I'm lucky, but that's the fun of the hobby for me, experimenting with genetics and seeing what comes out, but I don't want to mix entire colonies because of the risk of losing both types of shrimp because they revert to a more wild type. But it's your hobby so you should do what you think would bring you the most joy and excitement. If you decide to do that it might be cool to see your progress and if you're able to make the first blue bodied orange rili (at least that I've seen) I'm sure most people on this forum would be very excited along with your wife 😆