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Anyone Ever see Color Morphs in Marmorkrebs?


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OK, so last August I got 5 marmorkrebs, very young. I accidently killed one in an unfortunate cleaning accident, and three others died mysteriously, leaving me with one. She was very aggressive and would eat anything that went into her tank. ANYTHING. She ate her first clutch, although I didn't quite put it together at the time. She had a second clutch and they all mysteriously dissapeared, that's when I finally figured out she was eating them. So I dubbed her Highlander, since their could be only one. I moved her to a different tank hoping that one would stress her less and she would allow some babies to live. In the meantime, two weeks after I moved her, I noticed a tiny one that had survived her in the old tank, so I began feeding it. She is much older then Highlander when I first got her and she has kept a very distinctive blue color. They both have the same diet. Is this a color morph or is there some other factor in play? Anyone else ever see this in Marmorkrebs?

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  • 4 weeks later...

There is also the factor of light and background.  Babies that grow up with less light and a lighter background become more pale.  I don't know how well they can control this because even when switched to a higher light/darker background they tend to stay pale.

 

I also noticed before a molt they'll get bluer.

 

However the number one reason I found for blue coloration was Spirulina and Astaxanthin.  This is where it gets tricky.  Although marms are clones, not every marm has the same genes working for color.  This means feeding one marm Spirulina or Astaxanthin may affect color, while another is not affected.  All will change back to wild coloration though if the food is switched out.

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  • 3 months later...

I used to keep Marbled Crays and I ended up with soooo many of them I had to start putting them in other tanks.  One day I noticed all the crays in a specific tank had a blue coloration to them.  I measured all the parameters trying to figure out what it could be and the only thing that was different in the specific tank was lots of plants and the ph of the water.  So maybe that is whats going on there?

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