# Black Shrimp!



## bioch (Apr 8, 2006)

Okay, I remember asking for 5 amano shrimps, but Ocean Aquarium gave me a mixture of amanos and cherry. Anyways one of the cherries somehow "camoflauge" into a solid black color.


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## milalic (Aug 26, 2005)

not sure that is a cherry shrimp. It looks like an unknown caridina I have in one of my tanks. If you see if has a white line from head to tail and from side to side as well. 

-Pedro


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## Raul-7 (Feb 4, 2004)

milalic said:


> not sure that is a cherry shrimp. It looks like an unknown caridina I have in one of my tanks. If you see if has a white line from head to tail and from side to side as well.
> 
> -Pedro


Actually, some of my really mature Cherry Shrimp show this white line down their body, but just not as pronounced.


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## milalic (Aug 26, 2005)

I have seen the white line in the back in the cherries, but the shape of the shrimp from the picture and the line that goes side to side resembles a caridina shrimp I currently have. These shrimp are showing different colorations like brown, dark blue and black like the one in the picture. It has the same distinctive pattern as the one shown in the picture.

These shrimp will have larva that will need SW for their development.

-Pedro


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## Xema (Mar 24, 2004)

Really looks lke C. cf. babaulti var. Malaya or maybe a C. fernandoi.
They can get several color patterns...





































I have seen some times this sp. of shrimp into Cherry shrimps groups in LFS.

Greets from Spain


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## milalic (Aug 26, 2005)

Xema,

Does the C fernandoi babies go through a larval stage?


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## Six (May 29, 2006)

this one is usually black. here she is out and showing some color. she is MUCH larger than my cherries (who are housed in a separate tank). hth


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## Xema (Mar 24, 2004)

milalic said:


> Xema,
> 
> Does the C fernandoi babies go through a larval stage?


Yeah, Really I am not sure what shrimp I kept, seeing the eggs size you can think they would be needing brackish water for larvae stage, but I am pretty sure they breeded in my tank (in a little number) without any special care.

Some days ago I got a strange stirpe of N. denticulata var. sinensis (now Neocaridina heteropoda) with a clear green body, with dark green eggs and a light yellow/green line on the back. The guy who sent me the shrimps got from a LFS as C. japonica (now Caridna multidentata), from this shrimp, he got red cherry shrimps and this green one.

And I got some strange shrimp too (a year ago) in a group my strange C. sp. Leopard/Tüpfel.


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## milalic (Aug 26, 2005)

Very nice shrimp. Loos like a desmasteri or sri lanka.

-Pedro


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## Xema (Mar 24, 2004)

Here it is the pictures of the suppused green N. denticulata I told you...


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## milalic (Aug 26, 2005)

You keep some very interesting shrimp


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## dhavoc (Mar 17, 2006)

some of my wild form cherries look like the first pic. they vary in color depending on the habitat, and the ones that stay on my dark black/brown driftwood exhibit that coloring. its really striking but once i move them to anther tank with a lighter sand/wood etc, the color fades to match the new surroundings. its not permanent in my case, sadly.


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## bioch (Apr 8, 2006)




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## milalic (Aug 26, 2005)

It indeed look nice. Hopefully more of them will pop up in your tank.

-Pedro


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## IndianaSam (Mar 25, 2005)

dhavoc said:


> some of my wild form cherries look like the first pic. they vary in color depending on the habitat, and the ones that stay on my dark black/brown driftwood exhibit that coloring. its really striking but once i move them to anther tank with a lighter sand/wood etc, the color fades to match the new surroundings. its not permanent in my case, sadly.


I was going to say the same thing. I have some wild type Neocaridina denticulata and some of them look exactly like the picture in the first post. Therefore I would conclude that it's most likely a Neocaridina denticulata since it came in with other cherry shrimp. I wouldn't expect a rare shrimp to come in with farm bred shrimp like the cherry reds. Most likely just a mutation that caused the animal to revert to wild coloration.


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## Zezmo (Nov 2, 2005)

Looking at this thread (and the accompanying one on another forum), it seems these are teh same or similar to shrimp that originally appeared in my Cherry population, and that have subsequently been breeding true in several tanks. I started with 25 pure red cherry shrimp (20 female, 5 male). These were in my heavily planted dwarf gourami breeding tank.
There are occasional information from larger cherry breeders that htey will occasionally get a less colorful (uncolored) shrimp that pops up in the population, and that you should cull these out to maintain strong reds.
For whatever reason, and I believe the reason is gouramis eating more red shrimp than black/clear, these non reds started to appear in my cherry tank. Over about 6 months, the population has drifted to about 1/2 reds and about 1/2 other colors. Except for color, the markings and look of both shrimp are identical, and they are identical to all photos of cherries that I have compared them to.
General knowledge has it that Cherrys are a color cultivar of a wild type of shrimp. Since this other shrimp was bred to fix the color at red, IMO, these are just shrimp where the color has become unfixed as they are in the wild strain. So other thatn color, there is no difference betweenthem and normal cherries. In fact they are normal cherry shrimp, just not red cherry shrimp.

Here are few shots of the ones that I have: all of these are from an originally red only population:


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## Zezmo (Nov 2, 2005)

I almost forgot this image. It is a closeup of a Black Cherry male. If you look just infront of him, there is a red male who is a bit out of focus. If you look carefully you can see they have almost the same marking patterns, except for color of course.


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## dhavoc (Mar 17, 2006)

yep, exactly how my wild forms change color to match the surroundings. aint evolution/adaptation great? reds stand out, so eventually, non-red, black/brown or clear will dominate as they are less likely to be eaten in a fish/shrimp tank.


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