# Wild Cherries



## Steven_Chong (Mar 17, 2005)

Somewhere under that mass of shrimp, there is an algae wafer.

I sent myself 100+ wild cherry shrimp (neocaridina denticulata) from Hawaii to myself in California. I used a bag with riccia, and almost all of them made it! I'm very, very pleased that my little lovelies made the trip safe. 










A photo of one of the many pregnant females. ^^ There are 15 or so females in the tank (at a glance) carrying eggs, and it seems that some of them dropped eggs during the trip because there are baby shrimp swimming about!


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## Burks (May 25, 2006)

Awesome! That's a lot of great looking shrimp.

I have about 9 of these as well. A couple females are starting to develop eggs. Hopefully they are carrying soon.


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## Cassie (May 27, 2006)

I wonder what would happen if you were to breed them with red cherries... would you get some red and some wild or would you get a mix, with like, red patches or something?


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## Purrbox (Jun 1, 2006)

Most likely you'd get mostly wild coloration, a few with pale red, and if you're really luck you might get some that still had descent cherry coloration.


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## Steven_Chong (Mar 17, 2005)

Purrbox is right. The result will probably be a return to the wild coloration.

For my purposes though, I rather use wilds than cherries. Why? Bright red shrimp are distracting in a lay out that's meant to be "cool." Unless you need the red high-lights aesthetically, I'd rather go with the less-obtrusive wild coloration.

Moreover, these guys are cheap. I bought 'em for $10/shrimp. We use the buggers as feeders in Hawaii-- they breed like crazy in our climate. Though, I also paid for express shipping ($20). Still, that puts it at $30/100 shrimp = roughly $1 for 3-4 shrimp. Still WAY cheeper than cherries.


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## MariaMakiling (Dec 3, 2006)

Now, those are very attractive shrimps. I love the darkness of the eggs of your female. If I knew were to get those arround here I would have many of them. I think I may even like them more than the red cherry...

Well, I am glad they made it back from your trip. I cannot wait to see them in a photograph of their new home.


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## Steven_Chong (Mar 17, 2005)

They breed like rabbits. I'll probably have some to sell soon enough, and have 'em over-flowing soon after that.


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## Neon Shrimp (Apr 26, 2006)

Very nice pictures, thanks for sharing.


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## fish newb (May 10, 2006)

Nice pictures of these shrimp, I've heard you talking about them for a while but never really saw any great pictures.

Do you get the really dark ones too or are these all "light"? I've seen pictures of almost black shrimp...



Steven_Chong said:


> They breed like rabbits. I'll probably have some to sell soon enough, and have 'em over-flowing soon after that.


Let me know when you have extra .

Thanks for sharing!
-Andrew


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## Jubs (Mar 24, 2006)

Very nice looking shrimp I will be keeping an eye out for when you have some for sale!


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## zQ. (Dec 15, 2006)

i have a bundles of the neocaridina denticulata too,in mah country it have been used as food for Flower Horn fishes.


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## Xema (Mar 24, 2004)

I have some of that guys in one of my tank...


































































Greetings from Spain


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## Steven_Chong (Mar 17, 2005)

Ah, i'm feeling rather stupid. Earlier I said $10/shrimp but I meant 10 shrimp/$1.

>.<

Anyway, I'll keep you guys updated.

Fish Newb-- as I said, you never really know what you get. When they get into the tank with aquasoil and moss, they'll probably all get darker but no idea what colors. Of course, the males never get really opaque.


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## dhavoc (Mar 17, 2006)

yep cheap fish food in Hawaii. as Steven said, they breed like rabbits here. they vary in color once you get them in a planted tank and you will find colors from clear, yellow, gold spotted, redish, to even a dark chocolate brown with a gold stripe down the back (my favorite). sadly though the colors are not fixed and will change to match whatever habitat you moved them to. 

I have mixed rcs with the wild form (by mistake before i knew what the feeders were in Hawaii) and the offspring revert back to wild form in 4-6 generations or less, you will still get a red one every so often but mostly the other standard colors.


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## Felf808 (Mar 21, 2006)

I bought some that were slightly bluish then gradually turned dark brown since they primarily feed on driftwood in my tanks.


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## fish newb (May 10, 2006)

Steven_Chong said:


> Anyway, I'll keep you guys updated.
> 
> Fish Newb-- as I said, you never really know what you get. When they get into the tank with aquasoil and moss, they'll probably all get darker but no idea what colors. Of course, the males never get really opaque.


Well We will see what color they turn out I guess!

-Andrew


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## zQ. (Dec 15, 2006)

This is one of my shrimps.








i dont know how he gets so red,its become this red when i get them to my ADA tank.


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## Steven_Chong (Mar 17, 2005)

That's not so weird zq. When I was in high school I did a statistics project on the little buggers, and out of a hundred wild females that I took data on (caught in Nu'uanu reservoir) I got about 6-7 females that looked something like that.


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## fish newb (May 10, 2006)

Steven_Chong said:


> That's not so weird zq. When I was in high school I did a statistics project on the little buggers, and out of a hundred wild females that I took data on (caught in Nu'uanu reservoir) I got about 6-7 females that looked something like that.


That sounds like a really really cool project!

If we only had wild RCS here...:sing:

How they looking Steven?

-Andrew


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## Steven_Chong (Mar 17, 2005)

2 days ago I moved about a dozen over to the 5 gal. They've been doing great and eating, really coloring up so today I moved almost all of them into the 5 gal.

This group shows a lot more than normal that fall into the red/brown/orange range.










This photo was taken 2 days ago when I put them in. They're eating some hikari catfish food.

Almost all of the first dozen I moved now look like low-grade red cherries. The number of reds makes me wonder if the breeder's stock in Hawaii might've gotten mixed up with some red cherries. There are a lot of people breeding RCS in hawaii now too. Or, it might be because the tank is full of red stem plants, I really have no clue.


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## dhavoc (Mar 17, 2006)

i think the redish ones are just genetic variations. i get reddish ones all the time from my old 45g tank from high school thats still up and running great at my parents house (my dad takes care of it now). anyway, i bought feeders to help with algae and since the tank was heavily planted with java moss and java ferns on driftwood they bred like rabbits. i have NOT added any more feeders since (over 20 years ago before RCS was even on anyones radar) and i can find reddish colored ones all the time. they are by no means even a low quality RCS but none the less ARE reddish in color.

i have crossed RCS with wild form by mistake and while most of the offspring revert to wild color, i do get a true red RCS one every so often and they are alot redder than the wild reddish ones i find in my old tank. if that makes any sense.


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## Rmax (Jul 24, 2006)

> We use the buggers as feeders in Hawaii-- they breed like crazy in our climate. Though, I also paid for express shipping ($20). Still, that puts it at $30/100 shrimp = roughly $1 for 3-4 shrimp. Still WAY cheeper than cherries.


In a few months, I'll be traveling from Hawaii to the mainland on a long-term basis, and would like to bring my wild cherries along with me. Any specific suggestions for shipping? Does the Hawaii dept. of Agriculture require an export permit, or anything like that? I've shipped plants to the mainland from here plenty of times, but it's not quite the same...
any info is appreciated...


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## dhavoc (Mar 17, 2006)

i would just do what Steven did and ship em express mail to yourself or someone who can receive them at your new location. dont bother with an export permit, our socialist state agencies will just take months to review and deny it in the end anyway. ship in breather bags in a foam lined box and they should arrive fine.


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