# Cherry Shrimp Grading Confusion



## Lee04 (Feb 11, 2012)

I've been doing some reading on red cherry shrimps, and I found that they have grades. 
Is this correct? From low grade to highest:

Normal Cherry Shrimp > Sakura > Fire Red > Painted Fire Red
----- 
I've also heard of Sakura/Taiwan Fire Reds...where do they go into the above?
Like this?: 

Normal Cherry Shrimp > Sakura > Sakura Fire Red > Taiwan Fire Red > Painted Fire Red?
-----

Thank you !


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/shrimp-other-invertebrates/159785-grading-system-cherries.html


----------



## Bannik (Apr 2, 2011)

They aren't really graded, they're just named after who originally got these colors to breed true. The orignals are Sakura and Taiwan Fire Red. Everything else tends to be descended from those and have some of the same traits. As they get traded around more and more people lose track of the original source and just call them by what they look like (super red, fire red, bright red, painted fire red)

The difference I've noticed between them is Sakura Shrimp tend to have a uniform red with even the male shrimp being fairly red. However the shell tends to remain somewhat more translucent than the Taiwan Fire reds.

The Taiwan fire reds get a very bright red and get fairly large but the males don't color up quite as much. If your tank parameters are ideal for these the females shell gets opaque and then people call those "painted fire reds"

Instead of going by labels it is best to see a picture of the person's best looking mature female and male, and find out how what % of shrimp turn out to look that way. 99% of the people can't truely track all their shrimp to either original strain and other bloodlines have been mixed in. Also, Neocardinia mutate and reproduce so quickly that even if they could track it to the original strain they'll be totally different.


----------



## Lee04 (Feb 11, 2012)

Ok, thank you for the clarification! 
Sometimes I hear people suggesting that it's better to start off with a higher 'grade' rcs instead of the normal, more translucent type. 
I know that the normal type goes for around $1, so the more reddish sakura/taiwans/painted = how much, would you say?


----------



## Bannik (Apr 2, 2011)

if you're patient you can find Fire Reds at that price too


----------



## randyl (Feb 1, 2012)

I often suggest people start with PFRs instead of cherry. Let's say you start with 10, you'll pay $50 for 10 x PFRs or $20 for 10 x cherries ( i.e. you can easily get better prices ). The $30 difference isn't worth the difference it makes when you have 300 in the tank. Looking at my female PFRs directly hurts my eyes ;-)

As to grading of RCS, I would only get the kind of "PFRs" that you can't see the saddle, and I insist on red legs, I think these two are what convince me of PFR status. Don't get fooled by what they are labelled.


----------

