# Red Rili Shrimp VS Red Cherry Shrimp



## KleineVampir (Aug 29, 2017)

In my experience, all dwarf shrimp are fragile. Seems like people are really hesitant to say that for some reason. Maybe because they are advanced aquarists to begin with. But starting out with shrimp is more difficult than starting with fish, no matter what breed of shrimp you get. Amanos are probably the toughest, but they don't breed in freshwater so that's a no for me. If you're still maturing your tank, please put snails into it! I like mystery snails but it probably doesn't matter that much. Snails are relatively tough and change the water chemistry to your extreme benefit. Anyways I would start with red cherries, since they're cheap. You're going to feel really bad if you buy expensive shrimp and they die. Cherries are supposed to be tougher but for a total beginner, they can still be far too fragile. I'm not going to go over everything you need to know, but my advice is SNAILS and a 20 gallon tank at the least!


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## madcrafted (Dec 23, 2017)

To have success with raising/breeding shrimp, you should have a basic understanding of water chemistry. It's not that they are hard to raise, it's more like they have a hard time adjusting to different water conditions. I would purchase shrimp based on the water parameters I have. Most neos can breed outside their ideal range, as long as water is stable. 

A few tips for survival rates:

(1)introduce to a mature tank with lots of biofilm 
(2) purchase juvenile shrimp no larger than 3/4" (1/2" is preferable) 
(3) drip acclimate them
(4) provide places of refuge (caves, dense vegetation, cholla "wood", moss tubes, etc.)
(5) feed diverse blend of food (in small amounts)
(6) do small 10- 20 % water changes only as needed (i use a TDS pen to determine that)
(7) top off with r/o or distilled water only


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## Shrimpalot56 (Mar 31, 2018)

Ditto with what KleineVampir and madcrafted had to say above. I lost most of my first batch of shrimp (and I had good water parameters and followed the suggested procedures). I wish I would have started with a neo shrimp like Red Cherries. I would also have waited till the tank matured longer.

In answer to you question, from what I have read, most of the neocaridina (neo shrimp) like the Red Cherry shrimp take similar parameters - and they can adapt to a wide variety of water conditions if they are slowly acclimated to the water (and it helps to start with smaller shrimp as they seem to adapt better). Like you, I am a novice at this and learning. Good luck!

P.S. I like both the Red Rili and the Red Cherry shrimp!


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## sdwindansea (Oct 28, 2016)

I'm going to go in the complete opposite direction of the previous two posts in regards to RCS. This does not apply to other shrimp species like crystal reds, etc.

I've found that the RCS are incredibly hardy and are almost like mini, underwater cockroaches (e.g. tough to kill). I run CO2 in my tank and do a weekly 50-60% water change using very hard tap water. Furthermore I also regularly dose metricide and I spot treat with H202 as well. About two weeks ago our house was tented for termites. I cleared out most of the plants and all of the livestock with the exception of the RCS and a single otto that somehow managed to stay in hiding until it was too late to relocate them. Many of the plants suffered badly through tenting (buces, crypts, anubias). Sadly the otto did not survive as well. However, almost all of the RCS survived and are still thriving.

Just my personal experiences...


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## KleineVampir (Aug 29, 2017)

sdwindansea said:


> I'm going to go in the complete opposite direction of the previous two posts in regards to RCS. This does not apply to other shrimp species like crystal reds, etc.
> 
> I've found that the RCS are incredibly hardy and are almost like mini, underwater cockroaches (e.g. tough to kill). I run CO2 in my tank and do a weekly 50-60% water change using very hard tap water. Furthermore I also regularly dose metricide and I spot treat with H202 as well. About two weeks ago our house was tented for termites. I cleared out most of the plants and all of the livestock with the exception of the RCS and a single otto that somehow managed to stay in hiding until it was too late to relocate them. Many of the plants suffered badly through tenting (buces, crypts, anubias). Sadly the otto did not survive as well. However, almost all of the RCS survived and are still thriving.
> 
> Just my personal experiences...


Yeah but how long have you been in aquatics? For a complete noobie, having never cared for a fish or anything...you'd probably be surprised at how many shrimp somebody could kill!


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## punciitis (Oct 30, 2017)

H2o2 kills shrimp... And moss... A lot of them... Personal experience... Sad moments


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## Kubla (Jan 5, 2014)

It also has a lot to do with the stock of shrimp you're buying. As Shrimpalot56 said small ones are better. Mature shrimp don't travel well or adapt as well to different parameters. Young ones are much more resilient.


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## madcrafted (Dec 23, 2017)

sdwindansea said:


> I'm going to go in the complete opposite direction of the previous two posts in regards to RCS. This does not apply to other shrimp species like crystal reds, etc.
> 
> I've found that the RCS are incredibly hardy and are almost like mini, underwater cockroaches (e.g. tough to kill). I run CO2 in my tank and do a weekly 50-60% water change using very hard tap water. Furthermore I also regularly dose metricide and I spot treat with H202 as well. About two weeks ago our house was tented for termites. I cleared out most of the plants and all of the livestock with the exception of the RCS and a single otto that somehow managed to stay in hiding until it was too late to relocate them. Many of the plants suffered badly through tenting (buces, crypts, anubias). Sadly the otto did not survive as well. However, almost all of the RCS survived and are still thriving.
> 
> Just my personal experiences...



So true. I've seen RCS thrive in every kind of tank imaginable, both high tech and low. Them and amanos both. Tough rascals. While my suggestions were geared more towards CRS and bees, most of the same principles apply. RCS water parameters can shift a bit more without much issues. It's common to see them do fine in tanks that get 50% of their water changed weekly. Not a big deal. Not so much for caridinas. 

One thing I would still do before placing my shrimps (any species) in my tank is to have my parameters close to what they were living in where they were purchased. Most reputable breeders will list their parameters. If not, I buy from them from someone that does. This step alone will save a majority, if not all of your stock. By the time you do water change or 3, they will have acclimated to your water source and be good to go.


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## VRaverna (Jan 11, 2018)

KleineVampir said:


> Yeah but how long have you been in aquatics? For a complete noobie, having never cared for a fish or anything...you'd probably be surprised at how many shrimp somebody could kill!


I probably killed over 40 shrimps so far.

Bought 10 red rili with none dying for two weeks.

Then I got 15 red sakura, not long after my shrimp start dying but found baby shrimps in tank.

Got 20 blue rili while the shrimps in tank were dropping almost every day which was probably a bad idea.

Tried to stop them for a month while on average one new death each day. I gave up trying to figure out what killed them after that.

Then the shrimp continued to die until suddenly it stopped. I had only less than 10 shrimps left but no more dead shrimps for two weeks.

The shrimps that survived are from the first, second and third batch. One or two of each variant..

Two days ago, I got 30 blue velvet shrimps to add to the tank. So far seem like they're okay.


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

"Everyone" says that Neos "do fine in tapwater". Huh... that's funny! They die in mine! Slowly, but surely.

"But once the babies hatch in your water, they'll practically be indestructible!" Nope... babies never survived to adult-hood.

Copper? Nope. Ammonia? Nitrites? Nitrates? Nope. Chlorine? Chloramines? No yet again.

Water too hard? Actually, quite the opposite... it's too soft.

You could blame it on the source of shrimp. The first two came from a pet store, but the female actually survived rather long compared to the others that came after her. Most of the other shrimp came from a local breeder. Same/similar tap waters. So they'd do fine, right? No, yet again.... still died even from the local breeder! (or, rather, hobbyist)


Even after correcting water parameters, I still struggled to keep them alive. It wasn't until after over a year of keeping them that I finally started having a population boom... the one that many people talk about that occurs within 3-6 months of keeping shrimp. Then the colonies got poisoned... twice... first by something that wasn't microwaveable safe... and second by neighbors bug bombing their place. It's now 9 months later, finally having that population boom again... but then again, the tanks were pretty neglected during that time frame.... so now I'm over 2 years of having shrimp... and if nothing goes wrong, that population boom will continue to grow.



So from my own experience, I haven't found them to be all that hardy...


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## sdwindansea (Oct 28, 2016)

I completely agree that everyone's experiences are going to be completely different regarding RCS. Also, I would trust the advice from @Zoidburg 150% more than anything I would give. He's helped me so much over the last year and a half (yes, that's is a huge thanks again).

As I said above, I've been successful with RCS and I think a lot of it has to do with luck as well. One thing I do know is that I keep very stable water parameters. Very little changes, even when doing a 50% weekly water change. I'm sure that has a lot to do with why it has worked for me. Furthermore, I added the RCS after I had a relatively mature tank (several months after the initial cycle) and the shrimp I purchased were from the same water parameters I'm running. All of this is to point out they are not as difficult as some would have you believe but at the same time you need to have a stable and mature tank. If you want to try them and think you are ready go for it.


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## Kehy (Feb 5, 2012)

I've had RCS in outdoor container ponds absolutely thrive, even into colder weather. Something about being outside made them rival the best painted fire reds (they were in the pond because they were culls for poor color). If you've got the shrimp and pond to spare, I'd say try it at least once with some culls.

Alternatively, sometimes I struggle to keep them in my tanks. They simply live, but don't breed.


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## KleineVampir (Aug 29, 2017)

Ghen said:


> Hey everyone,
> 
> i'm new to the hobby, couple days ago i posted in this forum about a tank that i made right now for past week, and on the process of maturing it, and right now, i'm still do my research about what type of shrimp that newbie friendly.
> 
> ...


It seems like we, including myself, have not really been true to the original post. I can't really speak to the differences between neocaradina but I suspect they are all similar. I'd say you need to be able to take care of cherry shrimp first in any case. Amanos are tough, but probably quite different from neo's, so might not be that relevant. Though after taking care of cherries, I feel confident enough to try amanos!

After cherries, I hear crystal reds are the next toughest; meaning they're more fragile than cherries but less fragile than say a king kong or a taiwan bee. You'll have to do research on the specific breed to really know. All I can do is give you the basic overview and a general plan. I'd say get cherries first. They're probably very similar to every other neo's except they're a bit tougher and most importantly, cheaper! Those nice 'show' breeds are great, but they're on another level from cherries. More beautiful but more fragile and expensive. And that even probably means that they're harder to breed as well.

I hope that is speaking more to the spirit of your question! roud:


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## Ghen (Mar 29, 2018)

hey everyone, thanks a lot for all the replies !, didnt know that so many people replied to this thread, for some reason i didnt get email for it, probably forgot to enable it or something

but anyway, in the end i probably will take a leap to Red Rili, like some of you said, it probably wont have much water parameter difference than RCS, but i will check it out again first with the seller, hopefully they also say the same

anyway, regarding of snail, before i put it in, should i acclimate it first like a fish?, or can i just dump it in ?


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## KleineVampir (Aug 29, 2017)

Ghen said:


> hey everyone, thanks a lot for all the replies !, didnt know that so many people replied to this thread, for some reason i didnt get email for it, probably forgot to enable it or something
> 
> but anyway, in the end i probably will take a leap to Red Rili, like some of you said, it probably wont have much water parameter difference than RCS, but i will check it out again first with the seller, hopefully they also say the same
> 
> anyway, regarding of snail, before i put it in, should i acclimate it first like a fish?, or can i just dump it in ?


Red rilis are more expensive and you are bound to lose lots of them. So that means you're going to be magnifying your financial losses that way. Although I don't like it when people start out with expensive shrimp, because they're pretty and hard work went into breeding them...I don't totally blame you because sure I got my cherry tank off the ground, but after all it is just a cherry tank and now I kind of wish I had something more exotic. But now I have too many cherries to remove manually so it will probably just be a cherry tank forever. But with the cherry tank, I learned how to take care of other shrimp better and now I could probably order more exotic shrimp with minimal losses, unlike you. Besides now I have matured water which is a big deal.


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## VRaverna (Jan 11, 2018)

Since neocaridina shrimps are most just variant of the same species (neocaridina davidi) then it is better to start with the highest quality or priced shrimp that you want and can afford. If you start with rcs, you'll risk having a lot of wild type if you mix them with a different variant that have genetics that are too far different than rcs. It is possible to get a different neocaridina species (neocaridina palmata) but those also can cross breed with neocaridina davidi.

Mixing rcs and red rili is probably safe since you'll likely to just get more red rili than rcs but if you want to mix with a more interesting variant like for example blue diamond or velvet, then the risk are much higher.


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## Ghen (Mar 29, 2018)

KleineVampir said:


> Red rilis are more expensive and you are bound to lose lots of them. So that means you're going to be magnifying your financial losses that way. Although I don't like it when people start out with expensive shrimp, because they're pretty and hard work went into breeding them...I don't totally blame you because sure I got my cherry tank off the ground, but after all it is just a cherry tank and now I kind of wish I had something more exotic. But now I have too many cherries to remove manually so it will probably just be a cherry tank forever. But with the cherry tank, I learned how to take care of other shrimp better and now I could probably order more exotic shrimp with minimal losses, unlike you. Besides now I have matured water which is a big deal.


Good point !, but luckily, Red Rili prices not much different than RCS here...for some reason, thats part of the reason why i'm willing to take the leap lol



VRaverna said:


> Since neocaridina shrimps are most just variant of the same species (neocaridina davidi) then it is better to start with the highest quality or priced shrimp that you want and can afford. If you start with rcs, you'll risk having a lot of wild type if you mix them with a different variant that have genetics that are too far different than rcs. It is possible to get a different neocaridina species (neocaridina palmata) but those also can cross breed with neocaridina davidi.
> 
> Mixing rcs and red rili is probably safe since you'll likely to just get more red rili than rcs but if you want to mix with a more interesting variant like for example blue diamond or velvet, then the risk are much higher.


also a good point, didn't know about the last part, is it confirmed ?, if so, then it should be no problem to mix them up in the future


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## VRaverna (Jan 11, 2018)

Ghen said:


> also a good point, didn't know about the last part, is it confirmed ?, if so, then it should be no problem to mix them up in the future


If you have only rcs, you have a chance to get red rili offspring (likely to be low quality one). The same is true if you have only red rili, you can get red cherry offspring.

So the two are very closely related. My understanding is that red rili is the result of selective breeding of rcs offspring. So red rili is a variant of rcs.

An old chart that maybe not 100% accurate but useful enough to guess which neocaridina can be mixed together with lower risk of having wild type offspring:

https://www.aquariumcreation.com/blogs/news/the-neocaridina-trees-aka-cherry-shrimp


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## ninemag (Mar 16, 2015)

I HIGHLY recommend finding a breeder in your area, and buy from them- I tried diff RCS from shops, not bad luck, but not great. Then o found a breeder a Cooke hours away- didn’t lose a single shrimp, and they are beautiful and extremely hardy. If you can find a breeder that uses water similar to your source water even better


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Ghen (Mar 29, 2018)

hey everyone, just a bit of an update
its been 2 days since i put all the shrimps, in the end i order about 60 shrimps, those are 30 red rilis, 20 RCS and 15+ amano shrimp

so far they doing great, only 2 casualties, 1 is because of my fault that accidentaly squish it :crying: , and the other amano (i think) not long after i acclimate them (about 1 hour or so) and move it to the tank, and it just drop dead, but other than those 2, they are doing great so far, they eat some of the food i put up (for the reason that i see some of them start to molting, and the food said they "promote good molting" so just to play it safe) and also they almost completely clean up all the diatoms algae on my little moss bonsai

heres the footage of the fish eating, its 1st day footage when i put all the shrimps, so theres still lot of the diatom algae on the video :


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## elle-8b (Dec 27, 2017)

As a newbie shrimp keeper I have been extremely lucky. I started with a 5 gal with small canister filter and fluval light. I originally purchased CRS and Amano . I have had no deaths. Purchased high quality Bloody Mary Shrimp off AquaBid, no fatalities.


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