# The super red cherry shrimp



## crazie.eddie (May 31, 2004)

I'll have to check mine. I know I've gotten allot of super reds ever since I started feeding more bloodworms. I'm using good 'ole Chicago water (Lake Michigan) and I don't do anything special other than just dechlor, using Prime, age, and heat the water prior to doing a water change. I use black sand, called Black Beauty, from Diaz Pet & Rock in Plainfield.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Live bloodworms, freeze-dried, or frozen? I should try feeding some frozen food to my shrimp!


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## Color Me Blue (Nov 10, 2005)

I feed mine frozen bloodworms and I've got super red cherries too!  They just love them! You should see them go after the freeze-dried tubifex worms. I just impale the cube on toothpicks and place it in the substrate (keeps them from floating; they won't stay stuck on the glass like it's suppose to).


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## eklikewhoa (Aug 29, 2006)

I feed mine NewLifeSpectrum flakes and even my shrimplets are super red!


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## Color Me Blue (Nov 10, 2005)

I just let mine breed. I've got ones with the stripe, plain reds, but I sure would like the super dark ones that they call "black cherries". I have yet to get those in my brood. 

I wonder how long it takes to get the "natural" cherries (brown)? I have yet to see any in my multi-generations.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Christin,

Thanks for the info! Time to pop open a cube. 

BTW, when did you sleep last night? =P


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## Color Me Blue (Nov 10, 2005)

LOL! You're welcome Epic!  (yes, I remember your 'real' name, but I won't share it. LOL) 

Ummmmmmmm....I actually went to be early last night, around 2am. hahaha Hey, it's true! That's early for me. You? :tongue:


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

lol. I couldn't sleep. Last post on a reef forum was at like 3:00am, then I watched some TV afterwards. 


To make this a non-hijack post, does anyone just feed them HBH Crab Bites & Hikari Algae wafers? Mine aren't that red even though the parents are super red and I only feed these two foods. Is it because my shrimp aren't "pure" in terms of redness, or the food? I have them with black tahitian moon sand substrate.


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## Color Me Blue (Nov 10, 2005)

IMO, I think it's the food, for the most part. Try feeding them some frozen bloodworms and such. They should be red, especially since they come from super red parents.


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## RESGuy (Jan 15, 2007)

This is interesting. I am going to see if I purchase some frozen bloodworms at PetSupermarket. Do you have to store them in the freezer when not in use?


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## eklikewhoa (Aug 29, 2006)

Yes and do not allow them to defrost on the counter. Keep them all frozen till it's time to feed and then just remove the amounts you plan to feed. 

I prefer the Hikari brand Frozens.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Yes, or they'll melt and start to rot.

edit: Damn, ninja'd.


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## RESGuy (Jan 15, 2007)

eklikewhoa said:


> Yes and do not allow them to defrost on the counter. Keep them all frozen till it's time to feed and then just remove the amounts you plan to feed.
> 
> I prefer the Hikari brand Frozens.





epicfish said:


> Yes, or they'll melt and start to rot.
> 
> edit: Damn, ninja'd.


Alright, thank you


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## Color Me Blue (Nov 10, 2005)

I rinse (using my RO water faucet) my frozen bloodworms in a brine shrimp net, then feed them to my shrimp. Keep frozen stuff frozen and just rinse to thaw them out. Some just toss them in their tank frozen, but I prefer to rinse mine first.


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

Hey, I think I have a good number of the shrimp from you! And some of them are really wierd, they're like HUGE but light red?!?!? But Others that I've bred and recieved from you are sold as solid gets. My favorite is the lighter red almost pastel with no stripe.

As for feeding. Be careful with blood worms. Too much protien in a shrimp's diet Will kill it. So only feed them as a treat.

When I feed my shrimp (1 time a week more or less) I mix it up, home made stuff and high quality flake foods. Has anyone tried cyclops eze(Spelling?) It seems to be a really good flake, will get some next order from Drs. Foster & Smith!

So be careful!
-Andrew


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## AxolotlFarmer (Nov 29, 2006)

I use some sand from Diaz rock or whatever they are called. They had this nice natural looking quatz sand.

Hmm, me thinks it is time to feed blood worm more often. 

I have never seen what one of these "black cherries" look like. I am very curious.

FishNewb- I have not sold any shrimps yet, but i have shrimps as you described. I also have huge light coloured shrimps in my population. 

So from the likes of what people say, diet plays more of a factor in the intensity of colouration that substrate colour?


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

AxolotlFarmer said:


> I use some sand from Diaz rock or whatever they are called. They had this nice natural looking quatz sand.
> 
> Hmm, me thinks it is time to feed blood worm more often.
> 
> ...


Don't overfeed bloodworms though, It WILL kill them eventually... I think the ratio is around 20-30% you should feed compared to other foods.

I think I'm mixing you up with anniericebowl then, You two joined around the same time.. And I think I shipped you some plants at the same time as I traded with her... (It gets confusing shipping lots of stuff at once...)

So yes DIET, Enviornment, And Genes play a good role..

Now what the chances are of you getting a breeding line of just one color variety of RCS? Much harder than everyone thinks I assume..

-Andrew


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## Color Me Blue (Nov 10, 2005)

Black cherries?? I have yet to seen one either. LOL Though there have been some threads here that claim to have some, but I don't remember seeing any pics.??? If they do have them, I wish they would post pics of them!  -hint hint-


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't redness mostly all due to age? And maybe some of it may go to food and the water, but isn't it mostly all due to age?

And sorry if this was mentioned, I skimmed the thread. All my shrimp get blood red sooner or later though.


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## Blacksunshine (Oct 11, 2006)

I just feed my galaxy rasboras hakari micro pellets and the shrimp get left overs.


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## AxolotlFarmer (Nov 29, 2006)

To an extent they do redden up with age. The females also redden up when they are carrying young.

fish Newb-yeah you sent me a ton of moss and fissidens. Its growing. I usualy only give a few frozen blood worms once a month when i feed the large axolotls blood worms (they live in another house apart from my main shrimp homes). Have you ever seen a ghost shrimp eat a blood worm? It is so cute, its like he is eating a little sausage.

I think, now that i wanted to get serious about a line, I realized I do not have room for it  Onlything i have vacant now an empty 5 gallon-it does not seem like it could make a happy home for many many super red shrimp. When I move to a real house things WILL go down! Or when i just buy another shelf and some 20 longs  Seriously my living room/bedroom is full of tanks. I even pondering getting rid of the television and putting a shelf there for shrimps/axolotl. Even though we have tv with bunny ears and mostly watch pbs or the Korean station(has english subtitles) or movies dubbed in spanish only for an hour in the evening- I don't think the boyfreind would appreciate coming home form a hard day of work and see the tv replaced with MORE shrimps. then he would say he wants some dwarf puffers-and guess who would have to take care of them...? Not complaining about that scenario...maybe i should Toss the tv-

I probably won't make any specific lines as of yet, I am out of room for a experament only tank. If i were to do it I would make several lines... Even though I probably can take a couple years to work on colour lines. I would just hate to have a whole tank of inbred shrimp who are only decended from super red 1 and super red 2.(if i did get serious[like had more room] of making a line, I would definately have to swap a lot) 

-variation is fun-Will my super red shrimp give bith to a red shrimp, pink shrimp, orange shrimp or clear shrimp? And then after that I would get excited and put each of a similar colour in a said respected tank and burst my buble and knock meoff my my anti-eugenicts purity soap box.
I think it may be human nature to sort things out according to some sort of pattern. People also just like to create a vision they love-whether it be a Holstein cow, Pea-plant variety, a painting, or a colony of shrimp that are super red. Human society, in the end, is based in order-and in order things get categorized. Well I guess I would rather someone selectively breed through hard work that have Mr. scientists but some sort of hormones or gene manipulations speeding up the process. The thing with manipulationg genes, is, if one manipulates gene1 for a desired trait, if can also manipulated other genes. To an extent this can happen in selective breeding also, if done in a certain manner, but with gene manipulation, selectiveness is done way to fast to breed out the or isolotate the ones with inhereted health problems. I guess an analogy, I would much rather get super pink cherry shrimp that Joe Anonymous took 4 year to create in his basement then "glo-shrimp" created in a lab last month. What am I rambeling on about, sorry....I think and analyze way too much about everything. Well, at least with selectively bred creatues, one knows, at least they are not wild caughts. Creatures created for people...the excitement of agriculture and domestication...


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## cliner (Feb 17, 2006)

> To make this a non-hijack post, does anyone just feed them HBH Crab Bites & Hikari Algae wafers? Mine aren't that red even though the parents are super red and I only feed these two foods. Is it because my shrimp aren't "pure" in terms of redness, or the food? I have them with black tahitian moon sand substrate



I primarily feed mine H&B L.b. and Hikari A.W. But I also have a thriving population of blackworms in my tank. Mine are super red. Remember, the males will pale in comparison to the females. Also thet will color up with age. How long have you had them? Maybe time to introduce some new genes to the mix.


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

How long does frozen food last? I have a little bit of white mosquito larvae and a little frozen brine shrimp that have been in my freezer for months. I know that at least once, I forgot to put it back and it was left on the tank lid for a couple hours. It's getting a little smelly and so I wasn't sure if it has a shelf life, or if it's b/c of freezer burn or something else. I used to burn through packages of frozen food in a couple weeks when I had a tank of cichlids, but its not the same now.
-Ryan


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## Betowess (Dec 9, 2004)

Bummer hearing about too much protien will kill. I was planning on keeping some Corys in the shimp tank to help keep it clean. Now I'll move the four back to a fish tank, so they can get plenty of bloodworms and such. 

But I'm glad you shared that info Fish Newb. BTW, my Cherries go ape over Bloodworms and Brine shrimp.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Betowess, frozen, freeze-dried, or live bloodworms and brine shrimp?


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## AxolotlFarmer (Nov 29, 2006)

Well, i was digging arround in my axolotl tank today. a few months ago i threw in some baby reds. I found them, for some reason, still alive and breeding. Granted axolotl tank is not the cleanest and it is in the mid 60's. Anyways, I have about 5 super red females in there 1 kinda red and about 5 males. Also noted some baby shrimp on the wall. These creatures sure can survive in many conditions. Anyway, i threw them in as a clean up crew. They mostly feed on red algae/diatoms-maybe the diet of micro-organisms helps keep the red colour, or when i threw some babies in they happed to be super red shrimp babies-but I am not going to rule micro-organisms helping enhance pigmentation.
Yeah-what do you think of that?


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## Betowess (Dec 9, 2004)

epicfish said:


> Betowess, frozen, freeze-dried, or live bloodworms and brine shrimp?


Both Hikari Frozen cubes. Just some extras from feeding my Loach/Cory/Rainbows/Apisto etc...


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