# I (stupidly) mixed shrimp types - opinions?



## ~magpie~ (Nov 15, 2011)

I love shrimp, but my tanks have always had fish in them that would eat them. I do have a work tank with a betta and amano shrimp, and I am just fascinated by them. 

So I set up a planted 10 gallon tank and the idea was to do shrimp and maybe some microrasboras or other nano fish. 

So... I got some crystal reds at my LFS and they are happy and active. I then went to another LFS and they had a tank of "assorted shrimp" there. I thought - cool! I'll get some more and change up the color variations. So I got a 2 non-described orange shrimp, 2 blue ones, 2 red calico looking ones, and 2 pinokio/pinnochio shrimp. 

I was then researching how often people feed shrimp in a planted tank and came across info quickly that you shouldn't mix many varieties because they will essentially make "mutt" shrimp that are brown or gray. Doh!!

So... I love the crystal reds. It looks like according to compatibility charts that they won't interbreed with the ones I have most likely. But I am betting that the assortment of shrimp I got will interbreed with each other (minus the pinokios, who need brackish water to reproduce anyway). What would you do? These are expensive feeder shrimp to throw into my large tank... I guess I could grab all of the non-pinnochio ones and put them in the work tank and hope they are OK (better chances than zero in my big tank.) And then just stick with one other type in addition to the crystal reds and according to the compatibility chart. 

I feel like an idiot. I am usually a huge researcher.

Bump: It looks like my "orange"ones might actually be yellow or orange varieties of the Neocaridina heteropoda cherry shrimp, which I could keep with CRS... I wonder if all of them are Neocaridina heteropoda variations, which seems likely in an "assorted shrimp" tank. So this would probably mean that they are even more likely to interbreed into ugly?


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## theatermusic87 (Jun 22, 2014)

The term mutt in the this case is much more likely to result in shrimp that throw no predictable colorations, rather than bad genetics. Are they all going to be the same colors as you have now, no, they might throw some wild colorations, some that are splotchy, etc... But you shouldn't have a world ending catastrophe. I would leave them be, and as they breed, pick out the ones you enjoy less and add to your community tank, they may need there, or become first food, either way unless you want to keep them pure colors, just leave them be


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

*So I got a 2 non-described orange shrimp, 2 blue ones, 2 red calico looking ones, and 2 pinokio/pinnochio shrimp*

There are orange Neocaridina, then there are Orange Sunkist(?) Caridinas. I have not heard of the Orange Sunkist breeding with other Caridinas. The ones I've seen had hunched backs, where-as the orange neos look like orange cherry shrimp.

"2 blue ones"..... there are *so* many blue shrimp! Blue velvet, blue diamond, blue dream, blue tigers, royal blue tigers... really not helpful here.

"red calico" would be??? Hopefully red rili.... good rili shrimp have a clear abdomen but end of tail and head are solid colors.




The pinnochio shrimp aside (I'm more familiar with red nosed myself), hopefully the "assorted shrimp" are all Neos. If they are, then yes, they will breed together, but it's not an end all situation. Just cull the lesser desired offspring and hopefully in time you'll get more interested colors rather than wild type colors.

Some breeders do set up cull tanks though because once a cull colors out, they can have some great colors!


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## Matuva (Jun 8, 2015)

Don't be so hard against yourself, you're not idiot, just beginner °°)

You can keep your CRS with your orange, as long as the oranges are neocaridina, not caridina.
As for the blue and the red ones, hard to tell as said zoidburg


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## ~magpie~ (Nov 15, 2011)

Thanks guys! 

Looking into it more, I'd love to get blue rilis with the CRS. If I were to do that, should I then move the "assorteds" to my work tank or will the blue rili continue to produce blue rili? I don't want to get a specific type of shrimp to have diluted over time.


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

Blue rili's will breed with other neos.



These may not be completely accurate, but to give you an idea of the various colors of cherry shrimp...


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## ~magpie~ (Nov 15, 2011)

Thanks, very cool compilation!


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## greenteam (Feb 8, 2012)

The idea that mixing Neos been bad is actually false. People read outdated info online and panic thinking that if you have multi color neos you will end up all browns and that's false. 

Several coworkers actually just came back from a trip to Taiwan last moth an got to visit some of the big breeders & shrimp farm's that mass produce many of the variations we enjoy. They did see large pools of multi color Neos and were told they treat Neos like Caradinias in the sense of creating new variations. Mix a few colors and most retain their colors while having a chance of spawning new lines to work with. 

So the mentality of keeping all Neo's separate is what I believe limits the US breeders ability to make any real progress in the hobby in regards to creating new lines like our oversea counter parts do.


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

There's probably a high probability of getting wild colored offspring when mixing two separate species, too... aka N. palmata x N. davidii...


One breeder who mixes shrimp has some purple colored shrimp and some red and blue ones. Will be interesting to see if he ever breeds the color out into it's own line!


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