# Red Cherry Shrimp babies, some are translucent or striped



## miogpsrocks (Sep 3, 2015)

I had purchase 6 Red Cherry Shrimp as the first living things in my aquarium. One of the shrimp was pregnant. Now its a few months later and the babies are growing up but some of them don't look like the parents. 

Some are red and miniature versions of the parents however some are translucent and others are translucent and striped. 

Could another types of shrimp's eggs been attached to one of the plants I purchased or possible could the red skip a generation in reference to the genetics ? 

Just trying to figure out what is going on here. 

Thanks.


----------



## flight50 (Apr 17, 2012)

The red in cherry shrimp is actually bred into the species for the hobby as we know today. Wild caught cherries actually where not red. There are translucent to greenish in color. Reason being is that if they were red, they would be easy prey so they had to breed them for many many generations to get them to be what we know as red cherry shrimp. If the mother was carrying and the eggs from that batch in fact came from her, apparently, the wild trait got thru to some offspring.


----------



## Daisy Mae (Jun 21, 2015)

Sounds like a revert to wild type, like @flight50 said. 

If the mama shrimp was fertilized by another variant of Neocaridina from the store (eg one of the blues or yellows or pumpkin Neocaridina) then even more likely to revert to wild type babies.


----------



## TheAnswerIs42 (Jul 10, 2014)

Sounds like its reverting back to the wild type. If you want to maintain a red cherry tank, remove the translucent and striped ones before they become sexually mature (1/2" size approx), otherwise you will quickly loose the red coloring in your tank population. If you have another tank, I suggest dropping your wild types in there or trying to sell them to people who are looking for feeder shrimp.

I got a hitchhiker on a plant from the LFS and looks like it may be a Blue Tiger that reverted back to wild type. Now my tank is overrun (in a good way) with over a hundred shrimp, and I have rummy nose and black tetras with a honey gourami and they still keep reproducing and thriving.


----------



## randym (Sep 20, 2015)

As others have said, this is normal. Just natural genetic variation. Cherry shrimp that breed "true" are more expensive and may not be available from the pet store. 

Keep mind that the females tend to have much better color than the males. (Often, you only see females at the pet store, because the duller males don't sell as well.) 

So if you get rid of ALL the less colorful shrimp, you might getting rid of all the males. Just something to keep in mind.


----------



## PerfectDepth (Dec 3, 2014)

Another thing to mention is that juveniles will develop more color as they mature, some just sooner than others. The red color is pigmentation which is brown in the wild rather than red. I don't bother to remove or cull the juveniles with less pigmentation, unless the pigment is the wrong color (tan or beige).

Also, dark substrate and lots of plant cover encourages them to show more color. I've seen adult females change from being mostly transparent to solid red when moved from a tank with light-colored pool filter sand into a tank with black eco-complete substrate.


----------



## miogpsrocks (Sep 3, 2015)

PerfectDepth said:


> Another thing to mention is that juveniles will develop more color as they mature, some just sooner than others. The red color is pigmentation which is brown in the wild rather than red. I don't bother to remove or cull the juveniles with less pigmentation, unless the pigment is the wrong color (tan or beige).
> 
> Also, dark substrate and lots of plant cover encourages them to show more color. I've seen adult females change from being mostly transparent to solid red when moved from a tank with light-colored pool filter sand into a tank with black eco-complete substrate.


Well, I have tons of the ecocomplete substrate


----------



## Yukiharu (May 3, 2014)

Typically people get rid of the less colorful females when they're subadult-adult size (around breeding size). As has been mentioned, make sure you're not culling the less-colorful males and ending up with only females.
Low grade cherries will throw a good portion of clear/striped red.


----------

