Red Rili Shrimp Sex Identification

[Baccus]

Yes cherry shrimp are great little hitch hikers, they have a knack of ending up in the least expected places. Like the other night I was checking in my tanks and in the soriety fighter tank which I was certain I had removed all the cherry shrimp from a couple of months ago, what do I spy? An adult female cherry shrimp. Then when I dismantled the tank again to get her, I find 4 cherry shrimp all as happy as clams in the fighter tank.
 
My sister who had lost all of her cherry shrimp just found one in her filter the other day too.

 

[snazy]

A few pics from today.
 
One of the ugly females, but look at the colour of her eggs. It's going wild in there literally:
 

 
 

 
Some nicer ones:
 

 

 

[snazy]

I've seen some very plain/white shrimp I have but yesterday when I bought my two new zebra ottos I noticed in the shop shrimp that looked like mine, labelled "white pearl shrimp"
 
I've been looking at a video I took of the zebra ottos and one of my "plain" ones is visible there.
 
Would you have a look? He appears in the video after about 10 seconds and starts munching a mini wafer on top of the plant just center in the video with two taller small round leaves, in front of the stone
 
http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNiGXzFVmMM
 
 
And here is a pic of one rili.
 

And just an update on my "sick" male rili. He's joined the main tank because the 3L breeder box recorded over 450ppm TDS for some reason, although none of the shrimp seemed bothered. They didn't breed though, so I presume they weren't entirely happy. They are back to their relatives.
 
It's been almost 6 months since I diagnosed him. Here he is on the video here in between the crowd(left bottom on the video)
 
http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ2zZMitbQU

 

[Baccus]

I will have to have wait to see the video of your shrimp, at least until wednesday when I will be home. And now a quick story to make you weep with envy. I went out with some fellow shrimp lovers to do some wild collecting. The place we went was amazing especially when we went upstream away from predators. That was where the shrimp just blew our minds. The water was thick with shrimp barely the size of cherry shrimp. And they where swimming around like schools of fish. One scoop of the net and it was nothing to catch 30+ shrimp. There was even some blue ones we found. And now the really fantastic part they may even be a nondescribed species.

 

[snazy]

Oh, that's where you've been doing lately

Yes, I am suffering from a severe envy attack right now

I think you'd need to post a lot of pictures.....and probably a dedicated thread to it too, updating regularly, owtherwise.......

 

 

 

[Baccus]

Yes, once home I will post pictures, of the shrimp and the mosses in and around their micro habitat. I hope the blue ones keep their blue, because they are really pretty.
The hardest part will be replicating their water, IRS really hard spring water in basalt country. I am hoping a mix of coral and wood/ leaf litter will be right up their alley. Also cool water their ponds/ pools where 23 degrees at around 8 am in the highlands of tropical Queensland.
Even more envious now? LOL.

 

[snazy]

Arghh, you are just pouring more petrol in the fire now

 

[Baccus]

Ha, ha,ha watch this space or rather the invert section for a full topic thread.

 

[Baccus]

From my understanding of all the various shrimp crosses and various specialised breeding of shrimp the White pearl in its truest breeding is Neocaridina cf. zhangjiajiensis var white and also called Snowball shrimp because of the white berries the female carries. The shrimp themselves have a white cast to the body as apposed to just being clear. Unfortunatley I don't know if the males show as much white as the females, since most pictures of them online only show berried or soon to be berried females.
 
The normal red cherry shrimp is correctly called Caridina heteropoda var red, so they are closely related to the snowballs and would probably cross breed readily. I suspect your clear shrimp is some sort of throw back, because its parents if my memory serves correctly was rili x normal. Most people use such clear shrimp as feeder shrimp, but if you had the room they could be worthwhile line breeding just the clears to see what develops. Who knows you could develop a white cherry in the C. heteropoda species or redefine a new rili pattern. Just remember don't be too quick to cull. I find shrimp tend to show their best colour as they mature.

 

[snazy]

Thanks Baccus. I am just observing mostly than doing anything about breeding shrimp at the moment. I can't use them as feeders, I am too soft, so they'll live.
One of the rili males, not the sick one, but his "brother" is also not a clear one, but has slightly whitish/milky body(not sick, he's also been like that forever). I am guessing they have some odd genes.
 
Here are some very old pictures of the "brother" I am talking about. He is still that body colour, not clear but milky like. I must take a recent picture too:
 

 

And this is a closer shot of the grandkid from the video that has this type of whitish/milky tint. I have to try a close shot when he poses for me.
 

 

[snazy]

I couldn't take a better picture of the rili male I am talking about because he kept moving but it shows he still has his milky body after over 7 months in my tank. Maybe they all have that thing that makes them appear white, just it is more pronounced in the one I considered "sick" compared to the others:
 
Sorry for the poor quality. He's a lot better looking in reality and isn't washed out like this.

 

[snazy]

I officially found a blue shrimp in my colony today. The pictures are bad but he's definately blue:
 

 

 

[Baccus]

Wow, Congrats !. I used to have a lot of red cherries with the blue gene but they would only show the blue at night, during the day they would be totally red and impossible to tell apart from the normal cherries.
I am guessing that your blue has come from the rili's , since they seem to often carry the blue gene. And if you had a red carrying the blue gene and bred it with a blue gene rili stands to reason that the two recessive genes would be stronger.
 
I found a new type of cherry that I would love to get Black Knight cherry shrimp. They are stunning but the price tag puts  me off. $60 for a trio (2f 1m) and $10 postage. Now winter seems to have hit with a bit of attitude I don't want to risk fish etc being sent in the mail to freeze to death.

 

[snazy]

Yes, I presume the blue came from the rili genes. He's really cool. He's got a few dark red specs on him though, but not too much. I've got plenty of breeder boxes to separate him with a rili female but I am a bit afraid. I can even put him in my new tank but not sure the platies will ignore them as it's not that well planted yet.
 
I actually haven't seen the "sick" one in a couple of weeks as well, but there are so many shrimp in there that I get confused.
 
Wow, I've never heard of Black Knight cherry. How do they look because google showed nothing.

 

[Baccus]

I'll see if I can drag up a pic of some black nights, they are real stunners jet black.
 
Also have you seen what they are calling spiderman cherry shrimp? I love them they are both red and blue, really nice looking shrimp.
 
Sorry I had a bit of a look online but the only pictures I can find is a members own pictures from an Australian shrimp forum I frequent.
 
But I did get a couple of nice shots of one of my riffle shrimp out feeding on a log this afternoon. I am hoping to be able to get a some female riffles tomorrow and then have a go at breeding them.
 

 Same guy just with a flash on the camera

 
And if you look closely below and slightly behind the guy on the log you can just make out one of the other riffles that has gone blue/ black and another one that is more timber coloured. I can't wait for these guys to get as big as my typhus shrimp even if by then they will all be females.