Red Rili Shrimp Sex Identification

[snazy]

I am so mad at them. That's the only company that stocks Rili shrimp here so I am stuck if I don't have females/males Breeding with the cherry will be my last resort and that's if it turns out impossible to get more rilis. I can't believe this country is so backwards in regards to getting fancy stuff. The rilis I have are quite different from a cherry shrimp with similar markings. There are wine/very dark red coloured with bluish middle rather than the "cherry" colour on cherry shrimp with seethrough middle so I don't know how the mix will work. I also read that if selectively breed shrimp, the coloration comes mostly from the female and since I've got a female cherry with potentially 3 male rilis, I might not get lucky getting rili of this quality from the offspring. I'll send them an e-mail tomorrow and see what they'll say. I asked them before I got the rilis if they would stock yellow neocaridina and they said no problem if I pre-order. I just have the feeling they decided to save themselves a few quid on delivery charges, that's why I got the refund instead and they waited until they sold them all before sending me a refund.

The good part is the rilis seem to be getting on great and were out and about with the pygmys today. I'll remove the pygmys if I see a saddled female shrimp

 

[Baccus]

Trust me I know about backward , techniqually Cherry shrimp and all of their colour morphs are not in Australia along with Crystal Reds and Crystal blacks (and all of their variesties) and they are not allowed into the country. But I can do any simple search and find CRS. CBS and many morphs of cherry shrimp available from Australian breeders .
I fairly recently ended up with some potential rili's occuring naturally in my tanks, these I have segregated out and put into their own tank in the hope of futher developing their rili colouration to complete rili. I am hoping that I have enough java moss in the tank to stop my soriety of female fighers (and one male that was female but decided to have a sex change but is the brother to the three sisters and they all have been together since being tiny and all get along fine together ), don't manage to eat any shrimplets I do manage to breed in their tank. Personally I wouldn't worry too much about your pgymy corys eating all/ any of the shrimplets, my corys have shown no interest in eating my various shrimp and my Khuli loaches have only ever eaten dead shrimp while my Pakastai loaches and dwarf chain loaches have also shown no interest in my cherry shrimp. At times I wish they would because I am running out of places to put excess cherry shrimp .

In another tank I am breeding one black cherry shrimp to three of my darkest red female cherry shrimp, once these females all drop their shrimplets the females will be going back into the general population and the shrimplets will grow up with the black male, so he can eventually breed back over his offspring to strengthen the black gene as well as any recessive genes either the male or the females where carrying. Shrimp are great for such breeding projects because not only do they have a huge range of genetic diversity (well cherry shrimp do, CRS & CBS are more limited) but you also see relatively quick results in various breeding programs.

 

[snazy]

No shrimp in Australia? Wow. I actually came across this info once. Apparently shrimp import is illegal in Australia? But my understanding is that once you have them you can keep them I wish you the best of luck with the rili like version. At the end of the day all rilis came from cherry shrimp. I read that some people cross their rilis on purpose with sakura fire red(high grade version of cherry that was bred for the solid red colour, not seethrough red like a lower grade cherry. This supposedly brings out the red colour in rilis better over time. Or crossing red rili with orange sakura can produce a yellow one. The blue velvets were bred from red rili shrimp for the clear colour only, to produce blue only shrimp. These are quite expensive. There's also a different heteropoda one called blue pearl, which if crossed with red rili or cherry produces the uglieast brownish/greenish form. So genetically wise it sounds very interesting. Only if I had a male and a female to start
I actually have a small infestation of ostracods(seed shrimp) which I can't explain how I got since the tank was dosed with ammonia for weeks to cycle it and I put no fish food at all. I tried to feed the red rilis but they showed no interest so now they are on the diet the ostracods are . Partially, I was hoping the pygmy corys would eat some of the seed shrimp but they've got no interest at all So I wonder if they can be a threat to shrimplets? Some websites say that the pygmy corys are one of the few that don't eat their own babies and judging by the size of the fry of my bigger cory species, the pygmy babies can't be bigger than a dwarf shrimp baby. I will find out I guess, or I hope

Edit: Wow, I missed the part with the black cherry shrimp. You should certainly try to reproduce this one. I would love to see a picture.

 

[Baccus]

Yeah its sort of a grey area in the legal stakes of keeping/ breeding/ selling of apparently illigal to import shrimp. Its such a grey area that an Australian forum I frequent banned the sales of non-native shrimp on their site. They have recently lifted the ban to a partial ban being that now people can sell non-natives on the site again as long as the asking price for the individual shrimp is not above $50.
My shrimp all love the catfish wafers I give to my corys etc and I recently got some native fish food crunble that apparently even my Typhus shrimp can not resist. But honestly with live plants in the tank and other fish the shrimp will find plenty of food on their own, thats why many planted only tanks keep shrimp, purely for algea control and general clean up.

Here is a not so good picture of my black male cherry shrimp

And one of the females he is being bred with

The males parentage was chocolate parents and his siblings came out multi-coloured with oranges, yellows and blues. I appear to have blue genes already in some of my red cherrys so I think the offspring from my breeding shout prove interesting.

 

[snazy]

That's very interesting. I think you should open a thread and keep a record. There isn't much about shrimp here which is a pity. I would be very interested to follow. Wow, the black one is almost black really. I was expecting a more brownish variety. If I was in Australia, I'd certainly try to concentrate on selective breeding since it's hard to import similar or any variety where you are and you may make a few quid in the near future if patient enough.

 

[Baccus]

Yeah patience is the key , I have to wait at least 3 weeks for the new shrimplets to start to show colour, right now they are tiny specks of white that are barely visable. It is hard to find good shrimp information, I did start a thread in the inverts section of this forum about my almost rili shrimp, but I don't think I started one here for the black shrimp breeding program.
I also recently got myself some yellow cherry's (traded them for some of my deepest darkest reds ), am now waiting for them to fully mature and hopefully I have a mix of males and females in them.

And what the heck here is one of my Typhus shrimp

 

[snazy]

I would love some yellow cherrys as well. I actually considered the yellow or the rilis but went for the rilis and I don't have a tank I can put yellows now unless I chance it with my betta male. Are you going to breed the yellow only or cross breed with something?
That Typhus shrimp is scary
Just wondering, how long are the juvenile yellows you have in cm to compare to my 3 rilis?

Sorry for asking so many questions, just a shrimp newbie and I find them very fascinating.

 

[Baccus]

In the picture the juvi yellows are only around 1cm or so the largest brightest yellow was probably around 2-3cm
I plan to keep the yellows pure for the time being but down the track I might (if I get another tank set up ) try the black with a yellow just to see what comes from that sort of cross. But for now I think the black breeding program will keep me on my toes, especially seperating out the colours.

Questions are good, it shows an interest and the desire to provide the best for your charges no matter the size or species

 

[snazy]

You'll certainly be busy setting up new tanks for sure
Let me know what comes out if you are still around.
My juvi shrimp are around 1cm long too, two of them are slightly bigger at the moment( I can't wait for them to grow....)I read that red rilis grow a lot faster than cherrys and if the grass and moss decides to grow too, it will be wonderful.

 

[Baccus]

I don't know about rili's growing faster but I do know for the first week or so of a cherry shrimps life they shed practically daily then from memory that reduces to something like weekly and then once mature shed at least once a month. Every time they shed they grow so in my books thats a pretty fast growth rate. My tiny black x dark red cherrys are marginally more visable now so they are definantly growing, hopefully by next week I will be able to actually focus the camera on them and get some clear photos of them. I just can't wait for them to colour up, its like a lucky dip with a blind fold on and you have to direct somebody else to which "gift"you want without being able to see or feel any of them . The excitment and frustration is maddening but so worth it in the end.

 

[Baccus]

Hey Snazy you where wanting to know how small my newish born cherry shrimp are, well I got a sort of clear picture of one with the camera on macro and through a magnfying glass, see if you can spot the little guy.

 

[snazy]

Thanks. Hard to see Is it the small thing on the stone? I moved out the pygmy corys just now because I have a batch of cory eggs I moved from my other tank I am trying to hatch. The shrimp are doing fine and are getting more adventureous despite the pygmys but not sure if little cory fry would hide in the moss like shimp would so I won't risk it for now. Plus I will be fiddling with the tank every day if there's babies so the less fish to stress the better. Hopefully the shrimp won't mind. I ordered a TDS meter(total dissolved solids) and can't wait to receive it to see what tap water I am dealing with and how it changes over time in the tanks.
I haven't seen the cherry shrimp in my platy tank for 2-3 days now. I had a glimpse at her the other day hidden in the coconut cave grazing on what looked like platy poop Feel sorry for the lonely poor thing. I would get her some friends but since two of hers looks to have been eaten, I am not sure... You said you have some of yours with bettas. My betta tank is well planted although I don't have moss there but wondering if one betta is the lesser danger than a bunch of hungry platys?

 

[Baccus]

Yep its the tiny thing trying to blend in with the yellow part of the stone. I will see if I can get any clearer pictures of them, but typical of them when I have the camera they are no where to be seen and when I am out at my tanks with no camera the shrimplets are every where.

Cory fry will happily hide and fed in moss, personally I believe they get a lot of mirco organisms from moss and other plants kept with any sort of fry.

I know fighters can be a bit hit and miss with regards to scoffing shrimp, but all my fighters tend to leave the shrimp alone. You could try putting the shrimp in a suspended cup with holes punched in the bottom in the fighters tank to see how much interest he shows in it. Normally fighters are extremely curious about anything new in their tank so maybe if he (I am guessing its a he) gets used to seeing the shrimp without actually being able to eat or bite it when you release the shrimp the figher will be more ho-hum about its new tank mate. I would also put a bit of weed in with the shrimp if suspending it in the fighters tank so the shrimp isn't super stressed by being so exposed. Shrimp are great little hiders and moss is one of the best plants for shrimp to disappear into but really any sort of leafy plant will provide cover for them.

Here is one of my favourite pictures of a local native shrimp with one of my fighters.

The shrimp in this pic would only be cherry shrimp sized and skinnier than a cherry shrimp so easy pickings for a fighter that was intersested in trying to eat them.

 

[snazy]

I actually put the 3 cherry shrimp I intially bought in the betta tank until my other one that now holds the rilis is cycled and they did last a day and a night until I moved them but they were hiding and I don't know if he knew they were in his tank . The problem with this betta is that when I put the ottos in this tank he did attack them regularly and I don't know whether it was him or I got unstable ottos but I found two of them dead. I moved the third one out and he's alive and thriving. Their bellies were eaten too when I found them. So i decided the platy tank is safer option for shrimp for a few weeks. I never saw them again, even stripped the tank down to the gravel, looked behind and in the filters, nothing. This was the next day. I thought they became fish food which 2 of them probably did. The third one appeared mysteriously a few weeks later alive and nicely dark red coloured. It looks quite big and is bigger than the pygmy corys for example, saddled as well but no males . Maybe it knows the tank better now and can survive against opportunistic platies.

 

[snazy]

Just one little question, do males and females have tiny little legs under their tail?