rm
Passport
- Family
- Shrimp and Yabbies
- Grows to
- 3 cm (1.2")
- Lives
- 1.5–2 years
- Temperament
- Peaceful
- Care
- Advanced
- Swims
- On the bottom
- Keep
- In a group of 6 or more
- Water
- 21–23 °C (70–73 °F)
Taiwan
Care requirements
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On record for Blue Bolt Shrimp: adult size, lifespan, minimum tank, temperature, ph, hardness, carbonate hardness, minimum group, diet, care level, swim level.
Not on record for Blue Bolt Shrimp: tank length.
A figure that is not on record is left out rather than guessed. One marked Suggested comes from keeping knowledge rather than a page.
- Minimum tank 38 L / 10.0 US gal
- pH 6.2–7.2
- Hardness 3–7 dGH
- Carbonate hardness 0–4 dKH
- Diet algae eater/omnivore
Care notes written from general aquarium knowledge, not from the cited sources.
About
Blue bolts sit at the demanding end of the hobby's shrimp, and they're the fish-keeping equivalent of a show breed. The body fades from a deep blue head into a pale, almost porcelain tail, and no two are patterned quite alike.
They belong to the Taiwan Bee lines — the same species as the crystal reds, pushed further by breeders into colours the wild animal never carried. That extra selection came at the usual cost: they're less robust, less tolerant and less forgiving than almost anything else you can put in a tank.
Buy them last, not first. Everything about keeping them assumes you've already run a soft-water shrimp tank successfully.
Tank setup
Build the water before you build the tank. Blue bolts want soft, acidic conditions with a low mineral content, and almost nobody achieves that from a tap — reverse osmosis water remineralised with a shrimp-specific salt is the standard approach and it's standard for a reason.
Use an active soil substrate. It buffers the pH downward and holds it there, and with these animals a stable low pH is the difference between a colony and a slow decline.
Let the tank run for months before you add them. Not weeks. A Taiwan Bee tank needs mature biofilm and a filter that has settled into a genuine equilibrium.
Keep it cool and shaded. Warmth speeds their metabolism, shortens their lives and drops the oxygen they need.
Feeding
Blue bolts graze biofilm as their staple, and in a properly matured tank that's most of their diet without you doing anything.
Feed sparingly and specifically. A good shrimp food a few times a week, blanched vegetables occasionally, and the sort of powdered biofilm supplement sold for Taiwan Bees. Take out anything not finished within a couple of hours.
Fast them regularly. Skipping feeds keeps the water clean and does the colony no harm whatsoever.
Avoid: copper in anything, and avoid overfeeding, which in a tank this delicately balanced causes more losses than underfeeding ever will.
Filtration and flow
Sponge filtration only, run gently. It cannot hurt a shrimplet, it grows biofilm on its own surface, and it doesn't strip the water of what they graze.
Change water in small amounts and match everything — temperature, hardness, pH. In water with this little buffering, a large change is a shock rather than a refresh.
Watch your parameters more closely than you would for any other shrimp. They give very little warning before things go wrong.
With plants
Blue bolts are entirely safe with plants and never damage them.
Moss is essential rather than decorative. It holds biofilm, shelters shrimplets and suits the acidic soft water the tank runs on.
Keep the planting low-tech. Carbon dioxide injection and heavy fertiliser dosing both introduce risks — pH swings and copper-bearing products — that this species handles badly.
Health
Moult failure is the commonest death, and here it usually means the mineral content is too low rather than too high. Remineralising properly, to a measured target rather than by eye, is what prevents it.
They tolerate transport badly. Drip acclimatise over several hours and expect losses on any batch that has been shipped long-distance.
A colony that stops breeding is telling you something before any individual looks ill. Treat that as the early warning it is.
Breeding
They breed in a tank that genuinely suits them, and that's really the measure of success with this species. The young emerge as miniature adults with no larval stage.
The genetics are the interesting part. Taiwan Bee colours don't behave simply, and crossing lines produces offspring that can look nothing like either parent — which is how new varieties appear and also how a carefully bought colony turns into a mixed one.
Keep one line per tank if the colour matters. Broods are small and shrimplets are fragile, so a colony builds slowly and every loss counts.
Tank mates
Avoid14
- Convict Cichlid Convict Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Blue Bolt Shrimp.
- Jewel Cichlid Jewel Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Blue Bolt Shrimp.
- Kribensis Kribensis reaches 8 cm and will eat adult Blue Bolt Shrimp.
- Oscar Oscar reaches 35 cm and will eat adult Blue Bolt Shrimp.
- Panda Garra Panda Garra reaches 9 cm and will eat adult Blue Bolt Shrimp.
Only with care33
- Chinese Algae Eater Chinese Algae Eater is aggressive and Blue Bolt Shrimp is peaceful.
- Least Killifish Least Killifish is small enough to leave adult Blue Bolt Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Scarlet Badis Scarlet Badis is small enough to leave adult Blue Bolt Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid is a risk to Blue Bolt Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
- Angelfish Angelfish is a risk to Blue Bolt Shrimp: angelfish and shrimp and yabbies are a pairing to watch.
No conflict is recorded with the other 61 species in the database, so nothing to flag.