rm
Passport
- Family
- Shrimp and Yabbies
- Grows to
- 3 cm (1.2")
- Temperament
- Peaceful
- CareSuggested
- Beginner
- SwimsSuggested
- Everywhere
- Keep
- In a group of 6 or more
- Water
- 22–28 °C (72–82 °F)
Taiwan
Care requirements
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On record for Blue Dream Shrimp: adult size, minimum tank, temperature, ph, hardness, carbonate hardness, minimum group, diet, care level, swim level.
Not on record for Blue Dream Shrimp: lifespan, 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 19 L / 5.0 US gal
- pH 6–8
- Hardness 4–14 dGH
- Carbonate hardness 1–8 dKH
- Diet algae eater/omnivore
Care notes written from general aquarium knowledge, not from the cited sources.
About
Blue dreams are the deepest blue the hobby has managed in a Neocaridina, and a mature female in good condition is genuinely solid colour rather than the translucent wash the earlier blue lines produced.
They are the same animal as a cherry shrimp in every respect but colour. Same species, same tolerances, same easy breeding — the selective work went entirely into pigment. That makes them the easiest way to keep something spectacular-looking.
The colour is the one thing you have to protect. Blue is a recessive result of a lot of breeding, and it is the first thing to go if the colony is left to itself with other Neocaridina.
Tank setup
Set your blue dreams up in a mature tank with plenty of grazing surface, and don't overthink the water. They take a wide range of hardness and pH, and hardness is the only value worth being deliberate about because they need minerals for their shells.
Go dark on everything. A black substrate and a shaded tank deepen the blue markedly, and the same shrimp over pale sand under bright light looks washed out and grey. This is the single biggest thing you control.
Keep them alone in their tank if the colour matters. Any other Neocaridina — cherries, rilis, yellows — will interbreed with them, and the offspring drift back toward wild brown within a few generations.
Cover the filter intake and give them moss, botanicals and dense planting to work over.
Feeding
Blue dreams graze biofilm constantly and find most of their own food in an established tank.
Supplement two or three times a week: a good shrimp food, blanched vegetables, the odd protein wafer. Feeding daily is the usual mistake and it fouls the water rather than helping the colony.
Colour responds to diet as well as to background. Foods with astaxanthin and other carotenoids are sold for reds and do nothing for blues; a varied diet and a dark tank are what work here.
Avoid: copper in anything, and avoid leaving uneaten food to rot.
Filtration and flow
A sponge filter is the right choice. It's safe for shrimplets, it grows biofilm, and it keeps the flow gentle.
Match your water changes. A colony lost overnight after a large change is nearly always a temperature or hardness mismatch rather than anything in the tank.
They're forgiving of the ordinary range and unforgiving of sudden movement within it.
With plants
Blue dreams are safe with plants and actively good for a planted tank, picking detritus out of carpets and moss without damaging anything.
Plant densely and darkly. Dark green growth is a better backdrop for blue than anything pale, and the shade encourages the colour.
Moss deserves its own mention: it holds biofilm and it keeps shrimplets alive.
Health
Failed moults are the usual death and hardness is the usual reason. Very soft water gives you shrimp stuck half out of the old shell no matter how clean the tank is.
Watch for a white ring around the body that isn't the normal moult line. That's a moult about to fail, and it's a warning about the water rather than the animal.
Colour loss across the colony can be stress rather than genetics. A tank that's too bright, too warm or too disturbed produces pale shrimp that recover once conditions settle.
Breeding
They breed without any encouragement, and the difficulty is keeping the colour rather than getting numbers. Young emerge as miniature adults, so there's no larval stage to survive.
Cull toward the colour you want. In any colony a proportion of the young come out paler or patchier, and leaving those to breed drags the whole line back toward brown over a few generations.
Give them cover, keep fish out, and the population will grow until food or space limits it. In a community tank the shrimplets get eaten and the colony holds steady rather than expanding.
Tank mates
Avoid14
- Convict Cichlid Convict Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Blue Dream Shrimp.
- Jewel Cichlid Jewel Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Blue Dream Shrimp.
- Kribensis Kribensis reaches 8 cm and will eat adult Blue Dream Shrimp.
- Oscar Oscar reaches 35 cm and will eat adult Blue Dream Shrimp.
- Panda Garra Panda Garra reaches 9 cm and will eat adult Blue Dream Shrimp.
Only with care33
- Chinese Algae Eater Chinese Algae Eater is aggressive and Blue Dream Shrimp is peaceful.
- Least Killifish Least Killifish is small enough to leave adult Blue Dream Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Scarlet Badis Scarlet Badis is small enough to leave adult Blue Dream Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid is a risk to Blue Dream Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
- Angelfish Angelfish is a risk to Blue Dream 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.