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 Crystal Red Shrimp: adult size, lifespan, minimum tank, temperature, ph, hardness, carbonate hardness, minimum group, diet, care level, swim level.
Not on record for Crystal Red 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
Crystal reds are a made animal. They don't exist in the wild — they're a selectively bred colour form of the bee shrimp, developed in Japan, and the whole line is said to trace back to a mere handful of founding shrimp. That narrow base is exactly why they're so much more fragile than the cherry shrimp they sit beside in a shop.
They're graded, and the grades are worth understanding before you spend money. The scale runs on how much solid white the shrimp carries and how cleanly the bands are drawn, from thin-banded low grades up to animals that are almost entirely white with red caps. Higher grades cost more and are generally weaker.
Keep them because they're beautiful, not because you want a working shrimp. They graze and scavenge, but nobody buys a crystal red to clean algae.
Tank setup
Set your crystal reds up in soft, acidic water and treat that as the entry requirement. This is the fundamental split between Caridina like these and the Neocaridina everyone starts with — the same tank will not do for both.
Use an active buffering substrate. The aquarium soils sold for shrimp are designed to pull the pH down and hold it there, and with these animals that's the point rather than an optional refinement. Most keepers build the water from reverse osmosis and remineralise it deliberately.
Give them a mature tank, heavily planted, with moss and botanicals. Biofilm is the constant background food, and a new tank has none.
Keep the temperature moderate. They do better cool than warm, and heat shortens their lives noticeably.
Feeding
Crystal reds are omnivorous scavengers and not remotely fussy about what they eat. The skill is in how much.
Feed only what the colony finishes in a couple of hours, and take out the rest. Overfeeding fouls a small soft-water tank quickly and it's the usual route to a planaria or hydra problem.
Skipping a day or two does no harm at all and often does good. A colony that fasts occasionally is a healthier one, and the tank stays cleaner.
Avoid: copper in anything. Check every medication and fertiliser — it kills invertebrates at doses fish never register.
Filtration and flow
Use a sponge filter and keep the flow gentle. It won't strip the fine particles they graze, it can't injure a shrimplet, and it gives them another surface to work over.
Water changes should be small, frequent and matched carefully. Soft water has almost no buffering, so a careless change moves the chemistry further and faster than you would expect, and that is what kills colonies.
Stability beats any particular number. A tank held steadily at slightly the wrong value will outperform one being corrected toward the right one.
With plants
Crystal reds are completely safe with plants and belong in a densely planted tank.
Moss is the single most useful thing you can add. It holds biofilm, it gives shrimplets cover, and it suits the soft acidic water they need.
The conditions that suit these shrimp suit most popular aquarium plants too, so there's no conflict to manage here.
Health
Failed moults are the commonest death and they point at the minerals in the water. Soft water still has to carry enough for a shell — remineralising reverse osmosis water properly is not the same as leaving it soft.
They're sensitive to being moved. Acclimatise over hours by dripping, not by floating a bag for twenty minutes, and expect to lose some of any batch that has travelled badly.
Sudden colony-wide deaths are almost always a contaminant or a chemistry swing rather than disease. Think about what has gone into or near the tank.
Breeding
They breed readily once the conditions are genuinely right, and that's the test of whether you've got it right. There's no larval stage — the young emerge as tiny copies of the adults.
Broods are smaller than a cherry shrimp's and the shrimplets are more delicate. Established biofilm and dense moss are what carry them through the first weeks; extra feeding is not.
Expect colour to drift over generations. Breeding back toward the higher grades takes deliberate culling, and a colony left to itself will slowly produce plainer animals.
Tank mates
Avoid14
- Convict Cichlid Convict Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Crystal Red Shrimp.
- Jewel Cichlid Jewel Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Crystal Red Shrimp.
- Kribensis Kribensis reaches 8 cm and will eat adult Crystal Red Shrimp.
- Oscar Oscar reaches 35 cm and will eat adult Crystal Red Shrimp.
- Panda Garra Panda Garra reaches 9 cm and will eat adult Crystal Red Shrimp.
Only with care33
- Chinese Algae Eater Chinese Algae Eater is aggressive and Crystal Red Shrimp is peaceful.
- Least Killifish Least Killifish is small enough to leave adult Crystal Red Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Scarlet Badis Scarlet Badis is small enough to leave adult Crystal Red Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid is a risk to Crystal Red Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
- Angelfish Angelfish is a risk to Crystal Red 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.