I would like to share several close up photos of my orange sakura shrimps. Their scientific name is neocaridina davidi var ‘orange’ shrimps.

These shrimps are easy to keep and, in fact, they are color morph or well-known cherry shrimp. I have seen two color strains of  orange shrimps. Some of them are more reddish and they are usually called pumpkin shrimps. Mine are different, they are closer to yellow. Females usually develop nice orange coloration with age. At the same time, males are quite orange and not yellow right from the beginning.

I keep these shrimps in tap water and do not use anything special for them.

Check out some photos below:

Orange sakura davidi shrimp. Head shot close up

Orange sakura neocaridina shrimp

Orange sakura neocaridina shrimp. One more head close up

Orange sakura freshwater shrimp. Tail close-up

Orange sakura freshwater shrimp on a folder sponge

Young orange sakura neocaridina shrimp

I keep these guys in a small 10-gallon tank. Nevertheless, their colony is doing well and I’m currently selling these orange shrimps.

Neocaridina ‘blue velvet’ shrimps is quite popular these days.
There is no so many blue shrimps and fish in freshwater hobby at all. I’m sure you all know OEBT (orange eyed blue tiger) shrimps. They are famous not only because mysterious orange eyes, but mostly because of amazing blue coloration. Unfortunately, blue velvet cannot complete with the tigers in coloration, but some them are very nice.

Neocaridina davidi var. ‘blue velvet’ shrimps has a great advantage in comparison with the tiger shrimps, they and neocaridina which means they are easy to keep. This is opening so many door for this variety and set them free for a public.

I’m posting some new photos of my blue velvet shrimps here:

As you can see these shrimps have quite transparent body. I hope that one day we will have some kind of painted variety that will be as solid as painted fire red shrimps

I have mini ramshorn snails in half of my tanks. This is not because I like them or I wanted them, they are just evasion. They came from nowhere and nearly impossible to get rid of.

Yesterday I was going to clean my IWAGUMI shrimp cube tank sides and notices several snail eggs clutches. These clutches are very small, they are around 1mm in size. It’s impossible to see what is inside with a bare eye. So, I spend some time making photos of them. It’s a great example where technologies are helping us to explore the world, even it that ‘world’ is just front of eyes.

Mini or small ramshorn snails are well-known to aquarium lovers for more than a hundred years. I know some people are keeping and breeding them as a live food for their puffer fish or assassin snails. Other than that, I’m not sure what anybody would specially introduce them in a tank. If you need snails, there are plenty of other options available. You can put your eye on prolific MTS snails, bigger ramshorn snails or gorgeous orange rabbit snails.
I would not say that mini ramshorn snails are causing any problems, it’s just that felling that you have something that us out of your control. Presence of these snails in a tank is that exact thing.
However, they are some approaches to ‘control’ or kill them.

First of all, there are some chemical stuff that contains copper. It’s deadly for all snails as well as for the shrimps. Puffer fish, different botia (loaches) fish will happily eat them. These methods will not work for the shrimp tank. Cooper as well as fish will kill you shrimps faster than snails.
I know only one method to get rid of snails in a shrimp tank. It’s introducing one or several marbled self-cloning crayfish. They crayfish will slowly eat your snails and they will not damage your shrimp colony too much. The only disadvantage of these guys is that they will love your plants more than snails and shrimps. I’ve managed to clean two aquariums from mini ramshorn snails using marbled self-cloning crayfish. One aquarium lots all its plants as well, they second tank plants were significantly damaged.

Ok, enough about ‘controlling snails’ Let’s look at the pictures of eggs and snails themselves. You can see tiny snails inside eggs. They are constantly moving in there. Of the clutch is empty, all baby snails are gone to new live.

Adult mini ramshorn snails are not bigger than 5mm, and usually they are under 3mm in size.

I have one very interesting shrimps in my chocolate shrimps tank. It’s a make and it doesn’t look like my other chocolate shrimps. It’s bright red shrimp :).
You might read about new red variation of neocaridina davidi (former heteropoda) shrimps before. These shrimps are super cool and they are called Bloody Mary. They color is different from cherry, fire reds and painted fire red shrimps. They are move bright or scarlet in color.
This one unique shrimps I have is Bloody Mary. This totally makes sense, because Bloody Mary shrimps were selectively bred from neocaridina chocolate shrimps. This is what I have. A rare mutation took place and I ended up with this amazing create.

Look at the close-up high-definition video with this red shrimp.

I’m posting one picture of this Bloody Mary shrimps below.

Neocaridina davidi var. 'bloody mary' male shrimp

And here you can see it together with a sibling. These both shrimps were born in the same tank. Do you see the difference?

Neocaridina chocolate and 'bloody mary' shrimps

Look at a better picture of a chocolate shrimp here. It’s a female

Chocolate davidi shrimp

I have made much more pictures of this red guy. I hope I will find time to post them soon.