Neocaridina davidi
 
The wild animals
are brownish, but breeders have made colourful ones. Blue
♂, red
♀
These are just some of the variations. Further more, there
are striped and other variations |
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The day active species is a
bit dull in the wild, and where I usually avoid bred variations, I embrace these
colourful ones. They thrive in most tap-water, and will propagate. They should
have at least 3 L aquariums, with quite some vegetation like Java Moss and other
fine plants, others claim. Mine thrive fine, and seems content with a couple in
a one litre glass. The just walk slowly around, grassing like sheep, and don't
seems to feel trapped in.
They are omnivores, and do a fine job keeping the algae down. They can be fed
with pulverised dried stinging nettle or fruit tree leaves, but they do not eat
much. I have only feed mine brown beech leaves and boiled beans, and only the
youngsters, crammed a bit in a glass.
If the tap water is free of calcite, you might have to offer them some burned
egg-shells, as the calcite is important for their exoskeleton.
You might see an exoskeleton, looking like a "ghost", from time to time. Leave
it, as they will eat it later, and recycle the minerals.
Besides from the female are "bearing"; carrying their eggs underneath the
back-body, attached to the swimming-legs, the females tend to be more colourful.
One day old shrimp. 1,6 mm + tentacles - and part of my index finger.
This "ghost" is just the
exoskeleton. They eat it within a week.
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