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You want a shrimp that thrives in a variety of water conditions, is simple to breed, tolerates the occasional careless novice move, and adds some visual interest to your aquarium without requiring a large space commitment.
This seems like an insurmountable assignment, right? The yellow shrimp, Neocaridina davidi var. “Yellow,” is an exception. If you want a colorful shrimp that doesn’t need much maintenance, go no further than this yellow “sibling” of the more widespread red cherry shrimp. And yet, why do we see such a wide range in the hues and costs?
Grading yellow shrimp – Neocaridina davidi var. Yellow
Anyone who has shopped around for a colony of yellow shrimp knows that they come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. While some are perfectly opaque and the right shade of lemon, others are virtually see-through and have a tinge of yellow. Why?
The rainbow of colors seen in dwarf Neocaridina shrimp today is the result of careful selective breeding from a brownish-gray base. By maintaining a steady selection, it is possible to create an opaque hue. It’s often seen as a favorable trait. As a result, the value of transparent yellow shrimp is lower than that of opaque ones.
While shrimp keepers may prefer opaque yellows, this has nothing to do with shrimp quality or health. The quality of the shrimp you purchase is not essential. You may always be patient and put in the effort to deliberately reduce the transparency of your colony, even if you lack the financial resources to do so.
Methods for Calculating Grades
Consequently, it’s clear that opaque shrimp are preferable to their transparent counterparts. But how do you evaluate them in practice? You should be able to sort things out with the use of the aforementioned rules and yellow shrimp grading chart.
- Forget about looking up definitions: And certainly not seriously. Although there are clear rules for grading the more popular red cherry shrimp (which you can discover here), the method for yellow shrimp is still a work in progress. Since the grades haven’t been officially named yet, we merely break them into three groups and call them “high,” “medium,” and “poor.”
- Grading is based on how much light can get through: To be considered premium, a yellow shrimp must be completely devoid of any white or clear spots. No part of it, not even its legs, will be white. Yellow shrimp of medium quality are still attractive and vibrant in color, although they have some transparent areas. The “belly” will be drabber or spottier in color, and the legs may have a candy-cane pattern of yellow and white rather of being solid yellow. And lastly, low grade yellows tend to be more transparent than they are yellow. The shrimp still has some color, but its body, especially its legs, are transparent.
- Variation in color: If you’ve done your homework, you know that the coloration of individual yellow shrimp colonies varies widely. It makes no difference; opacity is what establishes quality, not color. There are vibrant yellows, and then there are yellows with undertones of green or orange.
- Horizontal bar across the back: It is possible to breed Neocaridina shrimp such that they have a white stripe along their backs (and some shrimp show it at random). Whether or whether you find something appealing depends more on personal taste than quality, much like the color. Despite their name, these “golden backs” are graded in the same way as any other student.
- Sexuality is important: If you’re not aware with the sex differences in shrimp, this chart may be useful in explaining why female dwarf shrimp are bigger and more opaque in color than males. Males and females of higher grades tend to have the same opaque coloration. Sometimes the female will be placed in a higher category than the male, who has less strong coloring.
Yellow shrimp purchase?
Need to establish your own yellow shrimp colony? You should be able to locate the grade you want at your local aquarium shop or online using the information in this article.
