What it is
Flat black with no shine. Some shops sell the same shrimp as black rose. Sold under the name Neocaridina davidi.
What water does it need?
Tap water with a conditioner (it takes out the chlorine) suits these across most of Australia. They breed on their own. One thing to know: Melbourne and some Sydney supplies are very soft, which means very few minerals in the water. GH is the general hardness reading on a test kit (not the KH reading). Below about 4 dGH, a shrimp has trouble hardening its new shell after a moult (when it sheds its shell to grow). If that is your water, add shrimp minerals (sold as a remineraliser, a powder that puts minerals back in) or leave a piece of cuttlebone in the tank. Both are cheap. It is the difference between a group that grows and one that quietly does not. Steady water matters far more than perfect water.
In the table: pH is how acid or alkaline the water is. GH is the minerals in the water.
KH is the part that holds pH steady. TDS is everything in the water added up.
| pH | 6.5 – 7.8 |
| GH (hardness) | 6 – 12 dGH |
| KH (carbonate) | 2 – 8 dKH |
| TDS (total minerals) | 150 – 250 ppm |
| Temperature | 18 – 26 °C |
The full story, including cycling your tank, copper and which fish are safe, is on the
water & care page. Read it before you order, not after.
Will they breed? Can I mix them?
They breed easily once they settle in. Ten will have babies within a couple of months.
Keep one kind per tank. This shrimp will breed with
every other Neocaridina colour we sell (Neocaridina is the cherry shrimp family). Mixed babies come out plain brown, like a wild shrimp. The mixed babies are healthy, but the colour is lost. Within a generation or two, Neocaridina babies go back to plain wild brown. Once that happens, you cannot get the colour back.
Neocaridina (cherries) and Caridina (crystals and tigers) are different groups of shrimp and cannot breed
with each other. So you can keep one of each in the same tank, if the water suits both.
What does it cost delivered?
$9 a shrimp. We sell them in packs of 5. One foam express box costs the
same to send whether it holds 5 shrimp or thirty. So 5 delivered is
$74.99. That is $15 each with
postage in. The same $29.99 post carries a bigger box too. It drops to $9.99 once
your shrimp come to $149. So the more you order, the less each shrimp costs. Everything goes
out on Monday, packed that morning. Every shrimp is guaranteed to arrive alive. The
guarantee is short, and it says what it does not cover.