Cherry shrimp and blue dreams are the same species and may result in wild color offspring. If you want to try getting some unique colored shrimp with lots of culling, try bloody mary and blue dreams. Some of the offspring might end up red and blue!

Food wise - I'd recommend algae/vegetables as the main diet (read ingredients! many "algae tabs" aren't algae based!) which could be fed twice a week and then a protein food once a week.

 

I don't know if this is a stupid question, but what is culling?

 

Removing the lesser desired shrimp from the colony. Some people set up cull tanks and if anything shows up in the cull tank that they'd like to add back to the colony, then they can.

Other people might put the culls into a community fish tank.

Alternatively, they can be sold to other shrimp keepers or taken to the local LFS.

 

Sweet thanks.

 

In my experience with red cherries and blue dreams/electric blue’s is that they will most likely produce a brownish color unless they breed and a new color is produced and then separated from the rest.

 

Someone just shared some Fire Red x Blue Dreams elsewhere and the shrimp are also red and blue! Look a bit different than the Bloody Mary x Blue Dreams... but then again, the BMxBD shrimp, I didn't get to see more of the colony... the person only showed one of them.

So with culling/selective breeding, you could certainly get some interesting looking shrimp! Some may still be less desirable so you'd want to determine what you want out of what you are trying to create and work towards that goal.

 

My RCS cull pond has blue dream culls that snuck in from their cull pond and the result is brown/green. Not a nice shade of green either.

 

I've heard it's best to start out with high grade colors if you want to mix them.

 

The only shrimp I've seen that actually end up looking decent and actually cool, are the skrittle tank from LRB that he sells from time to time. Otherwise they usually just revert to the brown/green like the wild types.

 

Okay, thanks for all the replies. I don't think I'm going to be mixing them, judging from what I've heard.

 

My blue velvet came prego from the LFS... one of the babies managed to survive my Minnow's, and Gourami and came out pitch black. Looks pretty cool and i'm not sure what it had bred with. Here's a pic.

 

Now that is an awesome shrimp!

 

@Steemax I saw these in my LFS yesterday - I think they were labelled "Black Rose" cherry shrimps if you're ever looking for more. They're gorgeous!

 

Thanks! I had no idea what they were calling them. Unfortunately I've never seen one in any of my LFS. They only carry the usual Blue, red or yellow. I may have to start breeding my own :grin2:

I'm more surprised the little guy was able to survive my tank as a fry.

 

Yeah that's a cool shrimp, I don't think I've seen anything like that before.

 

I know this may sound like a SUPER dumb question, but because I know that normally red and blue combined will create purple, is there any chance of the shrimp offspring being purple?

 

Negative.... genetics doesn't work like that.


Most red neos plus blue neos results in wild type/brown colored offspring.