[ezcry4t3d]

I have an odd color male in my RCS tank. Noticed him a couple weeks ago (he's hard to miss). He's identical to my other RCS in every way, including color pattern, but instead of deep red, he's pumpkin orange. Every other shrimp in the tank is homogenous dark red. He looks like a Black & Decker tool next to the other shrimp. I tried to take some pictures with algae wafer bait, but nothing will hold still because everything is fighting over the food.

I'll link to the best original pic I took, because when I try to do any editing to crop it down, I lose even more of how much this shrimp contrasts with the rest.

NOTE 1.76MB and on a slow server: http://ezcry4t3d.dyndns.org/fish/pictures/20090916_181314.jpg
Orange male on left, typical male at top, young female on right, insistent goby center...

Just how unusual is this?

 

[Centromochlus]

Sorry i can't answer your question. When it comes to shrimp, i'm pretty much clueless. :hihi:

Here's the picture scaled down a bit, incase anyone wasn't able to get the webpage to load (it's a huge image) -

 

[Skrimpy]

I cant tell you how unusual this occurrence is, but the RCS is indeed orange. Pretty neat.

 

[Axelrodi202]

Separate him. You could create a new orange shrimp!

 

[ezcry4t3d]

Separate him. You could create a new orange shrimp!

Don't tempt me, I happen to have a 15gal that's been set up on my desk a couple months with nothing but plants in it. I was going to get a second type of shrimp once the tank matures.

 

[Axelrodi202]

Imagine if the guy who saw the first genetic mutation of CBS that created CRS thought the same way!

 

[aelysa]

You HAVE to breed that guy. Pick him out a huge harem of ladyfriends and add them to the 15.

 

[Axelrodi202]

How can you stand on the verge of discovery, and not act?

 

[fishsandwitch]

add unsaddle females so you know the orange guy gets em and not others

 

[[email protected]]

I have four orange shrimp currently. I presumed they were just a color variant.
Someone is breeding them somewhere as the LFS has them for sale.

 

[sewingalot]

Maybe it's his halloween costume? :hihi: He is very beautiful! Try to breed them and send them to us! Congratulations.

 

[Vladdy]

From the picture, I don't think it is very unusual. I have some red cherry shrimp and they look exactly like the shrimp in the photo. I have some crimson red red cherry shrimp and they have a tan line in their back. They look cool

 

[Hobbes1911]

separate ..... breed ..... raok......:hihi:

 

[Hobbes1911]

and outcross....... don't forget to outcross

 

[ezcry4t3d]

I have moved the orange shrimp to the 15 gal on my desk. I figure this will save me $25+ for a while since I won't be buying other shrimp for that tank anytime soon.

In the 7 days since I first posted, she is now showing the beginnings of a saddle. So much for me being able to sex juveniles, lol. (Not that anyone else pointed it out from the picture). This will slow breeding down since I'll only have one female to carry eggs instead of a harem.

Now I just need to pick out a big male and hope she is a good mom and carries most of her eggs to term.

 

[Hobbes1911]

ya that will certainly complicate matters. Good luck though and let us know what is happening.

 

[ezcry4t3d]

15 days since I noticed the saddle and the orange RCS is berried.
So far she seems to be carrying all the eggs, although she's not tucking them all up very well since it's her first time.
It's just her a a single male in this 15gal tank.
The tank is clean, all of what looks like dirt in the picture is some kind of copepod type thing...

Probably some people don't see the color difference between this and the standard red, and part of that is my photography skills. Once these eggs hatch I'll try pulling her and a standard red female out into a white holding container and get some better contrast pics.

 

[dxiong5]

Wow, those eggs are really popping out. Congrats, let's see what the babies look like...

 

[sewingalot]

Yeah!!!!! I am so excited to see if you get orange offspring.

 

[aelysa]

Or if anything, breeding the babies in this batch together might get you some oranges