Description
Neocaridina are the shrimp almost everyone starts with, and for good reason: they tolerate a wide range of water, they breed without you doing anything, and they spend the day grazing biofilm and leftovers.
Every colour variety you see in shops —Red Cherry, Blue Dream, Yellow Fire, Green Jade, Orange Sakura— is the same species, Neocaridina davidi, selected over generations from mutations. That has a practical consequence worth knowing before you buy: they interbreed, and the offspring revert to the mottled brown of the wild ancestor within two or three generations. If you want to keep a colour, keep a single variety per tank.
Compared with Caridina, which demand specific and stable parameters, here medium hardness and a steady temperature are enough. What kills them is usually not the water: it is copper, found in many plant fertilisers, in almost every fish antiparasitic and in snail treatments. A dose that is normal for a fish tank wipes out a colony in hours.
The other delicate moment is moulting: they come out soft and need minerals to rebuild the shell, so water that is too soft —GH below 4— causes failed moults, which are usually fatal.
