The following sections will covered here:

1. Keeping
2. Feeding
3. Breeding

How to keep?

The ideal requirements for keeping these shrimps are a pH less than 7.5 and clean (ammonia/ammonium free) water. Temperatures in the 22-25C range are best. The are more sensitive species, they will mention below.

NO anmonia in the tank. It is fatal for them. They need pure & clean water. Normal bee shrimps are tough, but Crystal Red Shrimps are very sensitive.

PH6.2~7.2 temp22~25ĄC
If the water shift to alkaline, it means Ammonium ion in the tank water has reduced to ammonia, So I recommand to keep the tank water a little acidis for them. PH7.5 or over is dangerous for bee shrimps.

Small gravel is better for breeding them. (bare tank is no problem.)

TFilteration is necessary. But I'm now using upper flow filteration for my 100l tank, with no problem. You may renew 1/3 of the water in the tank a week.
I use Aquatan to remove chlorine & chloramine from tap water. Chemical is not good for them.

Neocardina species life is about 15 month. To grow up to adult needs for 6 months. An adult Crystal Red spawns 20~30 babies every month.

Feeding

They may eat algae, but other food is recommended for them. I use pellets they like it, but they ignore the boiled spinach, and the frozen daphnya. Oter sources mention that: "Fantinalis antipyretica/Riccia fluitans (a kind of moss) are good for them. Boild spinach is their favorite. As soon as you put spinach in your tank, they will come to eat it. You may treat to them one or two spinach every 3 days."

Mr. Suzuki - breeder

Breeding

A German site of Uta Wimmer at www.aquatime.de also reports a successful way of breeding.

According to this site the raising of the larvae requires then a clean, oxygen-containing water rich of food for the larva . The percentage of salt somewhere between brackish water and sea water.

The owner keeps his shrimps in tank of which :

       temperature :24 °C,

       GH: 21°d

       NO 2 : n.n.

       NO 3 : < 10 mg / l

       pH: 7,5

The females carry their eggs for about 4-6 weeks. The larva swim heading down once released.

Raising the larva in freshwater and brackish water of 17 g salt/l failed. The fresh water larva had disappeared after 6 days, the brackish water larvae after 10 days.
However the raising of the larva in brackish water of 30g / l succeeded. One day the owner sucked up 50-80 larva, after he spotted them in the parents tank. The tank of 30 g salt/l was prepared before. In the bucket with larva, during one hour, spoons of seawater were added, for approximately the same quantity as the freshwater. This for slowly adjustment to the new conditions.

Next, the larva were transferred into the 30g/l tank, again by hose.

Several times of day the larva were fed with some drops of Liquizell.

After four weeks small shrimps are then clearly recognizable, which move themselves downward however still head down.
After six weeks the first baby-shrimps sit on the bottom searching for food.

After eight weeks they reached a length of about 5-8 mm and they are fed with microcell and small green fodder pellets.
During the passed weeks several sea water changes were executed, each time 20% of the basin content.

After 12 weeks most shrimps have reached a length of 15-20 mm. Now it is time to decrease the salt concentration. Four water changes in five days were executed with fresh water (GH 21°d).

After 16 weeks the shrimps can be caught without any problem with a small net and eventually transferred to the main tank.

The owner reports that his shrimps develop great.

After five months one of the new females carried clearly visible for the first time eggs !.

The information of these pages are partly from the web, and partly from own sources.
For problems or questions regarding this web contact Coldhead@freemail.hu.
Last updated: október 31, 2003.