Is cherry shrimp a single species or several?

One species — Neocaridina davidi — across every colour strain. Fire reds, blue pearls, yellow neons, rili patterns: all the same fish, selectively bred over about thirty years of aquarium hobby work, mostly originating in Taiwan [2]. The wild form is drab brown-grey and almost unrecognisable next to the tank-bred colour morphs.

How many cherry shrimp should I start with?

Ten minimum. Below that the colony is genetically fragile — losing two or three shrimp in a row starts to feel like a death spiral, and it slightly is. Ten gives the colony redundancy; twenty gives you visible colony behaviour (shrimp grazing in small groups, males chasing berried females) within six weeks [8].

Do cherry shrimp breed in UK tap water?

Yes, almost everywhere. The breeding trigger is temperature stability and enough food; it's not sensitive to exact water chemistry like some other shrimp species. A 25 °C planted tank with no tank mates and a regular feeding schedule will produce berried females (carrying eggs) within four to eight weeks of adding the starter colony.

Which colour cherry shrimp holds colour best?

Fire reds and painted fire reds are the most colour-stable — decades of breeding have fixed the red pigment reliably. Yellow neons fade easily under bright light. Blue jellies can regress to grey if the colony inbreeds. Rili patterns (half-coloured, half-translucent) throw mixed offspring and need selective culling to maintain. If stability is the priority, start with Fire Reds or Painted Fire Reds.

Can cherry shrimp live with fish?

Adult cherries (1.5 cm+) tolerate peaceful community fish. Small tetras, corydoras, otocinclus, and honey gouramis all work. Shrimplets (under 0.5 cm) will be eaten — this is normal predation, and in a planted tank with dense moss cover roughly 20–40% of fry survive, which naturally caps colony growth at sustainable levels.

Do I need a heater for cherry shrimp in a UK flat?

Usually no. Cherry shrimp tolerate 18–28 °C comfortably. Most UK homes sit at 19–23 °C year-round — that's fine for a cherry colony. If your tank sits in an unheated bedroom that drops below 17 °C in winter, a 25 W heater stabilises everything.

What do cherry shrimp eat?

They eat biofilm — the translucent bacterial film that coats every surface in a mature tank. That's their primary food. You supplement with sinking shrimp wafers (Shrimp King, Bacter AE, blanched spinach) 2–3 times a week. Overfeeding crashes water quality faster than it causes obesity; feed what they clear in 2 hours and stop.

Can cherry shrimp and crystal red shrimp live together?

Not in the same tank long-term. Both are freshwater shrimp but they're different genera (Neocaridina vs Caridina) with different water-chemistry preferences — Caridina want soft, acidic water (pH 6.0, hardness under 6 dGH) while Neocaridina tolerate harder alkaline tap water. Keep them in separate tanks. They don't interbreed, but they don't thrive in the same water either [3].

How long do cherry shrimp live?

1.5 to 2.5 years in a stable colony — short by aquarium standards, but they reach breeding age at 3–4 months, so a colony of 20 produces 40–60 shrimplets a month at peak, and the colony sustains indefinitely. Individual lifespans are short; colony lifespans are effectively permanent.

Why are my cherry shrimp dying?

The three main causes, in frequency order: (1) copper contamination — new live plants often carry copper-based fertiliser residue; quarantine plants for 2 weeks; (2) ammonia spike in a new tank — cycle properly for 6–8 weeks before adding shrimp; (3) water change shock — a 50% water change with unmatched-parameter tap water kills colonies. Do 10–20% weekly changes with parameter-matched water.

Are cherry shrimp good for beginners?

Yes — once the tank is cycled. A well-cycled 30 L planted tank with no fish tank mates is the single easiest invertebrate setup you can run in the UK. The complication is that 'cycled' means 6–8 weeks of ammonia and nitrite readings at zero, which catches out new aquarists. Build the tank, feed bacteria for 6–8 weeks, THEN add shrimp.

Do cherry shrimp need a filter?

Yes. A sponge filter on a small air pump is ideal — gentle flow, large biofilm surface for grazing, no intake strong enough to suck in shrimplets. Avoid canister filters with unprotected intakes: baby shrimp get sucked into the impeller and killed. Sponge filters are £8 and the correct choice for a shrimp-only tank.

Cherry Shrimp UK Guide (2026) · Care · Stock

What a cherry shrimp actually is

Before the colour morphs, the marketing, and the planted-tank instagram photography — a cherry shrimp is a two-centimetre freshwater invertebrate from streams in southern China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Korea. The wild form is brown-grey and almost invisible against substrate ^[?].

Every colour you see in the UK hobby — fire red, painted fire red, rili, snow white, blue jelly, yellow neon, chocolate, green orange, blue pearl, carbon rili — is a selectively-bred strain of the same species, Neocaridina davidi ^[?]. The breeding work that created these colours happened mostly in Taiwan between the early 1990s and 2010s. Before that, the cherry shrimp in UK tanks was the ordinary red strain; now there are more colour lines than I can photograph in a year.

A Super Red Sakura Shrimp showing the deeper red saturation beyond standard Fire Reds

A Super Red Sakura. The grade sits between standard Fire Red and Painted Fire Red — deeper red coverage on the legs and underside, which are the body regions the grade system scores most strictly. Photo: Tropical Fish Co warehouse.

I'm Sophie Harding, the site's shrimp specialist. I started with a colony of blue velvet hitchhikers in a moss order back in 2014 and I now run twelve species-specific tanks at home with every year's selective breeding logged in spreadsheets. This page is what I'd want a beginner to read before they spent £50 on their first colony.

The welfare problem with live-shrimp shipping

Most UK hobbyists don't know this: live invertebrate shipping is regulated under the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) framework ^[?]. Sellers must use approved carriers — licensed live-animal courier service, APC Overnight live-stream, a licensed live-animal courier. Royal Mail does not carry live animals.

If you see cherry shrimp listed on eBay at £1.50 each "posted Royal Mail, heated pack included," that seller is shipping outside the rules. Casualty rates on those shipments run 30–50%. The shrimp that survive the bag often die in your tank within a week from the cumulative stress. Buying from that source isn't just a welfare problem — it's a cost problem.

Legitimate UK sources ship:

In insulated polystyrene boxes with temperature-matched heat or cool packs
Double-bagged with oxygen-charged headspace
Through approved carriers (APHA-approved live-animal carriers only)
With a live arrival guarantee that actually gets honoured
After a minimum 7-day species-isolated quarantine at the supplier

Check these before ordering from any UK shrimp vendor. If the answers aren't clear on their website, buy from someone else.

Colour strains — what's actually available in the UK

The colour strains you'll see in UK shops

Strain	Colour	Grade difficulty	Breeds true?
Cherry Red (standard)	Translucent red	Easy	Yes
Fire Red	Solid red body	Moderate	Yes with culling
Painted Fire Red	Red legs + body (highest grade)	Hard	Requires strict culling
Sakura	Red with underlying transparency	Moderate	Yes
Super Red Sakura	Deeper red than standard Sakura	Moderate	Yes with culling
Blue Pearl	Pale translucent blue	Easy	Yes
Blue Jelly	Solid blue	Moderate	Regresses if inbred
Blue Velvet / Dream Blue	Deep opaque blue	Hard	Requires culling
Yellow Neon	Electric yellow	Moderate	Fades under light
Chocolate	Dark brown-black	Easy	Yes
Green Orange (rare)	Green body, orange legs	Hard	Uncommon
Full Black / Carbon Rili	Solid black with optional rili patches	Moderate	Yes
Red Rili / Black Rili	Half-coloured, half-translucent	Hard	Throws mixed

Every strain is the same species and will interbreed. Mix two strains in the same tank and within six generations you get a brown-grey mixed colony — the wild ancestor re-emerging. If you want colour strains pure, run single-strain tanks.

Habits — what a day in the life looks like

Cherry shrimp are diurnal but active at all hours. A settled colony in a planted 30 L has roughly this daily rhythm:

Morning (lights on) — shrimp emerge from moss and hides and start grazing the tank floor + hardscape for biofilm
Mid-day — peak activity, visible grazing on plant leaves, wood, glass
Afternoon feeding — drop a sinking wafer; within 3 minutes every shrimp in the tank is on it
Evening (lights off) — activity drops slightly but shrimp continue grazing overnight
Female moulting (about monthly) — a berried female moults, releasing pheromones that trigger male scramble-mating within minutes. If you see 5–15 males swimming frantically around one female, that's what's happening. It lasts 30 minutes.

Watch for the scramble-mate

The male scramble after a female moult is one of the most reliable signs of a healthy colony. If you never see it, your colony is either too small (fewer than 8 adult males), too cold (below 20 °C slows reproduction), or the females aren't moulting on schedule (parameter instability, usually).

A Blue Cherry Shrimp on a planted substrate — the Blue Pearl strain

A Blue Cherry Shrimp. The "blue" is structural colour, not pigment — iridophore crystals scatter blue wavelengths. Under blue-biased LED lighting the colour intensifies visibly. Photo: Tropical Fish Co warehouse.

UK tap water and cherry shrimp — the postcode reality

Most UK aquarists over-complicate water chemistry for cherries. Neocaridina davidi is one of the most water-adaptable shrimp species in the UK trade. The FishBase ranges are:

pH: 6.5 to 8.0
General hardness: 6 to 15 dGH
Carbonate hardness: 2 to 10 dKH
TDS: 150 to 300 ppm

Check your water company's hardness report. If your postcode sits inside those ranges, you need no remineralisation and no water-chemistry kit beyond a decent dechlorinator.

London, Essex, Kent, Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire — all hard water, all fine for cherries. Scotland, the Lake District, parts of Wales — softer water, still fine (though Caridina species like crystal reds thrive here where they'd struggle in London).

The water-chemistry mistake to avoid

A 50% water change with straight tap water crashes TDS by 40%+ in one go. That kind of osmotic shock kills adult shrimp and causes failed moults (the fatal "stuck moult" where a shrimp can't escape its old shell). Change 10–20% weekly, temperature- matched to tank temp, parameter-matched within reason.

Weekly feeding schedule — what a healthy colony eats

There's no single "shrimp food" that covers everything. A colony needs variety: biofilm as the foundation, supplementary food for the calories, and occasional protein for breeding condition.

Day	Primary food	Portion (per 10 shrimp)	Why
Mon	Sinking shrimp wafer	1 wafer	Carbohydrate base, mineral supplement
Tue	(biofilm only — no feed)	—	Gut cleanse + natural grazing
Wed	Blanched courgette or cucumber	1 cm slice	Fibre + slow-release feeding
Thu	(biofilm only)	—	Gut cleanse
Fri	Bacter AE or Shrimp King mineral	1 pinch	Biofilm booster + calcium
Sat	Frozen baby brine shrimp	~5 ml thawed	Protein for breeding females
Sun	(biofilm only)	—	Recovery + moult prep

Remove any uneaten food after 2 hours. Over-feeding crashes water quality faster than under-feeding harms shrimp — they'll graze biofilm between feeds indefinitely.

Water chemistry conversion — read your water report

UK water companies publish hardness in mg/L CaCO₃. Most aquarium kits report in dGH or ppm. Here's the conversion at a glance:

Your water report says	dGH	ppm CaCO₃	Cherry-shrimp fit
Under 50 mg/L	< 3	< 50	Too soft — supplement minerals
50–100 mg/L	3–6	50–100	Soft-water OK for standard strains
100–200 mg/L	6–11	100–200	Ideal — full colour + breeding
200–300 mg/L	11–17	200–300	Hard water, still fine
Over 300 mg/L	> 17	> 300	Very hard — consider partial RO blend

1 dGH ≈ 17.9 mg/L CaCO₃. Read your postcode's hardness at your water supplier's quality-report page; cross-reference this table before building the tank.

Quick troubleshooting — symptom to cause

What you see	Most likely cause	What to do
White milky shrimp on substrate	Recent moult (not death)	Leave 24 hrs — they eat the shell
Shrimp on glass + cord to surface	Low dissolved O₂	Add airstone, reduce temp
Stuck moulting (half out of shell)	TDS crash from water change	10% change only; match TDS
Red females but no eggs	Males failing to mature	Check male:female ratio, need 1:2
Colony dwindling over months	Copper contamination	Quarantine plants 2 weeks, test water
All shrimp hiding	New tank mates harassing	Remove fish or bolster plant cover

What to look for when picking individual shrimp

Fully extended body — healthy shrimp stand tall on their legs. Curled = stress or recent moult failure.
Solid colour saturation (opaque strains) or clear translucency (rili/jelly strains). Washed-out = poor conditioning.
Active antennae — constantly twitching the water.
Complete appendages — six walking legs, two antennae, both eyes. Missing bits come from rough packing or aggressive tank mates at the supplier.

Watch: a settled cherry shrimp colony feeding

A 60 L planted shrimp-only tank. Fire Reds + Blue Jellies co-existing — same species, the colours will eventually blend into brown-grey without culling. Our in-house display tank at the warehouse.

Tank setup — the minimum viable colony

30 L tank — 20 L works, 30 L is where parameters stay stable under the heavier bioload of a breeding colony
Sponge filter on air pump (£8). Skip canister filters unless you add intake mesh
Live plants — java moss, fissidens, christmas moss, guppy grass, frogbit. Moss is the nursery for shrimplets
Dark substrate — brings out shrimp colour; any aquarium- safe gravel or aquasoil works
Driftwood or almond leaves — for tannins (gentle antibacterial benefit) and biofilm surface area
No fish for a starter colony — fish eat shrimplets indefinitely and prevent colony establishment

Community + clubs

The UK shrimp-keeping community is small but active:

UK Aquatic Plant Society (UKAPS) shrimp forum — the primary UK community for water-chemistry questions and breeder trades ^[?]
British Livebearer Association has an invertebrate section at its annual show
Facebook "UK Shrimp Keepers" — 8,000+ members, UK-focused breeder swaps
Reddit r/shrimptank — international but UK-active
Instagram #UKShrimp + #ukaquascape — photography-focused

When your cherry shrimp arrive — our welfare protocol

Cherry shrimp ship via a licensed live-animal courier in our standard live-animal packaging. Our acclimation protocol is slower than fish because invertebrates are more osmotically sensitive.

Dim room, quiet unpacking
Float the sealed bag for 30 minutes — temperature equalisation (longer than fish because shrimp are more sensitive)
Drip-acclimate for 60–90 minutes at 1 drop per second — the slow drip matches their osmoregulation rate. Rushing this step causes stuck moults.
Net into the tank gently (never pour bag water into the display)
Lights off for 4 hours
No feeding for 24 hours

First-week survival rate on our cherry shrimp shipments over the last 12 months: 99.3%. The 0.7% casualty rate is covered by the Live Arrival Guarantee — photograph the bag on arrival with visible DOA shrimp, we refund or replace.

Ready for more?

The cherry shrimp care guide goes deeper on breeding, culling, and long-term colony management.

For the algae-specialist alternative, see our amano shrimp guide — different genus, different purpose, often kept alongside cherries in planted tanks.

The full live-shrimp and invertebrate range is at the shrimps & crustaceans hub. For broader invertebrate husbandry basics, the shrimp keeping care guide.

Cherry Shrimp UK: Colour Strains, Water, Welfare & Every In-Stock Morph