Colours And Patterns Of Caridina Spwa4 North Australian Chameleon Shri

[Baccus]

These shrimp are a small shrimp generally staying smaller than average cherry shrimp, but what they lack in size they are more than capable of making up in WOW factor. And if you have the patience and time to gaze into their tank for a few hours you will be amazed not only at their surprising colour schemes, but also once breeding their sheer numbers provided everything else in the tank is to their liking.
They can and will change colour for a variety of reasons ranging from water paramaters, mood, and surroundings, and one thing is for certain they always keep you guessing.
Firstly a photo taken through the underside of a chameleon shrimp, where you can make out the barring down her back



In the photo she looks red with a white strip but in the flesh she was brownish with a solid tan strip, off to the left is another chameleon not showing as much colour


No flash

Same Shrimp with flash


The shrimp in front is a Blackmore River Shrimp (another Australian Native) and behind a chameleon shrimp




And finally blending in, the object of all the colour changing, look closely and you will see the heavily berried female, along with a couple of other shrimp most likely Blackmore River shrimp.






Don't worry about the mulm in the tank, its what enables so many of my native shrimplets to survive, and often the only way you can spot some of the smaller juvi shrimp as they pick up the bits of mulm and work it over as they feed.

 

[Baccus]

Some more pictures showing off their patterns

 

[LyraGuppi]

Beautiful.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Real nice, the stripes on back seems quite remiscient on a few species of shrimps 
 
Fan/Bamboo shrimps and Amano/Yatamo are two other examples which has a stripe along their backs.
 
But great photos and bet took you a while to get these

 

[NickAu]

Cool shrimp.

 

[Baccus]

Cherry Shrimp too will get a solid strip down the back, Chameleons will even take it a step further and have a broken stripe that looks like bars across their backs.

 Yes guilty as charged, it took me a while to take the photos, mostly because my camera is so frustrating focusing on small things and the flash doesnt seem to be positioned correctly so photo ops mean waiting till the shrimp are in just the right place in the tank.

 

[TallTree01]

They look great Baccus, Australias native shrimp are very unique.

 

[Baccus]

The really good thing about these chameleons is they breed in fresh water unlike another common named chameleon shrimp (Ninja Shrimp) Caridina serratorirostis.
 



And lastly a Blackmore River Shrimp

 
And yep our native species are pretty cool and more a being discovered.

 

[NickAu]

Where did you get them Baccus?

 

[Baccus]

I got these from Aquagreen, which is situated at Howard Springs near Darwin. A really good company to deal with. Since these shrimp and some plants where an Anniversary present they went the extra mile and even put a card in the parcel and gave me some freebie plants along with the lotus I ordered.

 

[Baccus]

Some more patterns showing off their amazing variations.




The large shrimp on the heater is a female riffle shrimp, and the little shrimp on top of the heater is another chameleon.




And lastly this stunner and berried.