Everything else on this site descends from this shrimp. Before the blues, the rilis and the deep-flesh reds there was the red cherry: the original Neocaridina davidi colour line, the shrimp that built the hobby, and — twenty-odd years on — still the one we hand to every beginner who visits our room. Fancier lines have come and gone on our racks. The cherries have never left.
Red cherry shrimp at a glance
| Difficulty | Easy |
| Adult size | 2.5–3cm |
| Lifespan | 1–2 years |
| Temperature | 18–26°C |
| pH | 6.8–7.6 |
| GH | 6–12 |
| TDS | 150–250 |
| Breeding | Prolific |
What is a red cherry shrimp?
In the wild, Neocaridina davidi is a small, brownish, semi-translucent shrimp nobody would cross a room for. The red cherry is that animal selectively bred for red until the red became the point. Most accounts trace the line to Taiwanese breeders working from wild stock in the 1990s; whatever the exact story, by the early 2000s it had spread through the hobby worldwide and changed it for good. Every other Neocaridina colour — Blue Dream, Bloody Mary, orange, yellow, black — was selected out of the same species in its wake.
That history created a naming muddle worth clearing up front. "Cherry shrimp" means two things. Strictly, it's this shrimp: the red line. In practice, it's the umbrella term the whole hobby uses for every Neocaridina colour, which is why shops list Blue Dreams as "blue cherry shrimp" and why our own guides say "cherry shrimp" throughout. A listing that says cherry shrimp with no colour attached almost always means red. Care is identical whichever colour you land on, so the confusion is harmless — but it explains a lot of crossed wires in forum threads.
The red grading ladder
Red cherries are graded on coverage — how completely red hides the shell — and the ladder runs Cull → Cherry → Sakura → Fire Red → Painted Fire Red.
| Grade | What you're looking at |
|---|---|
| Cull | Mostly clear with flecks of red; pulled from the breeding line |
| Cherry | Recognisably red but patchy and translucent, with clear legs |
| Sakura | Denser red over most of the body, thin patches remaining |
| Fire Red | Solid red across the body, with red reaching into the legs |
| Painted Fire Red | Fully opaque, deep even red from rostrum to tail, legs included |
Two things stop new keepers misreading the ladder. Females always sit above the males of the same brood — larger, deeper, more opaque — so a slim, pale shrimp is usually a male rather than a mis-sold female. And the grades blur into each other at the edges, because sellers judge them by eye, honestly or otherwise. How to grade your own stock, and how the same ladder logic runs through every colour line, is in the Neocaridina grades guide.
Care
This is the shrimp every other beginner recommendation gets measured against, and it earns it. A cycled tank of 19L or more (10L at a push), a sponge filter, inert substrate and stable water inside the ranges above is the whole recipe. Stability matters more than any single number: an unheated UK room at 18–21°C is fine, with breeding simply running slower than it would at 21–24°C.
Most hard-water areas of the UK can keep red cherries straight from the dechlorinated tap, while soft-water areas need to remineralise to reach a GH of 6–12 for reliable moulting — check your region in the UK tap water guide. Feed a varied diet with some protein, dechlorinate every drop, and keep copper-based medications out of the building. The full day-to-day routine is in the cherry shrimp care guide.
Breeding
Prolific undersells it. Start with ten red cherries in good water and you can be looking at a few hundred within a year. Berried females carry 20–30 eggs for 14–21 days, shrimplets graze biofilm from day one with no larval stage to manage, and they're breeding themselves by 3–5 months. It's the best first breeding project in the hobby, and the step-by-step is in how to breed cherry shrimp.
Improving grade is nothing more than patient selection: your deepest, most even reds go into the breeding tank and the rest get rehomed. And keep the line pure. Every Neocaridina colour interbreeds freely, and mixed colour lines drift back to brownish wild-type shrimp within a couple of generations — the mechanics are in mixing Neocaridina colours.
Tank mates
Snails are safe company, small peaceful nano fish will ignore the adults but pick off shrimplets, and anything larger treats the colony as a buffet. Our breeding tanks are species-only, and a wall of red against dense green planting needs no supporting cast anyway. The tank mates guide grades the usual candidates.
Buying red cherry shrimp in the UK
Standard-grade red cherries run £2–4 per shrimp in the UK, and high-grade Fire Red and Painted Fire Red lines run £30–50 per 10. Red cherries are the easiest shrimp in the country to find, which cuts both ways: plenty of shop stock is washed out, mislabelled or quietly mixed-line. Ask for photos of the seller's actual shrimp, look for even red across the whole group rather than two show females at the front, and buy ten or more — cherry shrimp live as a colony, and ten gives the genetics room to breathe. Our own cherries are between batches while the colony restocks, so if nothing's listed, join the waitlist and we'll email you when the next broods are graded.
FAQ
Are red cherry shrimp good for beginners?
They're the beginner shrimp — the one we recommend before anything else. They tolerate the full 18–26°C range, forgive the small mistakes that would cost you dearer lines, breed readily, and cost £2–4 each, so the stakes stay low while you learn. Start here rather than with anything rarer.
What is the difference between cherry shrimp and red cherry shrimp?
Usually nothing. "Cherry shrimp" is both the proper name of this red line and the umbrella term for every Neocaridina davidi colour, so a listing that just says cherry shrimp almost always means red. The blues, oranges, blacks and rilis are the same species taken in different selective directions, with identical care.
How much do red cherry shrimp cost in the UK?
£2–4 per shrimp for standard grades, and £30–50 per 10 for high-grade Fire Red or Painted Fire Red lines. Cheaper is possible but usually means culls or washed-out stock. A group of ten standard cherries remains one of the cheapest ways into the hobby.
Do red cherry shrimp breed easily?
Yes — the most reliable breeders we keep. A mixed-sex group in stable, cycled water will berry without any encouragement, each female carrying 20–30 eggs for 14–21 days. Keep the line unmixed with other colours and select your best reds forward, and a colony sustains itself indefinitely.