Neocaridina held on dechlorinated San Diego tap water at the Convoy store, so what you take home is already living in roughly what comes out of your tap. Caridina need softer, more acidic water than the tap, so we help you set that up first. Collect in person, or have it shipped under the Pet Zone live arrival guarantee.
Stock changes weekly and colour lines vary by shipment. Call ahead for a specific grade.
Both come out of the same tanks at Convoy. The difference is only how they reach you.
Build a pickup list here and send it over. We confirm what is in the tanks, bag it, and hold it. You inspect everything and pay in store. Nothing is charged online.
The full shrimp catalogue — well beyond what is listed here — is on petzonesd.com, shipping nationwide under the Pet Zone live arrival guarantee.
Shop petzonesd.compH is the reading everyone checks and the one that tells you least. GH and TDS are what a shrimp actually lives in. A TDS meter costs less than five shrimp and saves you more than that in the first month.
Shrimp handle a surprisingly wide range of conditions and almost no movement between them. Drip acclimate over an hour at minimum, and match TDS between your change water and your tank.
It is in most general fish medications and in some plant fertilisers, and it does not take much. Read the label on anything you dose before it goes near a shrimp tank.
If your colony holds steady but never grows, it is not the water. It is almost always a fish you were told was peaceful. Cover for the babies and a sponge over the filter intake fix most of it.
Never kept shrimp? Start with neocaridina and get a colony breeding before you spend money on bee shrimp. Bring a water sample in either way and we will test it.
Hardy, forgiving, and comfortable on dechlorinated San Diego tap water, even though it runs on the hard side. Leave them alone in a stable planted tank and they will breed without any help from you.
Full Neocaridina guide — colours, water, breeding →Soft, low-TDS water on buffering substrate, which here means starting from RO and remineralising to a target rather than treating what comes out of the faucet. In return, patterning neocaridina cannot touch. Not a first shrimp.
Full Caridina guide — RO setup, grading, taiwan bees →The shrimp you buy for a job rather than for colour. Amano graze algae nothing else will touch, the filter feeders pull food straight out of the current, and none of these will crossbreed with your neocaridina or caridina colonies.
Remineralisers, foods, botanicals and test gear. The unglamorous half of the hobby, and the half that decides whether a colony thrives or quietly disappears over a month.
The most common expensive mistake in this hobby is buying caridina for a tank that was set up for neocaridina. They are not interchangeable and they cannot share a system.
Side-by-side: Neocaridina vs Caridina → Full parameter reference for every species →Most San Diego homes sit in range year round without a heater. Colour deepens with a dark substrate, steady feeding and low stress.
Stability matters more than hitting an exact number. Buffering substrate is not optional — it is what holds the pH down where these shrimp need it.
Neocaridina and Caridina need opposite water chemistry. Housing them together means one group is always wrong, and that group will slowly fail to moult. Keep two separate tanks, or pick one.
Shrimp live at the Convoy store, which is our aquascape shop — so the plants, soil, botanicals and remineralisers that go with them are on the same shelf. Build a pickup list here and we will confirm what is in stock and hold it for you.
Build your list. Nothing is charged and nothing is committed.
Send it over. We confirm what is in and when it will be bagged. Stock moves weekly.
Collect and pay in store. Bring a water sample and we will test it before you commit to anything.
Prefer it shipped? Everything here also ships from petzonesd.com under the Pet Zone live arrival guarantee.
4160 Convoy St, San Diego, CA 92111
Pet Zone Mid-City — 4266 University Ave, San Diego, CA 92105. That is the monster fish and koi shop; shrimp stay at Convoy.
No, and it is the mistake that costs people the most money. They want opposite water — neos harder and more alkaline, caridina soft and acidic on buffering soil. In a shared tank one group is always wrong, and the damage shows up slowly as failed moults rather than obvious deaths. Two tanks, or pick one.
Cherry red neocaridina, in a cycled planted tank with inert substrate and a sponge filter. Get a colony breeding on its own before you spend money on bee shrimp. A neocaridina colony that has held for three months tells you your husbandry is good enough for caridina; nothing else does.
Almost never the parameters they arrived into — almost always the speed of the change. A fast swing does its damage slowly enough that the losses show up days later, long after the acclimation that caused them. Drip acclimate over an hour at minimum and match TDS between your change water and your tank.
GH and TDS. pH is the reading everyone checks and the one that tells you least about whether a shrimp will thrive. Buy a TDS meter before you buy the shrimp — it is the cheapest piece of equipment in this hobby and the one that tells you the most.
Something is eating the shrimplets, and it is usually a fish you were told was peaceful. Add cover — moss, botanicals, dense planting — and put a sponge over any filter intake. If there are no fish in the tank at all, look at your GH; low calcium stops shrimplets developing.
Both. Collecting at the Convoy store costs nothing and lets you see the shrimp before you pay. If you would rather have them shipped, the same stock goes out from petzonesd.com under the Pet Zone live arrival guarantee.
Yes, and we would rather you did, particularly before you buy caridina. We will test it and tell you honestly whether your tank is ready or whether you should wait a few weeks.
Ten to fifteen for a neocaridina colony. That is enough spread to breed reliably and enough that you still see shrimp when half of them are hiding. Buying five tends to produce a colony that never quite establishes.
S through SSS, describing how much solid white the shrimp carries and how opaque it is. Higher grades cost more and look better. They are not hardier — the water requirements are identical, so grade is a cosmetic decision, not a husbandry one.
Stock changes weekly and colour lines vary by shipment. Call ahead on (858) 987-0309 if you are after a specific grade or line and we will tell you what is actually in the tanks.