Rafał Maciaszek from Kumak Shrimp (http://www.kumakshrimp.com/), Poland, has been working on a color inheritance scheme for longtime, and did a lot of breeding experiments for it. His latest crossings come from the caridina cantonensis and the caridina serrata group – the later is known in common as ‘Tuepfel Shrimp’ mostly. The German word ‘Tüpfel’ can be translated as ‘pit’, and means that you see sprinkled dots on another color. The most recent color variations in c. serrata are the Tangerine Tiger and the Aura Blue Shrimp, both coming from Asia (China, Taiwan and Hong Kong).

By mixing shrimps with different background colors (here: orange and blue) both lose their intensity in the F1 offspring, that is why Rafal used P-shrimps with higher and lower values in the two breeding set ups. In both breeding experiments, the male-female constellation doesn’t matter; both have been tested several times. Here are his findings:

~ by Rafał Maciaszek ~

Basic Assumptions:I want to introduce the term ‘podpigment’ for describing the coloration of shrimp. Podpigment describes all color structures of a shrimp, situated and available in its body. F.e. a Tangerine Tiger is a full orange podpigmented shrimp; and Aura Blue is a a full blue podpigmented shrimp.

Both shrimps have also another type of pigment, simply called ‘pigment’ which describe all dots which are on shrimps presented in the pictures in this article. They usually occur as single spots, but they can build bigger structures like fragments of stripes or bands. The podpigment can dye other pigment dots to its color.

1. Standard coloration set up – shrimp with standard/average coloration

P-generation: Aura Blue mix (standard) x Tangerine Tiger (standard)F1 generation results: Aura Blue, Tangerine Tiger, low Tangerine Tiger, low Aura Blue, Apple Green Tangerine.

I have had two green shrimp from this batch – however Aura Blue Shrimp have even more blue pigment spots. I now also am able to explain why the pigment dots on Blue Tupfel Shrimp are black and not blue (black dots): The Tuepfel shrimp have a lower amount of podpigment, as they remain with black pigment spots, while the Aura Blue have the pigments spots colored to blue by podpigment factor, so they have a higher pigmentation value with which podpigment paints the spots to its blue color.

When there is easy with painting single pigment dots by higher podpigment value, there is often a problem with pigment’s dots located in groups like stripes or their fragments so they are often not colored with the podpigment color (see for example normal Tangerine Tigers). The Aura Blue shrimp doesn’t have fragments of stripes anymore, as they have been selective bred – so all pigment spots are blue.

Of course, there are shrimps with stripes and patterns colored by the podpigment: F.e. the Royal Blue Tiger.

2. High coloration set up, – shrimp with superior coloration

P-generation: Aura Blue (high) mix Tangerine Tiger (high)
F1 generation results: Aura Blue, Tangerine Tiger, Apple Green shrimp, Yellow shrimp.

Mixing the high values of blue podpigmented with the orange podpigmented shrimp will give green and yellow. To get a green or a yellow caridina shrimp, a special precondition is needed: Both shrimp of the p-generation must have similar, high podpigment’s color density. As there are different quantities of pigment spots on both shrimp, the Tangerine Tiger should have little better value of podpigment than the Aura Blue Shrimp (because the Aura Blue Shrimp has more pigment spots).