Patch on head or just internals on view?

[stephwheels]

Hi - I'm wondering what you peeps think about this black patch in the photo below. The shrimp population seems to have exploded and I would say it is a healthy tank. They are very active and out and about much of the time. I have seen one or two with this kind of thing - very few and far apart, and of the couple of dead shrimp i've had so far, none showed this. I'm pretty sure the other one I noticed like this was also berried. I'm adding 2 photos - on of the issue I'm asking about, and another of the shrimp in general so you can see their conditions etc. And also one more of another berried girl with no darkness. Thanks🙂

[sdlTBfanUK]

Personally I don't think there is a problem, the black is beneath the shell and in an area that is usually not visible where there are organs etc. This shrimp has very poor quality colouring unless maybe it was supposed to be a 'red rili', but is still interesting, and early berried (the eggs are still yellow, the yolks)! 

[stephwheels]

Hi and thanks for your response. One thing I thought to add afterwards is that she has the same patch both sides of her head - making it seem less "disease like" to me.

I think her colour is just the photo at a bad angle perhaps. What do you think of the colour of the the girl in the other pics?

[sdlTBfanUK]

The second photo looks like a bloody mary or a very high quality at least.

[stephwheels]

2 hours ago, sdlTBfanUK said:

The second photo looks like a bloody mary or a very high quality at least.

That is the first I have heard of Bloody Mary's, but just did some quick research from which I understand they have red pigmented flesh rather than shells. All the molts I see are definitely clear or white in colour - does that support the Bloody Mary theory? Or are CRS molts the same? Thanks for the input 😊

[sdlTBfanUK]

All shrimp molts are clear, sometimes called ghosts (I think that is a great description, not to be confused with ghost shrimp though)  so you can't really tell by that (even caridina shrimp molts are clear as well) and very high quality Red cherry do look very similar to bloody mary shrimp. People thnk the last lot of shrimp I bought were bloody mary, but they were just very good grade red cherry (bloody mary were out of stock at the time).

[stephwheels]

Ok - thanks for that. I did some more research and found some useful info on this page

https://aquariumbreeder.com/red-cherry-shrimp-grading-with-pictures/

I think i have some Rili's in there too lol. Now I know i need to keep up with the selection program!

2 hours ago, sdlTBfanUK said:

The second photo looks like a bloody mary or a very high quality at least.

That is the first I have heard of Bloody Mary's, but just did some quick research from which I understand they have red pigmented flesh rather than shells. All the molts I see are definitely clear or white in colour - does that support the Bloody Mary theory? Or are CRS molts the same? Thanks for the input 😊