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I don't think that shrimp will go blue, it looks like a lovelly red, maybe a bloody mary! It is true that the colour fades in transit and then colour up after a few weeks, but I doubt they change colour! You will need to decide whether to keep it with the blues at some point as if it breeds with them it will speed up their reverting to wild type, boring clear or browns? Even both parents being blue you will need to cull off poor quality shrimps to keep the overall colours good. I would leave the red one in there for now though! Those parameters look good and I am pleased to hear the shrimps seem to be doing well at the moment. Simon

As JayC states, you don't know what makes up the TDS figure. As you know what is going into the water is balanced for the shrimps health with GH/KH+ that gives you a good starting point, though there will be some things over time that get used up and others that build up. I think JayC has recommended to me that a very large water change once a year or so should be done to bring everything back into line as after a long period the tds figure of the tank may be right but not have the ideal proportions of everything that makes up that total figure. Yesterday I did my betta tank, I like to keep that at about tds240, the tank was tds253, so the replacement water (20%) I mixed at tds175 and that should bring it back to near the tds240 I want. As it has been fairly cool down here the last week some of the tds build up will have been due to evaporation I expect! TDS is the easiest parameter to use generally as a tds pen is cheap and quick to use, but it does only give you a rough idea, however most people find that sufficient for the normal running of the aquarium, especially when using a pre-prepared product like GH/KH+ with RO water which will give you the right PH, GH, KH balance anyway, unless something else in the tank is altering any of those (ie rocks can alter PH etc)! I then test everything generally every few months or so. Cherry shrimp are quite adaptable and strong so adapt quite well, so you shouldn't need to worry about tds in general, just choose a figure, say 175 (mid JayC figure) and aim for that and you should be fine as that gives you a sufficient buffer each side of that figure for any fluctuations due to evaporation etc. My old(est) neglected fish tank has hundreds of cherry shrimp (90% boring/wild now) and they have lived happily in that tank at about tds225 for years! I also have some of those same shrimps in the betta tank as well, which, as mentioned, is around tds240! Simon

Thanks Simon I don’t think it’s going to change either when it arrived it was extremely light blue almost see through but definitely had a blue colour to it then after 24 hours it turned this cherry red. I didn’t mind because it actually stood out more against the almost black substrate. Once im more confident and comfortable I’m going to get another tank one to keep the good coloured ones in one and the other for those not so colourful I just have to decide what colour shrimp I want to go and stick with.

So just done checks and my ph is 7.21 and my TDS is 208 so I’ll bring it down just a little bit next time I need to do a change and the Ammonia is 0 so I’m happy the shrimp seem happy. Also I wanted to ask do the shrimp start off as one colour and as they age then turn another. Reason I ask is I contacted the seller when I bought them to say that one has turned red he then said it would change blue in a couple weeks. I just wanted to know if that’s true or not here is a picture of the so called blue dream

That's what the TDS meter measures. Dissolved Solids. The recommended range for Neocaridina is 150-200. Some people say the upper limit is 300, but I like to keep things at a tighter range. The problem with TDS measurements is that it doesn't tell you what mineral is building up. However, in an aquarium, we can make a good assumption that Nitrates will be building up.

Just remembered that we were talking about the water evaporation and putting fresh water in. Well I just thought what is the danger level of to much mineral and what can result other than death