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Well...I come back with head in hands. Turns out my ph meter...an Apera...seemed to have outlived it's useful life and was giving my false high readings. I tossed it...got a new version of the same model and seems life is really ok as far as pH goes. My other issue of copepods remains to be resolved. As best I can tell...the fish I have in the tank have kept the copepod population in check...but I believe these suckers are happy to live below the substrate. Game plan is remove the fish soon to another tank and see if the copepods return..which I am betting is highly likely. If so...will have to break down the tank and start fresh.

I reckon you should go for it. Ensure you use next day delivery services and only ever ship on Mondays/Tuesdays to avoid parcels getting stuck at a depot over a weekend. When ever I sell shrimp, I always include 1 or two extra. Eg, if someone bought 10, I will pack 11 or 12 shrimp. That way, if one shrimp died on arrival, you don't have to wear the cost of re-shipping. Check weather forecasts for the next few days before sending, and try to avoid super hot days (30+ DegC). I don't think shrimp mind if it gets cold. But heat will kill them fast.

Welcome Tara, Do you have led lighting with some blue LEDs? I suspect that the shrimp that looks purple is probably a red reverting to wild, therefore poor quality of red and the blue leds make it look a bit purple. The marking on it as well make it look like it is a reverting to wild? Unfortunately it is quite unlikely to turn out to be a purple cherry but it will be interesting to see what it ends up being! I am very pleased to hear you are getting babies and berried shrimp, when they are newborn they are very very tiiny and often colourless so don't panic if you don't see them for a week or more once the eggs have hatched, and be extra careful when doing any water change or maintenance.

Now you will need a new tank for them all by themselves, so they keep breeding purple shrimps. This is how MTS (Multi Tank Syndrome) starts, and you suddenly go from 1 tank to 5 tanks.

Thanks jayc! It's good to have another pair of eyes to verify the colour, I was really confused as a newbie, I didn't know purple existed and this little guy is starting to look like an oil slick! Gosh I love my shrimpies so much!!

I'm obviously learning a lot as I go, so I can see my large Mystery snail is starting to look a bit calcium deficient. I can't stop thinking about the mystery of the strange coloured shrimp. It looks to be older than my tank, maybe he's about 5 months old? Anyone else care to speculate? The only thing I haven't done correctly was not quarantining my first live plants and the 5 new blue shrimp, which is how I got the second tiny snail... But there's no way a baby or dropped egg could have hitchhiked and survived AND grew up to look purple or get my attention by looking genetically weird. And why now after 2 months? Logically it has to be a shrimp reverting to wild. What is happening in my tank?!? ??

I know this is a controversial topic of sending live fish/invertebrates through the post, however, I have came to the conclusion that if I take all the precautions - double bagging, using polystyrene boxes, heat packs, using next day shipping services, etc - then I would be able to successfully ship live aquatics just like the many breeders across the country. I have quite a bit of experience (and success) shipping items from simple letters up to boxes weighing 15kg+ as I run a small eBay shop, so I firmly believe I would be able to have live fish and invertebrates arrive alive and well. The reason I want to do this as I would love to start breeding fish and raising young fry up to the point of sale, however, I do not feel I would be able to sell all fish locally as many fish give birth in the hundreds and I would be left with tanks full of fish. So I would want to be able to have the reassurance that I would be able to sell across the country and have a better chance of selling all of the fish. I have watched many videos and read many articles but I still have a few key unanswered questions: What courier should I use to post the fish? Are there any couriers which specialise in live fish? I see that many people use royal mail, however, I would not want to have to take a box labelled 'LIVE FISH' to the post office and get told I cant send the parcel even though royal mail policy allows it. I have heard of many people simply just not labelling the parcel to avoid any confusion. Would it be better to get the parcel collected from my home? Can I legally sell the fish online and post them? As far as I am aware the only relevant legal obstacles to this would be a lack of a 'pet shop license' which I believe I can get around as the fish fry would be classed as the offspring of a pet and would not have been bred with the intent to profit off of them. I think I have already answered this question for myself but any further input would be greatly appreciated. If anybody with experience in sending fish through the post has any recommendations/tips regarding this, i would really appreciate them. Thank you for reading this thread, and thank you in advance for any advice. :)

Thanks for both of your advice. I think royal mail would be the best option for me. Do you think it would be okay for me to get the item collected from my home rather than a post office as it isn't necessarily close by.

Even if you can find/get eggs (which I doubt) they would probably still not be allowed to be imported I would think?

I have recently had a couple of deliveries of shrimp using the Royal Mail next day by 1PM and that went well. I have had may deliveries of shrimp using that service over the years and never had a problem and to be honest, when I look to buy on ebay I will only buy from someone using that service (but that is due to this place isn't the usuall 'numbered house in a normal road' address and most courier drivers aren't all that bright so it confuses them, but that is specific to where I live and ANY ordinary address should be ok). There are a number of overnight couriers like DX and APC who I think would deliver fish but you will need to do your own research as to whether they have a licence for carrying fish and/or whether they will even deliver fish/shrimps, they keep changing since COVID, some that did now don't, and some that didn't now do, and it keeps changing???? Even Royal mail isn't what it was, as now they tend to just leave/abandon the package somewhere, rather than getting a signature and handing it to someone in person, and I think the delivery time may now be by 4pm, whereas it was by 1pm? I have only ever had one fish delivery through an overnight courier (not sure who it was but it was before covid, may have been DPD?) and that went ok as well. Any 24 hour/next day delivery should be fine but I would use one that will deliver live creatures specifically, and mark the package as such (and put the buyers phone number also on the outer package) as obviously a bit more care should be taken with live creatures. There are a lot of ebay sellers over here sending shrimp through the post, the parcels I get usually are marked 'live creatures' and I doubt most (if not all) aren't registered/licenced, or pet shops etc so I can't imagine there are any real restrictions or requirements. I imagine shrimp and fish are classified the same???? Packaging is pretty straightforward and you have mentioned all the aspects in your post, double breather bagged, packed in a polystyrene box padded with newspaper (and heatpack if needed).

Okay it's funny you should say that, I have a much larger tank for free recently, I just have to pick it up and check that it can hold water before I can start getting it cycled. I guess MTS has already started... I am so unbelievably excited about the babies my shrimp had, and the big yellow one ready to have babies any day, but now I'm seeing much bigger possibilities!! I really do wonder where the purple one came from, did it colour up after I got it or did I miss some Discovery channel stuff happening in my tank?! HAHAHA

Welcome to the forum Tara. Your shrimp looks purple alright. I wonder if it's a mix of the Red and Blue cherry. Hope you have fun breeding more!

Hey everyone, I'm new to the hobby, so Google lead me to this forum. Last night I found what looks like a purple Cherry! I've been in this hobby for all of 2 months, and haven't spent as many hours staring at my tank and it's inhabitants as I usually do lately, but I have red cherries, a berried yellow female, 5 blue shrimp that I'm unsure of sex, a little banana I think is a boy and 1 or 2 that look wild/low grade. Anywho, I have no idea how this happened!! https://photos.app.goo.gl/sWB3P2M5k5LGCZJg9