FAQ

Dwarf shrimp come in three groups. They look similar and all of them graze quietly on algae, but they want completely different water — which is the one thing worth getting right before you buy anything.

• Neocaridina — Cherry, Blue Dream, Snowball, Bloody Mary and the rest. The beginner's shrimp: hardy, forgiving of mistakes, and happy in ordinary treated tap water. Start here.
• Caridina — the “bee” shrimp: Crystal Red, Taiwan Bee, King Kong, Boa, Galaxy Tiger. They need soft, slightly acidic water, which in practice means purified water with minerals added back, over a special substrate. A step up.
• Sulawesi — Cardinal, Blue Leg Poso and the other lake species. They want the opposite of Caridina: hard, alkaline and warm. The hardest of the three, and not a first tank. Blue Leg Poso is the most forgiving of them, and the one to learn on.

A tank set up for one group is not set up for another. If this is your first shrimp tank, buy Neocaridina and enjoy them; the others will still be here later.

We ship unsexed juveniles at 0.6–1.2 cm — roughly the size of a grain of rice. Unsexed simply means too young to tell male from female; they sort themselves out as they grow. Shipping at this size gives the best adaptation to your water and the highest survival rates, and keeps premium genetics accessibly priced. If you’re after adults, contact us — they run about twice the price of a juvenile, save you at least two months, and let you pick the exact animals. Berried females go through our auctions when we have them.

Collector is our highest grade. Entry is our most accessible. The ladder runs Collector · High · Mid · Entry, and a grade word means the same selection standard on every line — a High shrimp meets the same bar whichever line it comes from. Not every line carries every tier. (Long-time keepers: this naming replaces both our old letter grades and our old numbered grades — the standards behind them are unchanged.)

Grading describes appearance only. It is not a health rating. An Entry or Mid shrimp from us is just as healthy, just as hardy and from exactly the same lineage as a Collector one — it simply shows less of the pattern traits that are difficult to breed for.

What we grade on depends on the line, because the lines differ in what actually varies. Each product page’s Grading panel gives the exact scale for that line; in short:

• Boa lines — how much of the head is white (Mid around 40–50%, High up to about 80%, Collector near full), how thick and clean the body stripe is, shell thickness, the colour tone the white takes on, and leg colour.
• Galaxy Tigers (Hornet, Red Wasp, Metallic Purple) — the number and neatness of the white bands (Entry 1–3, Mid 2–3, High 3–4, Collector 4–5), the tone on the bands, shell thickness and leg colour. The pattern is set at the size we ship.
• Snowflake Fishbones — the density of the snow-like spots on the belly and head, then the fishbone down the back and the thickness of the white.
• Fancy Tigers — a Crystal cross, so how solid the red or black is, how thick and bright the white is, and the band count. No metallic on these.

Two things are true on every line. The body’s base colour — red or black — never changes; what develops with age is the tone the white pattern takes on (blue or green on a Boa, orange on a Hornet, pink on a Red Wasp). The one exception is the Dark Red bloodlines — Red Snowflake Fishbone, Dark Red Panda, Red King Kong and Dark Red Ex KingKong — where the red itself genuinely deepens with age and some finish burgundy. And “spider legs” means the body pattern carried onto the legs; how solid it is follows shell thickness, so the higher grades show it first and Entry and Mid may never fill the legs.

Two honest caveats. Grading is done by eye at shipping size, on what the shrimp shows then; shrimp rarely move a grade as they grow, but poor water costs colour and shell, and every shrimp arrives pale from the trip and colours back up within days. And grade names are not standardised anywhere in this hobby; one seller’s “SSS” is another’s “SS”. Ours describe our own stock only.

Start at the accessible end — Entry where a line carries it, otherwise Mid — and it isn’t a compromise. It carries the same lineage and the same hardiness as our top tiers at the most accessible price — ideal while you’re still dialling in your water and settling into a routine.

Step up to High or Collector when you’re breeding deliberately and want the strongest traits in your parent stock.

You’ll also notice many of our listings offer no grade choice at all. That’s deliberate: for those colonies we’ve chosen not to split them into tiers, because chasing a “perfect” pattern requires heavy culling — repeatedly pulling out every shrimp that doesn’t make the visual bar — which pushes the price up for no gain in health. Every shrimp in a single-grade listing meets one standard.

Close, but not identical — and that’s biology, not marketing. Every shrimp is an individual. No two carry exactly the same pattern, and that is especially true of Caridina, where head coverage, dorsal wave and shell thickness vary animal to animal within the same grade, from the same parents, in the same tank.

Our listing photos and videos show representative animals from that line and grade, not the specific shrimp that will be bagged for you. We also ship juveniles at 0.6–1.2 cm, so colour and pattern are still developing — a grade describes where a shrimp is heading, not how it looks the day it arrives.

Auction lots are the exception. Those are marked WYSIWYG — what you see is what you get. The photos and video on an auction lot are the actual animals you will receive, and nothing is substituted. See our Auction Terms.

None of this limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

Four words appear on every test kit. In plain terms:

• pH — how acidic or alkaline the water is. Below 7 is acidic, above 7 alkaline.
• GH (general hardness) — how much calcium and magnesium is dissolved in the water. Shrimp need both to build a new shell each time they moult, which is when they shed the old shell to grow.
• KH (carbonate hardness) — how strongly the water resists a change in pH. Low KH lets an acidic substrate do its job; high KH fights it.
• TDS (total dissolved solids) — everything dissolved in the water added together, read with an inexpensive pen. The quickest routine check.

Our target ranges:

Three things that matter more than hitting an exact number:

• Steady beats perfect. Shrimp handle a reading slightly outside the range far better than they handle it moving around.
• A KH near zero is correct for Caridina, not a fault — added carbonate works against the acidic substrate those tanks depend on.
• Nitrate under 20 ppm for Neocaridina, and low for the others. Small, regular water changes keep it there.

How we keep ours. Our Neocaridina colonies are raised directly in tap water through a 3-stage filter (chlorine and sediment only — no RO membrane, so the natural minerals stay in). Input TDS sits around 60; we dose shrimp minerals up to a target TDS of ~160 (GH varies with the remineraliser used — the powder that puts minerals back). We keep them deliberately close to ordinary treated tap water so that moving into a normal home aquarium is an easy step. Our Caridina are kept on RO water — reverse osmosis, water filtered back to almost nothing — with a GH-only remineraliser added back, over an active substrate that produces the low pH for them.

Standard post is $12 flat and express post is $25 flat, anywhere in Australia. Orders of $250 or more ship free — and that is measured on your whole order, livestock and dry goods added together.

All livestock travels express; it is the only service that reliably gets animals to you alive, so there is no cheaper option on live orders. If your order contains both livestock and dry goods they are sent as two parcels with two tracking numbers, at no extra charge — that way the animals are never held up waiting on a heavy box. Full detail: Shipping Policy.

We can’t send live animals to Western Australia, the Northern Territory or Tasmania. Dry goods are no problem anywhere in Australia. If you’re in one of those states, get in touch and we’ll tell you exactly what we can send you.

Everything is in your account: your orders, tracking and anything you’ve saved. If you have ordered from us before, that account already exists — we created it from your email address at checkout, so there is nothing to set up. Sign in with that same email and we’ll send you a six-digit code. There is no password to invent.

Your confirmation and shipping emails also link straight to the order itself, which works without signing in at all.

Yes — any time before it is dispatched, for a full refund of your deposit. Email us with your order number and we’ll sort it.

Pre-orders come with 20% extra shrimp on top of what you ordered (orders under 10 get 1 extra). Those bonus animals are a gift rather than part of the paid order, so they sit outside the Live Arrival Guarantee — the shrimp you actually paid for are covered as normal.

Livestock ships express on Mondays and Tuesdays so it’s never in transit over a weekend. If tracking shows nothing for 48 hours after dispatch, contact us and lodge an enquiry with Australia Post — we’ll chase it from our end too.

Every livestock order is covered. If any animals arrive deceased, contact us within 8 hours of delivery with your order number plus photos and a short video, and you choose the remedy: a refund of the livestock value, free replacements, or store credit — all three cost you nothing. Full details, including how transit time affects a claim: DOA & Missing Items Policy.

Shrimp weaken the longer they’re bagged, so cover is tiered by how long the parcel actually took — dispatch to delivery, per Australia Post tracking:

• Up to 48 hours — full cover.
• 48 to 96 hours — 50% cover.
• More than 96 hours — outside the guarantee, but get in touch and we’ll work out something fair.

These are the tiers we settle automatically. They don’t limit your rights under the Australian Consumer Law, which apply regardless.

One exception: a single-animal auction lot is not tiered — half of one shrimp is not a remedy. A valid claim on a one-off specimen is settled in full whatever the transit time, with an equivalent-or-better replacement, a refund or store credit. Lots of several animals follow the tiers above.

DOA means dead on arrival — ideally photographed in the sealed bag, which is what makes a claim quickest to approve. If you’d already opened the bag to start acclimating — easing them into your water gradually, rather than tipping them straight in — photograph them straight away and tell us what happened; we’ll still assess it. Shrimp that arrive pale or still are usually fine — they colour back up within hours to a few days (a Green Emerald can take about a week). Losses after acclimation begins, free or bonus animals, and parcels left unattended or collected late aren’t covered.

Within 8 hours of the tracked delivery, send your order number, clear photos and a short video. A message on Facebook or Instagram is easiest — photos and video attach in a couple of taps — or email support@shrimpzone.com.au. What counts is when you send it, not when we reply. Please don’t dispose of anything until we confirm the claim.

Unfortunately no. Live animals must be received in person on the day of delivery, so the guarantee doesn’t apply to safe-dropped parcels, PO Boxes, parcel lockers, or post-office collections. Please ship to an address where someone’s home.

Contact us the same day with photos and a video — we’d rather look at it with you early. Once animals go into your tank, your water takes over and the guarantee ends, so always drip-acclimate first: let your tank water drip slowly into their bag over an hour or two, so the change in water happens gradually instead of all at once.

Tell us within 24 hours of delivery with your order number and a photo of what you received (an unboxing video helps). We’ll send the missing item or refund it.

No — for the animals’ welfare and for biosecurity (stopping pests and disease travelling between tanks), livestock and plants can’t be returned. Arrival problems are handled under the Live Arrival Guarantee instead.

Yes — unopened items in original packaging within 30 days. Contact us first; you cover return postage and the original shipping cost is deducted from the refund. Opened consumables and anything that’s been in a tank can’t come back.

Send us photos and a short video within 48 hours of delivery — the item and its packaging both, since how it was packed usually explains what happened. We’ll replace it, credit you or refund it, whichever you’d rather.

This 48-hour window is for equipment and supplies only. Live animals and plants are covered by the 8-hour Live Arrival Guarantee — if shrimp arrived deceased, use that instead, and don’t wait.

Once approved, refunds go back to your original payment method within 5–10 business days, and we’ll email you when it’s processed.