Black Snowflake Fishbone

A black shrimp under thick white markings, with snow-like speckling across its belly and a clean fishbone ladder down its back.

Arrives young, with the pattern roughed in and only a hint of the metallic sheen. Both sharpen and intensify as they mature — green on some, blue on others.

Three price levels, set by how dense that snow speckling is — already visible when they arrive. The dearer ones simply have more of it.

Caridina — wants soft, slightly acidic water and a tank that has been running a while. Not a first shrimp. Numbers in the FAQ.

The Black Snowflake Fishbone is a Caridina classic — deep black tissue under thick white porcelain, carrying the heavy, snow-like belly spotting that gives the line its name and the fishbone dorsal that gives it the rest. What sets this colony apart is what the porcelain does with age: the black base never changes, but as the shrimp mature the white coverage takes on a luminous metallic finish, most often shifting toward green or blue.

About the photo. The shrimp pictured is High or Collector grade. We ship unsexed juveniles, so treat the main photo as the target, not the arrival. The fishbone dorsal, the belly spotting and the metallic sheen all sharpen with maturity — juveniles land with the pattern roughed in and the colour still coming.

Four traits define a true Snowflake Fishbone, and they sharpen as the shrimp matures.

• Belly spotting: The hallmark of the line — distinct, heavy, snow-like spotting across the lower abdomen, held separate from the dorsal pattern.
• Fishbone dorsal: A clean ladder pattern running down the back — finer and more decorative than the thick stripe on a Boa.
• Metallic porcelain: Dense, opaque white coverage that shifts toward a glowing green or blue metallic as the shrimp grows. A thick shell looks shiny and solid; a thin one dull, with see-through patches.
• Spider legs: The body pattern carried onto the legs — black patches with white. Leg colour follows shell thickness, so the higher grades show it first.

We grade by the traits that genuinely vary within a batch. A Snowflake Fishbone is graded first on its spotting — the snow-like coverage on the belly “skirt” and the head — and that density is readable at the size we ship. Belly spots and skirting are the main separator; head spots are a looser guide than on a Boa (Mid and High around 50–70% of the head, Collector 70% and above); a cleaner fishbone and thicker, shinier white come with the higher grades.

Mid carries a medium spotting density, visible snow across the belly skirt and head but with gaps. High carries much heavier spotting across both the belly and the head, with a cleaner fishbone dorsal behind it. Collector is the top of the pull — the densest snow coverage across belly and head with the cleanest dorsal, in limited numbers. The metallic shift across the porcelain still builds with maturity on every grade.

Grading is done by eye at shipping size, on what the shrimp shows then. Shrimp rarely move a grade as they grow, but water matters: poor water costs colour and shell.