Pink-Based Red Boa

A red shrimp whose white markings warm to pink and do not settle to a dull white.

It arrives young, well short of its final colour. The pink deepens and the white thickens as they mature, and the colour keeps strengthening with size.

Four price levels, set by how much white covers the head, how clean the body pattern is and how thick the shell is. All of it is already visible on arrival, and the dearer levels have more of it.

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

The Pink-Based Red Boa is a Caridina from the Red Boa family, bred here for one uncommon pigment trait. The red body never changes. On a standard Red Boa the white pattern over it often settles dull or yellowish. In this line it warms toward a luminous pink, and over solid red that layer gives the shell a three-dimensional look, lit from within.

About the photo. The shrimp pictured is High or Collector grade. We ship unsexed juveniles, so the photo shows the target. Head coverage, body pattern and the pink itself all sharpen with maturity, and the older and larger they get, the stronger the pink. Adults are available on request if you would prefer to skip the wait.

Five traits define a true Boa, and each keeps developing after arrival.

• The hood: White spreading over the head and carapace, down to the cheeks.
• The body stripe: A thick “fishbone” stripe down the back, reaching close to the edge of the belly. It is either a clean, straight-cut “boa” look or a saw-edged “jagged” look. Both are correct, and the fewer breaks in it, the better.
• Shell thickness: A thick shell looks shiny and solid. A thin one looks dull, with see-through patches.
• The pink: The red base stays red. The white pattern warms toward pink as the shrimp matures, and the intensity follows size, so juveniles land well short of their final colour. It shows most on females, and most of all after a female has carried eggs (been “berried”) for the second time, at roughly three to four months old.
• Spider legs: The body pattern carried onto the legs, with red patches and white. The white takes the same pink tone as the body, only subtler. Leg colour follows shell thickness, so the higher grades show it first.

The pattern keeps spreading and shifting as the shrimp ages, so a Boa looks better with time. Every shrimp arrives pale from the trip and colours back up within hours to a few days.

A Pink-Based Red Boa is graded exactly like the Blue/Green Galaxy Boa, over red instead of black. Five things vary, and all five are readable at the size we ship, so this line sorts into four grades.

• Head coverage: Mid sits around 40 to 70%, High up to about 80%, Collector 95% or the full head.
• Body pattern: Thick, in the boa look or the jagged look. The higher the grade, the fewer breaks and flaws.
• Shell thickness: High and Collector are thick throughout. Entry and Mid can be a mix of thin and thick.
• Colour: The higher grades show the pink earlier and over more of the pattern.
• Leg colour: It grows in with age on every grade. High and Collector already show strong spider legs at the size we ship. Entry and Mid may show none when young and may never fill the legs completely.

Entry has the lightest coverage and the most flaws in the batch, with the same genetics at the lowest price. Mid is 40 to 70% head coverage with some flaws. High is up to 80% coverage with very few flaws, a thick shell and strong legs at the size we ship. Collector is the best of the batch: a near-full head, the cleanest pattern and the fullest legs. There are only ever a few.

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.