Red Snowflake Fishbone

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

It arrives young, with the pattern roughed in and the colour still coming. Both sharpen as they mature, and some deepen to a darker, richer red than the usual bright red.

Four price levels, set by how dense the snow speckling is. 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 Red Snowflake Fishbone is a classic Caridina line, with deep red tissue under thick white porcelain, the heavy, snow-like belly spotting it is named for and the fishbone dorsal it grew out of. It evolved directly out of the Red Galaxy Fishbone, and our colony is infused with Dark Red bloodlines. In a select percentage, the shrimp bypass standard bright red as they mature and show a deeper, richer dark red beneath the porcelain.

About the photo. The shrimp pictured is High or Collector grade. We ship unsexed juveniles, so the main photo shows the target. The belly skirt, the fishbone dorsal and the tissue colour all sharpen with maturity, and juveniles arrive with the pattern roughed in and the colour still coming. Adults are available on request.

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

• Belly spotting: The hallmark that separates a true Red Snowflake Fishbone from a Red Galaxy Fishbone. The spotting is distinct, heavy and snow-like across the lower abdomen, and held separate from the dorsal pattern.
• Fishbone dorsal: A clean ladder pattern down the back, finer and more decorative than the thick stripe on a Boa.
• Porcelain thickness: Dense, opaque white coverage, sharply cut against the red. A thick shell looks shiny and solid, and a thin one looks dull, with see-through patches.
• Spider legs: The body pattern carried onto the legs, with red patches and white. Leg colour follows shell thickness, so the higher grades show it first.

Every shrimp arrives pale from the trip and colours back up within hours to a few days.

We grade on the traits that vary within a batch. A Snowflake Fishbone is graded first on its spotting, the snow-like coverage on the belly “skirt” and the head. That density is readable at the size we ship, so this line sorts into four grades.

• Belly spots and skirting: The main separator between grades, meaning how heavy and how complete the snow across the lower body is. Even an Entry shrimp carries some, and that is the requirement for the grade.
• Head spots: A looser guide than on a Boa. Entry shows around 30 to 50% of the head, Mid and High 50 to 70%, Collector 70% and above.
• Fishbone and porcelain: The higher grades have a cleaner ladder down the back and a thicker, shinier white.

Entry carries the lightest spotting in the batch, with a sparse belly skirt and a faint, broken fishbone. It is the same genetics at the lowest price, for growing out. Mid carries a medium spotting density, with a visible but broken fishbone, a belly skirt with gaps and standard red tissue, the genetic foundation. High carries much heavier spotting across both belly and head, with a strong fishbone dorsal and thicker porcelain, and it is the grade where hints of the Dark Red genetics begin to show. Collector is the best of the batch: the heaviest, most complete spotting with the cleanest dorsal. 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.