Neos Blue Dream
Deep opaque sapphire over the whole body, right down into the legs. Blue Dream comes out of the Carbon Rili line and carries NO red genetics, so a true colony will never throw a red shrimp. Its reputation for reverting is mostly a mixing artefact, not instability in the line itself.
One colour per tank. That is the entire secret to keeping a colour colony beautiful for years.
Blue isolated out of the Carbon Rili line
Blue Dream was isolated out of the Carbon Rili line: breeders kept the blue, pushed it deeper and more saturated, and bred out the clear Rili sections. The decisive point is that this parent line carries NO red genetics — a true Blue Dream colony will never throw a red shrimp. Mechanistically, blue in Neocaridina goes with raised crustacyanin protein, which means the blue is a carotenoid-binding-protein effect rather than a dedicated blue pigment. A correct animal is deep opaque sapphire across the whole body and all the way into the legs.
Identifying and grading Blue Dream
Ideal keeping conditions
This is the real-world band, not a figure copied from a temperate-climate care sheet. Inside it there is a sweeter spot if you want to dial things in: pH 7.0–7.5, GH 6–8, TDS 180–220, KH 3–5. But a tank sitting at GH 4 keeps and breeds them perfectly well — below 4 is where failed moults start. GH supplies the calcium and magnesium for moulting: too little and you get the 'white ring of death', where a shrimp cannot finish its moult. KH stops the pH falling. And stability still beats perfection — a colony held steady at GH 5 outperforms one chased up and down around GH 8.
Use an INERT substrate — gravel, sand or an inert shrimp gravel. Never use the active buffering soil sold for Bee/Taiwan Bee shrimp. Active soil pulls pH and KH below what Neocaridina need, and it is the most common set-up mistake beginners make.
Keeping them at tropical room temperature is CORRECT — no chiller, and no need to force the tank down to 22–24°C. Neocaridina is native to Vietnam, Taiwan and southern China, where wild water reaches close to 30°C in summer. A controlled culture study at 24 / 28 / 32°C is clear: 28°C is the optimum for growth, maturation and breeding, and it also gave the highest survival. The real ceiling is 30°C — past it females start dropping their eggs and recruitment stops; at 32°C every female loses her clutch. The price of running warm at 27–29°C is a faster metabolism: quick growth and heavy breeding, but a shorter individual lifespan and thinner energy reserves, plus less dissolved oxygen, so aerate and do not overstock. An air-conditioned room at 24–26°C gives longer-lived shrimp that breed more slowly. Both are valid — what kills shrimp is not 28°C, it is going past 30°C and letting the temperature swing.
Blue Dream strain data
- Scientific name
- Neocaridina davidi
- Line
- Carbon Rili — carries no red
- Colour expression
- Opaque blue over body and legs
- Grading
- Standard / high grade
- Colour stability
- Stable in a pure colony
- Adult size
- 2–3cm
Strain map — every colour comes from ONE species
Every commercial colour strain is Neocaridina davidi, selectively bred from the mottled brown wild-type animal. They are colour morphs — not separate species, and not hybrids.
- Red lineCherry → Sakura → Fire Red → Painted Fire Red → Red Rili
- Chocolate / brown lineChocolate → Bloody Mary, Black Rose → Carbon Rili
- Yellow lineYellow → Golden Back (dorsal stripe)
- Orange lineOrange Sakura → Orange Rili
- Green lineGreen Jade / Green Diamond — blue plus yellow pigment
- Blue Dreamfrom Carbon Rili — NO red genetics
- Blue Jelly / Blue Velvetfrom Red Rili — still carries red
The two blues look alike but come from different lines. Housing them together brings red genetics back and the colony goes wild-type.
Does Blue Dream really revert?
Most 'my Blue Dreams reverted' stories are a mixing artefact rather than inherent instability. Kept on its own, a Blue Dream colony holds colour well and never produces red animals, because there is no red left in the parent line. Cross it with any other Neocaridina colour, though, and the offspring come out brown or wild-type. The classic failure is housing it with Blue Velvet or Blue Jelly: they look like the same blue, but they come out of the Red Rili line and still carry red — a few generations later the whole tank is wild-type. Routine culling is still needed to hold grade.
One colour per tank. Every colour strain is the SAME SPECIES, so they interbreed freely — and because wild-type colour is dominant, a mixed colony reverts to mottled brown within 2–3 generations. It is not reversible in practice. Two colours means two tanks.
The blue-on-blue trap: Blue Dream comes out of the Carbon Rili line and carries NO red genetics, while Blue Velvet / Blue Jelly come out of the Red Rili line and still DO. They look almost identical, but housing them together reintroduces red genetics and the colony throws wild-type shrimp within a few generations.
'Grade' describes an individual's APPEARANCE — mainly opacity and colour coverage — not a genetic category. A high-grade pair still throws a spread every clutch, and males always look a grade paler simply because they are male. Holding a grade means culling continuously.
Neocaridina, Bee and Sulawesi need three different waters
- Neocaridina (colour shrimp)
- 24–29°C · pH 6.8–7.8 · GH 4–12 · KH 2–8 · INERT substrate
- Bee / Taiwan Bee (Caridina)
- 20–24°C · pH 5.8–6.8 · GH 4–6 · KH 0–1 · active acid soil
- Sulawesi shrimp & snails
- 27–30°C · pH 7.8–8.5 · GH 6–8 · KH 3–6 · alkaline substrate
Genetically, Neocaridina CANNOT hybridise with Bee shrimp or Sulawesi shrimp — different genera do not interbreed. But the three groups need three completely different waters, so they cannot share one system. This is the single most common piece of bad shop advice. Read the table carefully: what separates Neocaridina from Sulawesi is NOT temperature — the two overlap at 27–29°C — it is pH and KH. Sulawesi need alkaline water at pH 7.8–8.5 with a maintained KH, where Neocaridina sit right at the top edge of their range. Bee shrimp are the opposite again: acidic, KH near zero, on buffering soil.
The matching set-up
Omnivorous grazers: biofilm, algae and detritus. Feed every 2–3 days, not daily — leftovers reduce breeding and drive planaria and hydra. Carotenoid-rich food (astaxanthin, spirulina) genuinely deepens expressed colour but cannot change genetics. Iodine supplements are not needed for moulting — GH is. And leave shed moults in the tank; the shrimp eat them back for the minerals.
Dissolved copper is lethal at roughly 0.06–0.08 mg/L. The real killers are copper-based fish medications, snail treatments, concentrated micro fertilisers, copper plumbing and pesticide-treated plants. Dietary copper, on the other hand, is essential — shrimp blood carries oxygen using copper-based hemocyanin. Note that copper adsorbs into silicone and leaches back out for months.
The bacterial duo for a cold-water shrimp tank: Gray Powder handles the culture — seeding and holding the beneficial bacteria, growing the biofilm the shrimp graze on, steadying biological filtration and easing stress at introduction, during moults and after water changes. Yellow Powder adds bacteria, vitamins and protein for colour and steady breeding. Use both together.
New to colour shrimp?
Read the full Jack Shrimp guide to a Neocaridina tank: inert substrate, GH/KH minerals, cycling, safe acclimation and holding colour across generations.
Read the set-up guide
