Good day fellow hobbyist. Today, I like to share with you the difference between a Galaxy Pinto and a Stardust shrimp. This has been quite confusing for most hobbyist due to how similar they are. So, let’s get started!

To better understand this topic, we need to go back a little into the past. Galaxy Pinto started when Fishbone Pinto was first founded. Fishbone Pinto can be easily identified with the unique fishbone shape on the back of the shrimp.

After refining Fishbone Pinto for a while, spots started to form around the cheeks of the shrimp, and they were introduced as Galaxy Pinto mainly because of how the spots represent stars in the galaxy. The criteria for a shrimp to be a Galaxy Pinto can be pretty wide. For some hobbyist, they would require a full fishbone pattern and spots on the cheeks to be considered as Galaxy Pinto. Some would consider a shrimp with just spots on the head without body pattern as Galaxy Pinto. Due to the confusing grading criteria of this shrimp, it has been separated into two categories: Galaxy Pinto and Galaxy Fishbone Pinto. The name itself would tell you how the shrimps are being classified. Read more about Galaxy Fishbone here.

Shortly after, Stardust Pinto started appearing and they were extremely premium during the year 2016. Stardust Pinto have very fine spots on its cheeks and also spots on the body of the shrimp with very define fishbone pattern. A high-grade Stardust Pinto could go up to $1000 USD or more back then. A good check list to identify a high-grade Stardust would be as follows:

• Fishbone Pattern
• Fine spots on the head
• Spider legs
• Fine spots on the body
• Full coloration on the base body

If you have pretty much checked everything above, you got yourself a high-grade Stardust Pinto. A grade 2 stardust would have hit 4/5 of the criteria above and goes for approximately $300 these days. They are pretty affordable now and also have very stable lineage.

Base on my experience, during the time when Stardust Pinto was founded around 2015, there were offsprings that shows Boa pattern. They were mainly culled away as they were deemed as defective pattern of fishbone. Soon after, Boa was being marketed as even more premium, and till date, it still commands a pretty high price. Grading Boa would be a different thing, but we will cover that the next time.

So, the main difference between a high-grade Galaxy and a Stardust, would be that Stardust has more fine spots over its head and even on its body. Look out for the criteria above to identify whether it is a Galaxy or Stardust.

At MADSHRIMP, we stock some of the higher grade Stardust. We also have Galaxy Pinto at pretty affordable prices, feel free to drop by during our opening hours to take a look!