Hello friends, this year is filled with interesting events happening all over the world including the shrimp world. I have been told that there is a new color being bred in the Neocaridina farms, however they are unwilling to reveal the color yet as they are waiting to have more quantity.

While we can only guess about that, let’s talk about Green Jade today. I have received many questions from fellow hobbyist all over the world regarding the grading of Green Jade and have finally made time to consult the farm owners in Taiwan regarding more information about Green Jades.

Firstly, Green Jade comes from the Neocaridina Davidi family, they are often confused with Green Babaulti which comes from the Caridina Babulti family. One distinctive difference is that Babaulti rostrum have little tiny spikes coming out of it. Green Babaulti comes from India and are often sold at a lower price as compared to Green Jades. Make sure you are getting the right shrimp when you are purchasing them from an aquarium. I pulled up a link here which you can read from Aquatic Arts.

Green Jades originated from Golden Back Yellow shrimps. In the initial phase, they were slightly more yellowish than green and some even showed the golden back line. Through selective breeding, it was refined to show deeper green coloration. In the market now, high grade green Jades comes 1/100 pieces which is quite a high rate.

There are basically two shades of Green Jade that is considered high grade. Firstly, as the picture above, they would call this peacock green or 孔雀绿 in mandarin. This shade of green shows a darker green that resembles the green on a peacock. The body should not show any transparent coloration and should be full green from head to tail.

The other shade of green is more neon looking that looks like it has a layer of masking on its shell. They have a brighter shade of green as compared to peacock green. Neon green is more well liked among hobbyist but in terms of grading of the shrimp, peacock green would be considered more higher grade.

Another thing to consider is that Green Jades with golden back are considered culls, a good practice is to remove them from your breeding pool if you see them. When exporting Green Jades, most of them are selectively chosen before exporting, but as every human, we get tired looking at the same thing again and again, so there might be variation but they are at least guaranteed at a certain standard.

Thats all folks! We are hoping to organise a Neocaridina competition in Singapore this year, its still in the pipeline waiting for the situation to get better. Meanwhile stay safe and wear a mask!