The Berried Clubby Molt & Moss
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Care guides

Twenty-seven guides for keeping Neocaridina davidi. Controlled findings, inference and our own practice are labelled separately, so you can see which is which before you act on it.

Find a guide from the words you have

You do not need the technical term. Try white ring, berried, TDS, planaria or waterline. This selects existing guides; it does not diagnose an animal.

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Or start from the situation you are in

You do not need to read everything

Preparing a first colony

Commission the system and plan the receiving before buying any animal.

Shrimp arriving from a new source

Receiving, quarantine and keeping source contact networks separate.

Keeping an established colony stable

Feeding, water changes, filtration and the readings that matter.

Something changed and I need to investigate

Observe and record before naming a cause or reaching for a treatment.

Identifying, breeding or studying shrimp

Sexing, growth, colour, genetics and what a grade can and cannot tell you.

A taught sequence instead

The free shrimp keeper foundation, with a scenario-based self-check.

Path 1: prepare a first colony

Begin with the six-question readiness check. Then work through these in order. Buy livestock only after the operating system, measurements and receiving plan exist.

  1. Verify nitrogen processing, rather than waiting a fixed number of weeks.
  2. Build grazing surface and shelter by function.
  3. Choose guarded filtration, oxygen and flow.
  4. Understand GH, KH, TDS and pH without turning one recipe into a species boundary.
  5. Verify what each water result can resolve.
  6. Choose a supportable starting group, not a universal shrimp-per-gallon number.
  7. Decide whether the goal is display or breeding before adding fish.

Path 2: receive shrimp from a new source

  1. Keep the source contact network separate.
  2. Compare source, receiving and replacement water without pretending the comparison predicts survival.
  3. Plan receiving and acclimation around the actual package and water measurements.
  4. Separate animal temperature evidence from shipping weather rules.

Path 3: keep an established colony stable

Path 4: investigate a change without guessing

  1. Triage the animal and preserve observations.
  2. Name the affected body region before naming a disease.
  3. Check the sample, method, resolution and reporting basis.
  4. Identify a worm, hydra or other organism before treatment.
  5. Investigate copper, medication, fertilizer and household exposures without guessing from an ingredient name.

Path 5: learn the biology and breed responsibly

How to read an evidence-based guide

  1. Start with the decision. Find the next observation or action.
  2. Check the conditions. Ask which species, life stage, water and unit were studied.
  3. Keep the limit. A measured result is not automatically an optimum, diagnosis or universal rule.
  4. Use the research map only when needed. It holds the full methods and uncertainty so the practical page can stay readable.

Our house recipe is GH 6-8, KH 2-4, TDS 180-250, pH 7.0-7.6, 72-75°F. It is published for reproducibility, not as a species boundary.

When a familiar word is doing too much work, use the Neocaridina glossary. For a recurring claim, use the shareable claim library. When helping with a question that has no prepared claim check, use the bounded community reply standard. The keeper question map shows two realistic questions per guide, and the tank-side decision cards keep what to observe, do, record and stop together.

Behind the guides

The research map holds each structured study's design, experimental unit, supported claim, limits and the questions the current evidence still cannot answer. Coverage by topic shows where direct studies exist and which questions remain open; record counts are never presented as a confidence score. Contribute through guide feedback, a structured tank observation or an evidence challenge.