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Another selectively bred female. Possibly a daughter of one of the shrimp above.

Selectively bred male with strong black coloration. Most males are much fainter marking to almost no markings. See next picture.

A male with faint to almost no markings but with a beautiful blue in the head area and in some parts of the body.

A faintly colored female with eggs. Sometimes, especially as the shrimp grow, the black and white colors and patterns come back after a molt.

Another female from my non-selectively bred colony. Not much black and white but some red.

The females above can all of a sudden develop some patterning and look like this. More white can appear later on, too.

Very interesting female with lots of selective breeding potential in our main colony. A female with almost no color above it. Interesting head, though. :)

And another of our selectively bred females. And a nicely patterned male, although, blurry in the picture, can be recognized in the background.

A young, faintly marked female again...obviously not from our selectively bred colony.

This interesting female has white coloration mostly on its head. The black is pretty nice, too.

And finally, a group picture of a feeding colony of C. sulawesi. The picture is rather bad and it is hard to recognize the individual shrimp and their various patterns. We will replace this picture with a better group picture once one becomes available.

Common Name:
Scientific Name:	Caridina sulawesi
Size:	up to ca. 2.5 cm
Temperature:	wide range, but best kept at 72°F-86°F
Water Parameters:	Very adaptable shrimp. Can live under a wide range of water conditions. Water with alkaline ph recommended.
Food:	Biofilm, fish food (flake, pellets etc)
Origin:	Sulawesi, exporter said "near Bantaeng", but apparently also occurs near Bulusero
Larval Development Type:	Completely Suppressed: Larvae assume a benthic lifestyle after hatching, i.e. they are miniature versions of the adults. There is no planktonic larval stage.

Caridina sulawesi is one of the newest shrimp to enter the hobby from Sulawesi, Indonesia. As of this writing (Dec. 2011) we are not aware of any other breeders in the world with a breeding colony of this species. That will hopefully change soon as this shrimp finds wider distribution in the hobby worldwide. As with many wild-caught shrimp the wild-caught C. sulawesi we acquired were very weak and many of them died due to stress and adverse water parameters before they found their way into our tanks. All of those wild-caught original C. sulawesi died within a few months. However, the offspring proved to be extremely hardy and very prolific, at least as prolific as the Malawa shrimp!

What is so exciting about this species is that it is a very variable species with regards to colors and patterns, similar to the original, wild bee shrimp (Caridina cf. cantonensis) that gave rise to all the selectively bred Crystal Red and Crystal Black shrimp in the hobby. Although there are many faintly colored shrimp (and some almost colorless) in a given C. sulawesi colony, there are also quite a few very nicely colored specimen that can be selectively bred for certain colors and patterns. Furthermore, two faintly colored (or almost colorless) shrimp, can produce offspring with strong colors and patterns. We have been breeding this shrimp selectively for black and white coloration in the third and fourth generation now, and the results are very promising as the pictures above show. There are also quite a few bluish specimen in our colonies that we have not yet selectively bred, but maybe someone else will take up that task. There is no doubt in our minds that this shrimp has the potential to at least compete (if not supplant) the CRS and CBS as the number one selectively bred shrimp in the future as C. sulawesi seems much less sensitive with regards to water parameters and higher temperatures, and definitely more prolific (our colony has *outbred* our Malawa shrimp colony...and the red cherry shrimp are a distant third...just to keep things in perspective). They also seem to carry eggs at a much earlier age, which could decrease the amount of time needed to selectively breed for traits over several generations.

As opposed to some lake species from Sulawesi, this river-dwelling species is very outgoing and not afraid at all. It scrapes surfaces for food all day and piles up in droves on any food dropped into their tanks. It is a really fun species to keep, breed and watch for any hobbyist out there. As of now we are not aware of any other species that can crossbreed with C. sulawesi, however judging from the behavioral and physical similarities the Malawa shrimp may be able to crossbreed with it. Further experiments will bring more clarity to this issue.