The two shrimp in the center are females. The clear shrimp on the left is a male and the small clear shrimp are offspring of both genders.

This picture clearly shows the nice pattern on the backs of the females.

This is one of the rarest shrimp in the shrimp hobby and brand new to the American hobby (as of August 2007). It was privately (i.e. by hobbyists)  imported to Germany in the early 2000s from Malaysia and only a few breeders have been keeping it alive in the hobby (including myself).  I've been breeding this species for a few years already but only recently dedicated more time into breeding larger quantities for distribution to North American hobbyists.  It is extremely important to establish as many captive breeding populations as possible as this species is *not* commercially imported and whatever is already in hobbyists' hands is going to be the breeding stock for the shrimp available in the future.

The care of this shrimp is the same as all other dwarf shrimp and is detailed in the many articles on this website and in many of my posts in the forum. As long as a cycled, matured tank is provided and overfeeding avoided they will be happy and reproduce. This shrimp, as most other species, does not require special water parameters. Any local, dechlorinated, tap water will be fine. People living in New York City and other areas where tap water has extremely low TDS (total dissolved solids), usually less than 100 ppm, should add crushed coral to their substrate or filter to buffer the water. I currently breed these shrimp in "rock hard" San Diego tap water although I also bred them in New York City's extremely soft, low TDS, water with crushed coral in the substrate.

Although the malaya shrimp produces larvae instead of fully developed "mini-shrimp", for all practical purposes the reproduction of the malaya shrimp is the same as with other dwarf shrimp. Most people won't even notice the larvae and only know that reproduction occurred after seeing fully formed baby shrimp.  In fact, until I discovered that these shrimp produce larvae the breeders in Germany (including the original breeders who imported this shrimp from Malaysia) thought that the malaya shrimp produces fully developed young. After about 17 days (give or take a few days) 80-100 very advanced larvae are released.  The larvae usually sit on the ground (or on other items in the tank) but they do "float" around for extended periods of time when disturbed by food-seeking adults. It is not unusual to see 10 to 20+ larvae floating in the water column.  The few larval stages are usually completed within 2-3 days after which you will start observing "mini-shrimp" crawling in your tank. The larvae do not require any feeding and complete their larval stages in freshwater.

An interesting "feature" of this shrimp is that its coloration is extremely variable. Within the same colony one can see bluish, brownish, yellowish and even reddish shrimp. Mature females have the typical white patterning on their backs (see picture).  Males don't have the patterns but they aren't colorless. Although there are "see-through" males, they tend to be the same colors as the females, but more subdued (like lightly colored glass) and without significant body markings.  Young shrimp do not have any markings until they reach a certain size and males and females become apparent. The patterns on the back of the females look similar to the patterns of the indian whitebanded shrimp, but the two species are not closely related and do not interbreed.  In fact no other species of shrimp that I am aware of interbreeds with the malaya shrimp. Thus, the malaya shrimp can be kept with any other species currently (2007) known to the hobby without fear of interbreeding.

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