Yellow shrimp after many years

[JillBoston]

Hello,
When I bought my shrimp they were all very red. Fast forward six years I have around 70 shrimp and a good majority are light such as tones of yellow with some being bright yellow. My question is how does that happen? Genes? diet? water conditions? It's not like they breed often and I certainly don't do selective breeding for color.

Jill

[crittersni]

Very cool!! Mine tend to be orange in the morning, with many losing their color during the day -- until the next day.

[i<3Opae]

Wow, very cool. Genetic mutant maybe? This is the first time I've seen yellow opae ula.

[Mustafa]

Wow, very cool. Genetic mutant maybe? This is the first time I've seen yellow opae ula.

Check out the "orange shrimp" thread here....I have a breeding population of them going. They breed true if they are truly "orange/yellow" shrimp. However, lots of shrimp in people's tanks can look orangish yellowish one day and turn bright red the next day...so it wasn't really easy to select out the individuals that breed true now.

[Mustafa]

As for "why" mutations happen...it's complicated. If your population is from me, then most likely you got some shrimp that were carrying the orange/yellow mutant gene.