I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the new not-so-red ones. I do know that females are redder than males but I also know that some of my new ones are females. I got three from the third shop week or so ago and I think 2 were males as their abdomens were very shallow. The third has a saddle so is female. We went back on Sunday and I got some more. I appologised the the woman first and asked if she would be prepared to catch me specific shrimp. She said yes so I came home with 2 berried females and one saddled female, a couple more adults of indeterminate sex and some babies about 1/4 inch long. They were priced at so much for 6 and there were 9 in the bag.
I now have 12 paler red shrimp of vaying sizes and 1 bright red. I'm lucky if I can see more than 4 at any one time. I've found 3 shed skins since I got the paler ones, and no dead shrimps. Oh, and I found a very small skin in the bag after I'd acclimated them.
From things I read after my bright red ones started dying, it seems that cherry shrimp are doing a guppy, if you see what I mean. Cherry shrimp are all selectively bred to get the red colour but the very red ones (fire shrimp, sakura shrimp) are even more selectively bred. That's why my new lot are not the bright red kind.
Edit:
I've just found the last bright red shrimp dead with a white crack across its back