Amano Shrimp

I used to have amano shrimps; the last one, a male, died at 5 years old. Well, 5 years after I bought it, since these shrimps are wild caught I have no idea how old it was when I bought it.

I had 2 males, 2 females. The females were constantly carrying eggs. They did change colour, I can't remember now whether they go paler or darker from laying to hatching. The last female which died at 4 years didn't have eggs for the last few months of her life but until then I never saw her or the other female without eggs.

Look at the markings down the shrimp's side. Males have dots, females have dashes. At least, mine did. And the shrimp in your photo has dashes.

I had amanos with the larger bolivian rams and they were fine. You just need to make sure the amanos you buy are the biggest ones in the shop tank. The downside is that they are the oldest ones so they won't live as long in your tank as the smallest ones.