Sulawesi Mini Blue

The Sulawesi Mini Blue, Caridina loehae, is a small rock dwelling shrimp from Lake Matano and the Petea River in the Malili lakes of Sulawesi, Indonesia. It grazes biofilm off stone and spends most of the day tucked into the rockwork. Its blue wash comes and goes with stress and lighting, so it won’t always look the way it does in a photo. This is advanced to expert livestock, so read the water below before you decide.

The water Sulawesi Mini Blue shrimp need

Warm, alkaline and steady. Steady is the hard part, because a small tank drifts faster than you’d think. These are the numbers we keep to for every Sulawesi lake species we sell, and Mini Blue is no exception. Pick one set point inside each band and hold it. Don’t wander across the range.

Which number would we watch first? KH. If it’s drifting, steady that before you change anything else in the tank, and our Sulawesi shrimp care parameters guide sets out how to hold it.

Check your tank before you order Mini Blue shrimp

Work through this list with a test kit in your hand, not from memory. If one item fails, fix it and wait. These shrimp don’t forgive a tank that’s still settling in.

• Ammonia and nitrite read 0, and nitrate sits under 10 ppm
• The tank has run long enough to show real biofilm and diatom growth on rock and glass
• Temperature holds inside 79-86°F (26-30°C) day and night, heater included
• You mix replacement water outside the tank from RO and a Sulawesi mineral, and you test it before it goes in
• The hardscape is inert, with enough crevices for shrimp you’ll rarely see
• No active pH lowering soil, and no copper based medication in the tank’s history

How we keep Mini Blue shrimp before they ship

Every shrimp we sell is bred by Shrimp Aquatics, not collected from the wild. At Shrimp Aquatics, most of our Sulawesi systems currently run at TDS 150 ppm, GH 6-7 dGH and pH 7.5. If your tank sits at the other end of the band, that gap is the shock they’ll have to absorb on arrival day. It’s worth closing slowly over the weeks before you order.

Arrival day and the first weeks with Mini Blue shrimp

Follow the instructions that come with your order. Packing method, transit time and species all change the call. Our current shipment practice is to equalize temperature with the bag still sealed, then transfer the shrimp without letting shipping water into the tank. Keep the lights low, skip feeding that first day and leave them alone.

After that, the rock feeds them. Mature biofilm, diatoms and algae do most of the work, so prepared food is occasional and small. A safe default is about once a week, and lift whatever is left within a few minutes. Food that sits in warm water adds waste and can push ammonia, nitrite and nitrate up as it breaks down. Expect pale, washed out animals at first, since the blue in this species retreats under stress, so give them a few weeks on the rock before you judge the color.

Tankmates for a Mini Blue tank

Our advice is to keep them alone. Sulawesi rabbit snails share the same warm alkaline water and graze rock faces without threatening shrimp, so they’re the one easy addition, as long as you account for the extra waste. Fish are a different matter. A shrimp this small and this shy is food, and no fish is safe around shrimplets. Bee and Crystal Caridina are out too, because they want cool, soft, acidic water that no middle setting will reconcile. If your water fits somewhere else on the map, our other Sulawesi shrimp lines all share this same warm alkaline setup, so what you’d change is the tank, not the line.