Shrimp Breeding Help (bloody Marys?)

HI all! Going to be a bit of a long post so I can explain everything but any help or suggestions are very appreciated!

I'm getting into shrimp breeding FINALLY. I've been doing research for about a year and a half and was able to get two colonies from someone who was moving. They each have about 70 or so shrimp including lots of adorable babies. The colonies were described to me as being a Blue Dream colony and a Bloody Mary colony. They didn't have the capability to take very good photos and I probably rushed in a little too quickly but from the photos I saw I thought that they probably just needed a bit of culling and would shape up nicely. (Live and learn.)

One colony, the Blue Dreams, are gorgeous! They're lively, colorful, there's only a few I'm needing to cull out, and they're all growing nicely. The Bloody Marys had a bit of trouble before I could get the colony and when I finally did the woman selling them to me told me that most of the good females had died mysteriously after giving birth. She sold them to me for much cheaper and I thought at least I'd have some more shrimp to practice with.

Here's where I'm having some questions about what to do.

The males in the colony are....not a solid color. They look more like cherry shrimp to me but they could be just really bad quality Bloody Marys?? The females aren't much better. They're dull in color and one seems more brown/purple than red to me. The babies all look like the males (mostly clear but with brownish/red spots- like low quality Cherry shrimp.) I do have a tank that I'll be setting up that these can go in or I can sell/give them away as cull shrimp so that's not necessarily my issue. I'm just not sure where to go from here. It's a large colony, one female has already berried up again after being in the new tank for about 2 weeks or so, so I'd hate to waste them, but where do I go from here?

Most of the colony is babies. There's about 3 large females and maybe 2-3 adult males in the tank. I thought about getting some higher quality males and females and adding them to this colony while culling out the bad colored males but is that even worth my time? I don't know how long this lady had her shrimp, I do know she didn't cull them at all. She told me she got all of them from a local breeder and that she was told they were Bloody Marys. I'm not totally sure that they are but from what I've been able to research the main difference between Cherries and Bloody Marys is a shorter rostrum which these shrimp all seem to have.

I'm super confused and all over the place about where to go with this colony. I'll attach pictures that I hope came out well. Any help on if they actually are Bloody Marys, if they got interbred with some other kind of shrimp (Cherry?) or just where to go with this would be much appreciated. I don't want to start over with an entirely new colony if I can help it but if that's the best thing to do then that would be great. I don't think I said this previously but I am attempting to breed to sell. I'm just not sure where to go from here and what would be the best use of the shrimp I already have, my money, my time, etc.

Female-



Female-



Male (sorry about the quality!)



Babies-



Two Females-

 

The females look ok. You need to cull the males and get new ones if you want to breed shrimp that are red.
You cannot expect below D quality males to cross with B plus females and make colorful shrimp.

 

The females look ok. You need to cull the males and get new ones if you want to breed shrimp that are red.
You cannot expect below D quality males to cross with B plus females and make colorful shrimp.

Do they look like Bloody Marys? That was mostly my concern before I went and spent the money on better quality males.

The females look ok. You need to cull the males and get new ones if you want to breed shrimp that are red.
You cannot expect below D quality males to cross with B plus females and make colorful shrimp.

I'm still new to actually doing the breeding so I wasn't sure if I could breed them with these shrimp if these shrimp were maybe interbred with something else and it wasn't a pure Bloody Mary line.

 

If they were bloody Mary the line as been lost, this is a very good chart to work to, first thing you need to do is find any shrimp with dark bodies and red legs separate them and see what you've got as a base line,

 

Do they look like Bloody Marys? That was mostly my concern before I went and spent the money on better quality males.



I'm still new to actually doing the breeding so I wasn't sure if I could breed them with these shrimp if these shrimp were maybe interbred with something else and it wasn't a pure Bloody Mary line.

You can breed two super red shrimp and not get 100% red baby shrimp. It increases the likelihood of red shrimp being the outcome but its not a sure thing.

 

Blood Mary shrimp will have red tissue in the body. The color is not found on their exoskeleton and it comes from a different line than cherry shrimp altogether. If the shrimp has spots on the body that are totally clear, then it's a cherry or they've had their line tainted with cherries. If you put high grade cherries with bloody marys then they will give you shrimplets that look like low grade cherry shrimp.