I am a French aquarist, and I initially intended this site to be French-only. But I realized quite recently that more than 15% of my monthly visitors were from non-French speaking countries - and at the time I am typing these words that means about 300 persons per month, and still increasing. Moreover, I have read a lot of inaccuracies regarding the Amano shrimp on English-speaking webpages. So I felt it would be a great idea to translate my site into English, so as to make it accessible to most people around the world.

   Caridina Japonica is the other name of the Amano shrimp, one of the most famous freshwater crustaceans that we keep in our tanks. It was named after Japanese aquarist Takashi Amano, who introduced them in his tanks in the early 1980's. Amano was the first to notice thoses shrimps' appetite for algae, and since then Caridina Japonica has become popular among aquarists for this interesting feature.

    But let me remind you that Caridina Japonica will not stop the proliferation of algae in your tanks, so buying them for that purpose is useless ! The first reason is that the shrimps's appetite is limited. The second - and maybe the most important - reason is that the only algae it seems to feed on is the common green algae, mostly found in properly balanced tanks, and which quite rarely becomes a problem. So Caridina Japonica is not the answer to your algae problems, I would advise you to restore the chemical balance in your water: treat the causes rather than the symptoms.

   We still know very few about Caridina Japonica and its breeding: and the few pieces of information we do have are sometimes contradictory (for example, regarding the salinity of the breeding water). So the aim of this site is mainly to provide as much information as possible to the common aquarist who is interested in those shrimps and intends to breed them.

Caridina Japonica is known to be difficult to breed, but in the "Breeding" section of this site you will find a very simple breeding method that proves quite the opposite ! So I hope my small contribution will help to dissipate the aura of mystery around this shrimp...