CRS Price list- causes of variation in price

B/C 2-3$
A/S 4-5$
S/S+ 5-8$
SS 8-16$
SSS 20-80$

most breeders grade differently but that is the average price range for the different grades. you may have questions to why the range increase as the grades go up. this is because in low grade shrimp, the white is very broken and the same grade shrimp are very similar where as in higher grade shrimp like SS and SSS grades, even if the patterns are SS and SSS grade, the white parts of the shrimp can be almost clear.

In the SSS with clear white bodies (low quality) they would be 30$ which are most common in the US and in the SSS with solid white bodies, they can cost up to 80$ or sometimes even more.

I have traded high grade shrimp with many breeders and bought shrimp from many breeders all over the US, all SSS were around 30-40$ range but were crap compared to the 60-80$ SSS I got from China or Japan. Its worth the extra money because quality is so much higher.

I'm not saying the more expensive the shrimp are, the higher the quality; but rather the price generally varies according to quality.

Because CRS is relatively new in the US, breeders are still selling their culls so most of the higher grade shrimp will look like crap. the best way to obtain good quality shrimp is to pick them out yourself locally or get them from out of the country. Another good way to get higher quality shrimp is to purchase them from breeders that have been selling for more than a year because all or most of their culls were already sold. The longer they have kept/sold shrimp, the higher quality they are going to be.

Here is a short list of breeders who I think have high quality shrimp:

Brian's tropicals- they have been selling CRS ever since I started breeding shrimp so I would expect their shrimp to be fairly high quality but the huge drawback is that their shrimp are raised in pH of 7.6 and it may be hard for their shrimp to adapt to our tank conditions.

Bill southern- but as gordon mentioned, he is very inconsistent with reading his emails or taking orders. It took me 3 months to get a hold of him to purchase shrimp.

Feiyang+xiaoli- they are a couple from milpitas, CA. they have been selling shrimp for well over a year now. I have dealt with them and saw their tanks many many times and they definitely have one of the highest quality CRS colonies I've seen

Last but not least, myself- I have been selling CRS for over a year now with heavy culling so I can almost guarantee the white on all the CRS I sell will be solid. I've had many hobbyists come over to my place to check out my tanks and they've always been amazed at how solid the coloring on my CRS are. I initially started with CRS from xiaoli and a japanese line, throught the past year and a half, I've been adding new blood from different breeders to add genetic diversity. Now my colony of CRS contains genetic info of more than 5 different bloodlines all over the country and asia.