Crystal Red and Crystal Black Shrimp Prices
The classic entry into Caridina keeping, priced across five vendors — with the grade caveats that actually matter when comparing listings.
Published July 29, 2026 · figures recomputed from data through September 2, 2026 · by Shrimp Price Index
Crystal Red — the red-and-white banded bee shrimp — is the classic first Caridina, and Crystal Black its monochrome sibling. They're the usual step up from cherry shrimp keeping, and the price step is smaller than most keepers expect. Here's the crystal and bee family as priced across the vendors we track.
Crystal Red median
$4.60
Crystal Black median
$4.45
Vendors listing CRS
4
The crystal and bee lines, priced
| Line | Listings | Vendors | Per-shrimp low | Median | High |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crystal Red Shrimp | 19 | 4 | $4.20 | $4.60 | $8.00 |
| Crystal Black Shrimp | 16 | 5 | $4.20 | $4.45 | $5.50 |
| Golden Bee Shrimp | 13 | 2 | $4.40 | $5.00 | $5.50 |
| Panda Shrimp | 17 | 1 | $9.00 | $9.00 | $9.00 |
| Wine Red Shrimp | 4 | 1 | $6.25 | $6.25 | $6.25 |
| Pure Red Line (PRL) Shrimp | 5 | 2 | $4.00 | $5.00 | $8.99 |
| Pure Black Line (PBL) Shrimp | 4 | 2 | $3.71 | $4.50 | $9.99 |
What actually moves a crystal's price
- Grade — but verify what it buys. Crystals are graded B through SSS on band pattern and white density. Too few graded listings are in stock at once for us to publish honest per-grade medians yet, but the listings above span the scale — when a price is well above the median, the listing usually names a high grade. Whether the pattern is worth it is an aesthetic call, not a husbandry one.
- Lineage lines price above the base morph. Pure Red Line (PRL) stock — bred crystal-to-crystal for generations — carries a premium over standard CRS at the same apparent grade.
- Genus, not morph, sets the floor. All of these are soft-water Caridina; the gap between this table and cherry shrimp pricing is the Caridina premium, and it's the biggest number in the decision.
Buying notes
- Crystals are the usual test of whether your RO/remineralizing routine is solid — start with a mid-grade group rather than SSS singles, and upgrade lineage once the colony holds.
- Judge listings against the medians above; the crystal market's compare-at tags are as standing as everyone else's (measured).
Prices are from in-stock listings as of September 2, 2026 and recompute with every daily update.
Method, in one line: every figure above is computed
from our daily snapshots of the complete public catalogs of the vendors
we track — nothing is estimated, surveyed, or quoted from other sites.
Details in the methodology. Spotted something that
looks wrong? Tell us
and we'll check it against the underlying snapshots.