Millions of Cherries!

[Cryptocorynus]

About 10 - 20 cherries were put into my spa (that is a pond) about 6 months ago and the numbers of these shrimp now is insane! Sadly their colour has been lost due to the absence of selective breeding, but their numbers just show how quickly these things can breed. 

Emptying the spa.

 

The bottom of this bucket is about 7cm deep with shrimp, and this is only from five minutes of swishing around the plants in the bottom of the spa, there has got to be at least this much again still left in there. 

.

Much more where this came from!

 

Edited May 29, 2016 by Cryptocorynus

[OzShrimp]

Support your shrimping hobby and sell them cheaply as feeders :) 

[Cryptocorynus]

1 hour ago, OzShrimp said:

Support your shrimping hobby and sell them cheaply as feeders :) 

That's what I'm thinking of doing. Any idea where a good place to sell them off would be? Not too keen on buying a subscription here just yet, haha. 

[OzShrimp]

You would have to speak to a big breeder fish keeper and see what they pay

[ineke]

Alternatively you could buy some young goldfish. Put them in your pond , they will eat some of the shrimp and grow nicely then you can sell them at a profit!

[Cryptocorynus]

Thanks for the ideas, everyone. I've split most of them between my tanks for the fish to gradually pick off, and the rest I'm going to throw back into the pond. Shouldn't be too long until they're in those numbers again and I can sell them off as feeders. Thanks again. 

Edited June 4, 2016 by Cryptocorynus

[Disciple]

Wow that is crazy. Any estimates on the numbers?

Maybe you can find a few high grades and get them breeding in your tanks.

[Cryptocorynus]

On 5/30/2016 at 0:59 AM, Disciple said:

Wow that is crazy. Any estimates on the numbers?

Maybe you can find a few high grades and get them breeding in your tanks.

The numbers? There had to be at least a thousand in there. I did pick out about three amazing looking ones I put in with my other cherry colony. 

Edited June 4, 2016 by Cryptocorynus

[zn30]

5 hours ago, Cryptocorynus said:

The numbers? There had to be at least a thousand in there. I did pick out about three amazing looking ones I put in with my other cherry colony. 

By the look you could triple that amount if not more, when selling cherry shrimp I started scooping them out with a large net and placed them in a bucket selling them to a LFS did this twice thinking maybe only 100 - 150 were in the bucket. Third time when taking the shrimp out and selecting what to keep for the new tank setup I placed 150 in the same bucket counting them as I caught them, it actually looked like there were only 20 maybe 50 at the best in the bucket. I was selling myself short. 

Advice from me, although it takes longer, count them as you place them in a bucket, I use a old 2kg flake food bucket to transport them to the LFS. I sell all my low grade shrimp to a LFS where a lot of people buy them as feeders. I get 50cents each they sell them for around $1.20 each if sold in groups of 5 or more. 

Drop into your LFS and see if they are interested, remember stores that are a franchise don't usually purchase livestock. 

[NoGi]

Just try and ensure they don't sell your culls as hobby shrimp instead of feeder shrimp as it will do the hobby a disservice by pushing lower quality shrimp out there.

Is that a slight green tinge on some of them or just the lighting?

[Baccus]

Seeing that many it reminded me of the little dried shrimp that are often sold as food/ seasoning in quite a few Asian and Indian dishes and puts me to mind that the mass numbers of cherry shrimp could be a food source for people who like eating water living critters.

An area of fish/tank/ plant keeping that may be interested in bulk shrimp is Aquaponics, it is I believe getting more popular with people keeping perch in a pond under hydroponically grown vegetables, shrimp could be an extra spoke in the systems wheel, giving the perch something to eat aside from prepared foods. Also if culls are targeted at something like Aquaponics then hopefully they will be kept away from the highly desirable high grade cherry shrimp and not end up being sold as suitable tank shrimp for the newbies who don't know and are just happy to finally have been able to get some shrimp. Selective breeding takes sooo long to establish and stablise a good colour/ pattern, and most newbies wont have the time/space or inclination to try and improve their "cull" shrimp back to good or high grade shrimp.

I once made the mistake of letting go a few cherry shrimp into my 1000L pond and ended up with a few million. When it came to emptying the pond for a good clean I regretted all the shrimp that probably didn't make the trip from the pond to a holding bucket but instead ended up being accidentially siphoned and bucketed out to sadly die unseen in the grass of the backyard. I did however manage to rekick start my black cherry breeding program from the 4 or 5 dark chocolates that I found in the pond. So even with millions to sort through its still worth checking each one for future potential.

[Cryptocorynus]

On 6/5/2016 at 7:18 AM, Baccus said:

Seeing that many it reminded me of the little dried shrimp that are often sold as food/ seasoning in quite a few Asian and Indian dishes and puts me to mind that the mass numbers of cherry shrimp could be a food source for people who like eating water living critters.

I was thinking they could be used for something like the shrimp equivalent of whitebait. I don't see why if you can refrain from using medications and other nasties in the water why it shouldn't be possible for humans to consume them. They probably wouldn't taste that bad either. Peeling them would be a pain, though! 

 

On 6/4/2016 at 9:10 PM, NoGi said:

Just try and ensure they don't sell your culls as hobby shrimp instead of feeder shrimp as it will do the hobby a disservice by pushing lower quality shrimp out there.

Is that a slight green tinge on some of them or just the lighting?

Definitely, I know all about what that can do. And I think those small green specks in there are little pieces of subwassertang. 

 

On 6/4/2016 at 5:53 PM, zn30 said:

By the look you could triple that amount if not more, when selling cherry shrimp I started scooping them out with a large net and placed them in a bucket selling them to a LFS did this twice thinking maybe only 100 - 150 were in the bucket. Third time when taking the shrimp out and selecting what to keep for the new tank setup I placed 150 in the same bucket counting them as I caught them, it actually looked like there were only 20 maybe 50 at the best in the bucket. I was selling myself short. 

Advice from me, although it takes longer, count them as you place them in a bucket, I use a old 2kg flake food bucket to transport them to the LFS. I sell all my low grade shrimp to a LFS where a lot of people buy them as feeders. I get 50cents each they sell them for around $1.20 each if sold in groups of 5 or more. 

Drop into your LFS and see if they are interested, remember stores that are a franchise don't usually purchase livestock. 

That is a good idea! 50c seems more than decent, too. Taking them out every week or so and selecting the best to go back in would also slow down the time it would take for them to deteriorate in quality. This is actually a really good idea that never actually crossed my mind!

 

I was also thinking of what I'll be breeding in there now. I'm not too keen to breed cherries again as it won't be too smart to keep a shrimp that will continuously depreciate in value the longer their in there, eventually becoming worthless to me. I was wanting something that will not have to be selectively bred and kept under surveillance to keep from lessening in value and I was leaning towards riffles, but is there anything else? Preferably something that can tolerate the cold. 

Edited June 7, 2016 by Cryptocorynus

[NoGi]

+1 for breeding natives. I don't think we do that enough in the hooby.

[zn30]

@Cryptocorynus not much out there that can take colder temps, Darwin alge shrimp may need salt in the water however would keep the water clean if they produced enough offspring. Maybe concentrate on a specific colour morph from your cherries found in your spa if there is enough to try. 

I keep all my tangerine, white, yellow, recently spotted green shrimplets, fingers crossed, rili in all colours also I keep the higher grade cherry shrimp as well as the standard.

over winter maybe grab 20 odd small goldfish saving them from being feeders and grow them up, colours will come out when they grow then sell them back to the lfs in summer. Just don't feed them if the temp drop to 10*C or lower.

[zn30]

Ref the goldfish I did this however I ended up keeping all of them due to the colours that eventuated, now housed in a large pond.