Jump to content

breeding Neocaridina davidi shrimp of different colors


Dimos

Recommended Posts

7 minutes ago, Dimos said:

So, let's see what you get when you mix low grade red cherries with medium! :) 

You will get low grade cherries and some medium grade cherries! 

I'd cull all the low grade males.  Make sure you keep a few of the best males and go from there.  That way, you'll get max production as well as best colors possible with what you have.  Then start culling the lowest females too once you've got a decent number of mature mommies.

(And by cull, I don't mean kill.  My culls live in my community tank.  I admit probably 3/4 of their babies end up as fish food...but not all!)

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Kaylenna said:

You will get low grade cherries and some medium grade cherries! 

I'd cull all the low grade males.  Make sure you keep a few of the best males and go from there.  That way, you'll get max production as well as best colors possible with what you have.  Then start culling the lowest females too once you've got a decent number of mature mommies.

(And by cull, I don't mean kill.  My culls live in my community tank.  I admit probably 3/4 of their babies end up as fish food...but not all!)

Sounds good but its not an option for me. My fish tank has a shark and cichlid... Shrimp will be gone in a second. Probably I can just leave them like that and eventually I will have a decent number of medium grade! Low grade shrimp are pretty too, and their price is similar to the medium grade.

This is my "low grade" red cherry:

http://s286.photobucket.com/user/dimakis/media/aquarium/IMG_20161008_192133.jpg.html?o=1

By the way can you tell whether it is male or female?

Edited by Dimos
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is likely a female, although I can't quite see if she's got a saddle or not.  If I sell ones about her level of color, they go for $0.50 each.  I admit I usually don't charge much for the redder ones either.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

44 minutes ago, Dimos said:

Sounds good but its not an option for me. My fish tank has a shark and cichlid... Shrimp will be gone in a second. Probably I can just leave them like that and eventually I will have a decent number of medium grade! Low grade shrimp are pretty too, and their price is similar to the medium grade.

This is my "low grade" red cherry:

http://s286.photobucket.com/user/dimakis/media/aquarium/IMG_20161008_192133.jpg.html?o=1

 

Oh, that's cheap! :) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've bought cherries of even lower grade than your low grade female.

I mixed in "high grade" males, to get higher grade offspring.

 

Colony hasn't gotten large enough to cull yet... actually, been having problems with the tank, and can't quite figure out what. Bout ready to scrap the tank if things don't turn around. Plants are doing fine, at least! That, or possibly move all the inhabitants into another tank that doesn't seem to be having any issues, yet it's treated pretty similarly. Other tank is supposed to be for culls... lol But that's for another thread!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Zoidburg said:

actually, been having problems with the tank, and can't quite figure out what.

What kind of problems?  If you've mentioned it somewhere and I missed it, forgot, etc, sorry!

5 hours ago, Dimos said:

Oh, that's cheap! :) 

By the way, I'm not saying lower grade shrimp aren't fun to have - just that if you wanted to breed them to sell, you'll likely get better results with the "higher" grades.  If you're fairly consistent, persistent, and "strict" about culling, you should be able to see an average increase in color within 1 generation.  By strict, I mean set yourself standard and stick to it.  Don't let the ones that don't make the cut hang around in the breeding tank.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A couple of other breeders are keeping mixed tanks and have great success in not getting wild colored offspring. Even if they do, they enjoy them.


Guess you could say that mixing the different Neo colors is like a box of chocolates! ;) You never know what you're gonna get! :D

 

Mixed.png

 

(Please note, I may delete this image at a later time. It is from a FB group - photos of some of the interesting colored shrimp were shared, too)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh sure!  It's always fun to try mixing it up a bit.  I've got bunches I'm playing around with in terms of color morph mixing.  But... they're in a separate tank :P  I do not plan to sell the mutty ones unless the customer specifically asks for them and knows what to expect.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seems like you really need several tanks for these experiments. My gf is already schooling me that I have so many tanks (one for shrimp, one for fish, one for turtles). The thing is I cannot combine any of them... Turtles will eat fish, fish (shark) will eat shrimp...

By the way, I see my shrimp to take out their skin quite frequently. 2 days ago I saw one, today I saw 2... Is it normal? Does it mean I have to change something in the environment?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By "take out their skin", if you mean, the shrimp are molting, then that's normal! Actually, it's a great sign! Not being able to molt their exoskeletons would be bad.


As long as water parameters are good, they get good diet, then you shouldn't need to change anything. Molting can also be a precursor to a saddled female becoming berried as long as you have males and females.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, Zoidburg said:

By "take out their skin", if you mean, the shrimp are molting, then that's normal! Actually, it's a great sign! Not being able to molt their exoskeletons would be bad.


As long as water parameters are good, they get good diet, then you shouldn't need to change anything. Molting can also be a precursor to a saddled female becoming berried as long as you have males and females.

Thanks, wasn't sure about the term :)

That's good then, I hope there will be more members!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another dead shrimp... It was the low grade one I showed you, probably she felt bad she is low grade :(

By the way, do you think it has to do with the direct sunlight? There is some hours every day that the sun is hitting the tank. I read somewhere it is not good, since it increases the temperature and they might die.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Dimos said:

Another dead shrimp... It was the low grade one I showed you, probably she felt bad she is low grade :(

By the way, do you think it has to do with the direct sunlight? There is some hours every day that the sun is hitting the tank. I read somewhere it is not good, since it increases the temperature and they might die.

Hey Dimos

Not sure of your tank size but if it is reasonably small the temp can fluctuate a lot with sunlight on it. This is not ideal. To give you an idea i had some shrimp in a 10L Betta tank sitting outside and was slowly bringing down the TDS of their water. It has been quite cold and cloudy in Perth so it rarely got any sun on it but on the few fine days it had sun for about 1 hour. I had been checking the temp about once a week and it sat about 12-15c in the morning. On the day i decided to get a photo in there the sun was on it and i started to clean the glass. It felt rather warm for 15c so i tested again and it was at 23c. 1 hour of sun and 10c increase.

That tank is now inside and at a constant temp.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, Zoidburg said:

Have you been monitoring the temperature of the tank at all?

 

A too big of swing in temp, or even too high, could result in death.

Yes I am. Temperature is 78-80 normally. Not sure during sunlight, but probably higher... I guess I have to either cover it during the day, or just move it in my room!

40 minutes ago, Madmerv said:

Hey Dimos

Not sure of your tank size but if it is reasonably small the temp can fluctuate a lot with sunlight on it. This is not ideal. To give you an idea i had some shrimp in a 10L Betta tank sitting outside and was slowly bringing down the TDS of their water. It has been quite cold and cloudy in Perth so it rarely got any sun on it but on the few fine days it had sun for about 1 hour. I had been checking the temp about once a week and it sat about 12-15c in the morning. On the day i decided to get a photo in there the sun was on it and i started to clean the glass. It felt rather warm for 15c so i tested again and it was at 23c. 1 hour of sun and 10c increase.

That tank is now inside and at a constant temp.

I have a 10gal tank. I am moving it in my room where there is no direct sunlight!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/9/2016 at 10:42 AM, Dimos said:

So they say it is complicated to mix species. In addition, I would like to start selling my extra shrimps and you need to be clear on the color of the shrimp you are selling. Not sure if buyers would prefer a mixture.

ok, thanks for Your good advice.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Hello Nogi, I know it's late reply, may I know, why We must keep the "best" males, not the "best" females ?

maybe it works like in nature with goat, cow, lion, only the best males, mates to females ?

Thanks in advance

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can keep only females if you like, just be sure that they aren't already berried.

I suggested males from a logistics point of view. A tank full of females and a rogue male gets in, that's a lot of potential wild type offsprings vs all males and a rogue female gets in.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, NoGi said:

You can keep only females if you like, just be sure that they aren't already berried.

I suggested males from a logistics point of view. A tank full of females and a rogue male gets in, that's a lot of potential wild type offsprings vs all males and a rogue female gets in.

I have to agree 100% here. I moved my RCS to a dedicated tank and only moved the best colour females and one of the best males. It is my first tank and i really have no idea what i was doing so a nice dark female with eggs slipped by my cull process. 

Well the tank is now overpopulated with low grade RCS and i'm contemplating a complete restart. Not sure if it is the environment but the culls from that tank, now in the community tank, look way better.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...
On 10/11/2016 at 2:26 AM, Dimos said:

Seems like you really need several tanks for these experiments. My gf is already schooling me that I have so many tanks (one for shrimp, one for fish, one for turtles). The thing is I cannot combine any of them... Turtles will eat fish, fish (shark) will eat shrimp...

you can keep turtles and fish and shrimp in the same tank, you need to put in dividers though. I made a tank for my murray river short neck turtle with dividers that the fish and shrimp could get through but not the turtle, and areas of driftwood rocks and plants the shrimp could hide in. I ended up removing the fish except bristlenoses, otto's, pygmy cory's and rasbora maculata's so the shrimp would proliferate and clean up after the turtle more. It was a really interesting exercise. Here's some pictures

20160827_104318

 

20170110_173800

 

 

20160430_083606

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I recently bought a colony of about 50 Neos from someone that had tried to breed blue and fire red Neos. He was somewhat sheepish about why he had tried this cross.  I don't know if he thought he would get purple, striped, or polka-dots. ;-)

There are a few nice red ones, one that is one male that is brown with blue and green stripes, and the rest are very healthy, wild type, light brown shrimp.  If you try crossing shrimp that were each separately developed through the selective breeding out from wild sports, then the result will be mostly wild type browns, with a few hybrids with mostly unpredictable traits.  

From what I have been able to read in other places, breeding Bloody Mary shrimp from different sources will often fail to breed true.  Some are being developed from crossing reds with chocolate browns, while others being sold as Bloody Mary are simply the darkest red from the breeding of other high grade Reds.  Bloody Mary that are from chocolate brown crossing are also failing to always breed true, since some breeders simply selling the dark red results or chocolate results and culling the remainder before ever developing lines that will predictably breed true.

After buying 40 Fire Reds from a seller that was buying imports from Taiwan and then reshipping them to online retail buyers in the US, the entire lot quickly died.  For my next attempt I wanted healthy ones from someone local and wasn't too interested in color.  This colony are drab, but I prefer them to low grade reds, which to me look sickly even if healthy.  While nothing to brag about perhaps, I was simply excited to get a colony locally that are really healthy and fun to watch.  

Maybe I'm weird, but I also prefer my naturally coloured Zebra Danios I have in another tank to their genetically engineered fluorescent GloFish cousins sold here in the US.  After growing up in the Appalachian Mountain region of the US, I've seen the result of excessive inbreeding, which helped elected our current President, and it's as sad as genetically engineered pets.

Greg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can well understand the imported shrimp not surviving. I have purchased shrimp from other parts of the country and they have not thrived like my locally bred shrimp do. I find if you can get the imported (or new stock) to breed in your tank conditions while the parents may not thrive their offspring seem to do much better. I'm guessing its a very simple form of natural selection occurring, the offspring best suited to your water survive and breed and develop a strong colony.

This brings me on to water parameters, I find that shrimp that show amazing colour can quickly loose this colour when placed into different parameters to what they where A accustomed to B bred in. I have even seen the reverse occur where shrimp that where considered low grade/ poor quality in one set up and placed into a new tank improve their colouration.

Just something else I guess to play with while developing colour morphs and quality.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have read that their colours can also shift noticeably depending upon the color of the substrate.  For example reds will be darker red when living on a black substrate than with a lighter colored substrate.  They don't know that they are actually becoming more visible to potential predators.  Their pigments try to darken the body when living on a dark substrate.  Their bodies still think that they are the wild type and try to darken to blend into a dark background.  When they have been selectively bred with other coloured pigmentation, this self-defense mechanism betrays them.

Off topic but about the deaths of my first batch:
After extensive reading, my best assessment on why they died was a combination of shipping and their age.  They were all very large adults that were all over 3 cm.  They had been shipped multiple times, which meant multiple changes in water parameters.  Many of them were DOA or died the next day after arrival because they had been shipped densely packed like canned sardines with very little water (1/2 cup of shrimp in 1 cup of water).  After that each of the rest died shortly after molting.  From everything I could find to read, problems with deaths shortly after molting happens much more often with fully grown adults after they have been moved to water with a different ph or hardness.  Younger shrimp seem to have much less problem with the adaptation, but adults often die after their next molt, even when they are moved to water with presumably better ph or hardness.  The shift in either direction of either ph or hardness, seems to be very difficult for the fully grown shrimp when they next try to molt. It also does not seem to matter how slowly and gently you try to acclimate them to the new conditions.  Happily my new group, which were all kids ranging from a day old to 1 cm, have all flourished with exactly the same water conditions as the ones I lost.  The berried girls in my first batch all dropped their eggs during shipping due to stress, but 6 survived that I was able to hatch from the dropped eggs, and they are still healthy.  I get equal pleasure watching them swim about at I do watching their wild looking tankmates.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I currently have a female cherry in a tank with play sand... so it's a yellowish colored sand. When the lights are on, she appears to be a high grade sakura with a back stripe. However, if the lights are off, her color becomes *very* low grade cherry... and she looks like a completely different shrimp once the lights are on and her pigment hasn't colored in...

I only have one cherry in *that* tank, so there is no mistaking her. The other shrimp are yellow Caridinas.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

  • Join Our Community!

    Register today, ask questions and share your shrimp and fish tank experiences with us!

  • Must Read SKF Articles

  • Posts

    • beanbag
      Update to say that after a few gravel vacs, front wall scrub, moss / floating plant trim, that the condition seems to have improved.  My current theory is that it is due to waste / debris management, where "stuff" like that brown mulm accumulates in the substrate and behind the HMF filters.  Maybe some tanks can somehow deal with it, but mine can't.  Also another experienced shrimper suggested that maybe those "shell bugs" don't just live on the shrimps but also in this debris.  Maybe this is the reason some tanks fail due to "old tank syndrome" where all they need is a good gravel vac? Also, I am guessing that plant trim helps too because now more of the nutrients and light go into growing algae instead of more plants? Well anyway for this tank I will try weekly water change and monthly gravel vac / plant trim.  For my next tank, I'm thinking of something like an under-gravel system where this mulm can fall down and I vac it out.
    • sdlTBfanUK
      Good to have an update and good to hear you are getting shrimplets, so hopefully your colony will continue and you may not get to the point where you have to cull some to stop over population. These type of shrimp only live 12 - 18 months so the adult deaths may be natural? If you have the time I would do weekly 25% water changes, adding the new water via a drip system and do some vacuuming clean of the substrate each week, even if only a different bit each week! See if that helps in a few months and if it does then stick with that regime? It should help reduce any build-ups that may be occuring!
    • beanbag
      Hello again, much belated update: The tank still has "cycles" of 1-2 month "good streaks" where everybody seems to be doing well, and then a bad streak where the short antenna problem shows up again, and a shrimp dies once every few days.  I am not sure what causes things to go bad, but usually over the course of a few days I will start to see more shrimp quietly standing on the HMF filter, and so I know something is wrong.  Since I am not "doing anything" besides the regular 1-2 week water changes, I just assume that something bad is building up.  Here's a list of things that I've tried that are supposed to be "can't hurt" but didn't prevent the problem either: Dose every other day with Shrimp Fit (very small dose, and the shrimp seem to like it) Sotching Oxydator Seachem Purigen to keep the nitrates lower Keeping the pH below 5.5 with peat Things that I don't do often, so could possibly "reset" the tank back to a good streak, are gravel vac and plant trim, so maybe time to try those again. One other problem I used to have was that sometimes a shrimp would suddenly stop eating with a full or partially full digestive tract that doesn't clear out, and then the shrimp will die within a few days.  I suspected it was one of the foods in my rotation - Shrimp Nature Infection, which contains a bunch of herbal plant things.  I've had this in my food rotation for a few years now and generally didn't seem to cause problems, but I removed it from the rotation anyway.  I don't have a lot of adult Golden Bees at this point so I can't really tell if it worked or not. Overall the tank is not too bad - during the good streaks occasionally a shrimp will get berried and hatch babies with a 33-50% survival rate.  So while there are fewer adults now, there are also a bunch of babies roaming around.  I guess this tank will stagger on, but I really do need to take the time to start up a new tank.  (or figure out the problem)
    • jayc
      If that is the offspring, then the parents are unlikely to be PRL. I tend to agree with you. There are very few PRLs in Australia. And any that claim to be needs to show proof. PRL genes have to start as PRL. CRS that breed true after x generations doesn't turn it into a PRL. Neither can a Taiwan bee shrimp turn into a PRL despite how ever many generations. I've never seen a PRL with that sort of red colour. I have on Red Wines and Red Shadows - Taiwan bee shrimps. So somewhere down the line one of your shrimp might have been mixed with Taiwan bees and is no longer PRL. It just tanks one shrimp to mess up the genes of a whole colony. 
    • sdlTBfanUK
      Sorry, missed this one somehow! The PRL look fantastic and the odd ones look part PRL and part Red wine/Red shadow in the colour. They are still very beautiful but ideally should be seperated to help keep the PRL clean if you can do that.  Nice clear photos!
×
×
  • Create New...