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In a worst case scenario, a single bad male could fertilise multiple females (potentially producing lots of poor offspring).

Come collect it next time you are in HK. LOL!!! One more red shrimp:

Update for section 3. I continue to breed my red rili's and cull any that do not show the colour or pattern i want. Nothing new to report the % of culls is still too high. I believe the culling will pay off in a couple of generations. Only time will tell. I have moved my pintos, the pintos i won from auction, some tbms i had with my mischling into this tank. Was planning on moving the tibees i current have in there out this weekend. Unfortunately this morning i found a berried pinto. Whoops dont know who the father is. Oh well. For some reason the front of the glass is really dirty in this section and it made it hard to focus in the shrimp so please excuse my pictures.

Well that sucks - should I say I suck at culling. I spent yesterday and today catching out all my CBS -there's quite a few! I culled and culled and thought I kept out only the best but when I finally went to put them into their respective tanks I realised I had way too many keepers. They looked good in the foam boxes -the black good and the white reasonable but now they have settled I can see that I will need to do it again and be much harder this time. The youngest are the best so I will keep a few of them but I definately need to go through the process again until I have maybe a dozen- I like a reasonable number in the tank as they are too shy when there are only 2 or 3. I never used to have this trouble with the cherries-I culled hard with them but somehow it was much easier. Never mind I will leave them to settle for a week or so and then start again but only in the keeper tank this time- I won't go back and check the cull tank if I thought they weren't good enough then that's where they stay but I will be much harder this time!

Thanks again Disciple,Your time taken to offer advice and help get me started up again keeping shrimp has been invaluable. Will keep you updated with how I progress over the next couple of weeks. shrimp have settled in nicely! Actually need to get that nano tank setup sooner than later. It's really uncomfortable spending so much time watching these guys settle in where I currently have this tank setup, laundry/dogs bed room :). Hopefully very soon I will be able to make this tank my cull tank and have the nano as the sit back and relax viewing tank.

Bloody heck @revolutionhope i am supposed to ask 10 questions lol

what is your preferred tank setup and WP for cherries and bee and tiger shrimp? substrate or buffer what brand? plants/mosses (and how much of tank is covered or bare)? how do you mineralise and what parameters do you aim for? how much and how often do you do WC? what size tank and what filtration do use and what filter media? how much surface agitation and how much flow/current? what is your average and also maximum stocking density? how often do you test your water and what testkits do use? - pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, gh, kh, calcium, phosphate. How often do you cull? what's the longest ypu have been away from your shrimps leaving them completely unmonitored? few more random but fun Qs - best tip for beginners? what has been your worst shrimp experience? what has been your funniest shrimp experience? love n peace will PS was i supposed to only ask one question? woops ;-)

Hi salvanost Why do you say it wont buffer to 6.6? I received my ph pen and after calibrating it my ph jumps between 6.7 and 6.8, so I'm actually very happy. The nutrafin ph was way off, so thats seeing the bin I actually want to get it down to 6.5, so will add some adler cones and ial. P/M stands at ph - 6.7/6.8 Tds - 135 GH - 5 Kh - 0-1 So it looks i am in the green zone for my crystals......happy days :)

I have an abundance of CBS some have high grade patterns but no depth of colour. I have S, SS, SSS patterns but I have to accept that technically they are culls. My best colours are probably S grade where the black and white have good coverage and reasonable depth of colour. I probably have in excess of 100 CBS. Today I caught out all the shrimp in one of my CBS tanks and tomorrow I will pick out a few of the best to breed with. I still have another tank full of SS & SSS pattern to sort through. So do I go by pattern or go by depth of colour and coverage? If I go by depth of colour the majority of shrimp will be S grade. Some of the SS & SSS are very nice shrimp and probably better than a lot of shrimp available in LFS but if I'm honest I guess they really are mostly cull grade. It's such a shame to see so many nice shrimp that don't make the grade. This is what happens when you breed for quantity and not for quality. I don't generally sell my shrimp so I wasn't worried about quality although I did start out with mostly A grade shrimp and in essence I guess I have improved them to higher grade but in actuality I haven't gone far enough. I think I will take the best S grade and start again picking shrimp that have nice crisp black and white . I might have a few higher grade patterns that will pass as acceptable but I'm going to have to be tough - I probably will have to end up finding new homes for the majority to make room but it's very hard for me to let go. anyway any thoughts on culling ? What would you do? Go for pattern, go for depth of colour and coverage of colour ? It's something we all need to think about and then what do you do with the culls? Sell them to cheaply beginners to see if they can keep the Crystals alive ? Take them out of circulation completely - I can pick out the females either by sight or as they become berried and keep the sexes separated so eventually they die out. I can't come to giving them up as fish food - as I said I've seen much worse in aquarium shops- but then I can't spare too many tanks to culls. It is a dilemma and in my case I have to go through it with quite a few different varieties in the near future. Time to cull all my projects especially as the breeding season approaches. I will be taking it tank by tank over the next month or so but its so hard to decide what to keep and what needs to go. I NEED MORE TANKS!

Week 2 update: still not a massive amount of growth, the cold weather we are having is preventing much from happening I think. I have taken the gladwrap off the top as I was getting a bit of spiderweb looking fungus in amongst some of the Lileopsis, with the loose fitting glass lide which has gaps all the way round I am still getting 85% humidity which from my research is plenty. a small patch of Lileopsis has yellowed out a bit, but the rest seems fine. P. Helferi continues to grow well and I found what I think is a moss growing in a patch of HC so I have poked it into a crack in the rocks, looks a bit like star moss. Photos: The 'moss'. Anyone know what it actuall is?? pogos

Yes, good reminder. The quality of the male is very important to the quality of the offspring. More so than the female really, so as fishmosy suggests good males with average females can produce good shrimp - not so the other way.

I've been in a similar position lately with my CRS. I decided to cull based on the thickness of the colour first, then pattern second. Its been paying off as my latest shrimplets already have much better colour. Sell your culls off. Always good to have some money returning in to help pay for running costs or even new stock.

If a moss tree fell over in a tank and no one was there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Yeah i always try to buy the best i can afford. Also ask as many questions about the genetics and parents as you can. At the very least find the reputable breeders instead of the cheapest. Sometime the most reputable end up being the cheapest. If not its still worth the extra bucks.