Soothing Shrimp

LOL Not a two punch breathing bag. The old one- two punch. Two things done to create a desired result.

I do my best for both, Chibikaie.

So I sent a shrimp package out to Oceangal Dec 14. She had told me her new address, however when packing up multiple boxes for shipping that day, I forgot and used the address that was on her paypal. The box arrived days late at her old house and a note was that it was going to be returned to me. During this time she and I figured out what happened and I was going to make everything right. Just a scatterbrained mistake easily corrected. Yesterday she contacted me. Apparently the box was forwarded to her new address and arrived 16 days later.... Every single shrimp is alive and is drip acclimating now! Goes to show a two punch- breather bag and over insulation (especially in this weather)- works! Christmas Miracle.

Water, we all have to help each other. Made a boo boo last water change and did it too rapidly in my Nessie tank. This week I found mass moltings and 5 molts had full berries in them. So about 100 eggs will never make it to fry. *bonks head against wall." Now, I'm having a small problem with params, so another water change this time via my sensitive shrimp water change method. Dripping in new water like acclimation... I'm not a patient person, so this drives me crazy. LOL

"For those who opt not to have multiple tanks, and risk losing shrimps to different water qualities, could one place a tank-in-a-tank, a betta chimney, or divider? Put the prizes or culls in a chimney and release (or cull) when the population is satisfactory?" Never tried it. Interesting concept though. I have used the in-tank mesh box, and it got filled with crud too much for my liking. Let me know if your idea works though. Some shrimpers use breeding boxes/fry savers as a box to keep shrimp in for selective breeding. I tried that and was unhappy with that as well. The HOB breed boxes were too easy for the shrimp to get out the overflow. When I used 2g tanks, the shrimp would not breed. I *think* because they felt trapped since they grew up in tenners. I have thought of using dividers, however there is a challenge there, too. The typical dividers have slide in sides. These, baby shrimp can get around. Porous sponges- baby shrimp can sometimes get through, and adults will sometimes climb over. The best theory I have had of late is to use a water bridge to connect tanks for more gallons for water stability and similar params. I've not put this into affect as of yet though- so a theory is all it is. Using the same line of thinking, one could use a gallon tank/pickle jar and water bridge for a holding tank with stable params that are known to the shrimp as well.

Culling is done in the same way you do for guppies, I'm sure. Lots of different ways all leading to the same goal. Two of the most simplistic is 1) Use a tank for community breeding, and remove the ones that don't fit your criteria. 2) Another way is to remove the ones that are exceptional to another tank. The advantage of the 2nd way is that you can have more than one tank breeding in community groups to try to produce the 1% (or less) you will move over to your best tank to get closer to your goal. Lots of pros and cons of course. The largest con in the 2nd method is that you are moving your best shrimp from one water param to another and something tragic may happen in introduction. At least in the 1st method you know they are already in the water they are used to. When people write me and say they only have a small tank to selectively breed and they don't want additional tanks, my response is simple. Breed the colony to about 100 or so, then cull all except the best 10 that meet your goal. Then repeat again and again. Which brings us to the next portion of selective breeding...when to do it? I find there are two good times to cull- and it can depend on the strain and your goal. The first time is juvie. Often by the time they get to this stage you can tell if they will meet your goal or not. This is usually with pattern. Also- depending on strain- color intensity or shade may be apparent as well. Young adult will provide you best information on color intensity. Some strains may look great as juvies, and color lightens by adulthood, or the reverse such as PFR not showing best color until first berry or two. You really have to figure out your goal, learn to understand your strain, and then be "ruthless" in your selecting. I used to breed small mammals and knew new blood had to be added to avoid problems by inbreeding. The nice thing about shrimp is that studies have gone on for years showing that inbreeding in dwarf shrimp has had no ill effects. This is without adding new blood. Here's a quick quote from the scientific paper from GENETIC DIVERSITY STATUS OF WHITE SHRIMP Litopenaeus vannamei BROODSTOCKS IN MEXICO by Ricardo Perez-Enriquez, Fidencio Hernandez-Martinez, Pedro Cruz*, Manuel Grijalva-Chon, Josefina Ramos-Paredes, Fernando Mendoza-Cano Centro de Investigaciones Bioldel Noroeste, S.C. (CIBNOR) Mar Bermejo 195, Col. Playa Palo Santa Rita, La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico 23090 "Management practices for almost 10 generations since the introduction of a single stock from Venezuela to Mexico, had permitted the broodstocks to retain high levels of genetic diversity. " A decrease in the number of alleles were also not found. So, if it makes one feel better to add new blood- then do it. However it is not necessary.

Low grade CRS now is roughly the price of neos. Not bad to play with. Great analogies about the cats! Excellent words of insight folks. BTW, this may be my journal, but I welcome insights. My main reason for doing a journal is to encourage others to try selective breeding too. Doesn't really matter what kind of shrimp you may be interested in- just better the strain you like. If someone as unremarkable as me is able to play with this, you can too! This reminds me of someone several years ago I was talking to on a forum that told me they were breeding their ghost shrimp for more color and health. Someone else immediately wrote something to the tune of "Why? They're only a few cents each." I kind of stared at that reply for awhile until I wrote and encouraged the OP to continue with their project and more power to them. What does it matter how much an animal costs if you have a passion for trying to improve on it? I know breeders who sell pinto shrimp for $500+ each, and people who breed scuds for the challenge. They both have passion and more power to them! --- Speaking of breeding strains, I have my Nessies that I'm breeding currently in the hopes of releasing an extremely limited number early summer of 2014. I just got a deal at a local thrift store for a 20g for $8. The catch? It obviously held some kind of small pocket pet mammal. So, some scraping of urine minerals, a sloppy re-silicone on the seams, and now I'm setting up 20g this payday to cycle for the Nessies to go into for more stable water params. Still have to buy a cover for it, which means more money though. Having this incredibly rare strain in only a single tenner is making me a bit nervous in case God forbid some tragedy happens. Some months ago I made the extremely risky move of consolidating my Nessie tanks into one tenner for more breeding since breeding had halted. Glad to say it's beginning to work, but as said- EXTREMELY RISKY! Currently I'm just trying to breed as many as I can so I have some to work with. Current estimate is less than 100 Nessies exist in the world. (Since I'm the only one that has them, I know that for a fact. LOL) Move them into the 20g, and I'll be able to use the current tenner as one of many in the future to house the best of the best for the highest grade selective breeding. I hesitate even to think about how much money I've spent over the last several years on this project alone while trying to come closer to perfecting the strain!...and people ask how come new vars of shrimp are so expensive when they are first introduced. LOL Grumble as one may, the hobby breeder still has to use the delayed money for maintenance! The trinity strikes again.

Water, now you know why I use moss. LOL I have 30+ tanks (40+? I lose count) atm. Reds are pretty hardy now, no matter how intense. I'm not sure about the Bloody Mary yet since it is still new on teh market and time will tell. Most sensative cherries in my experience are definately Blue Diamonds and Yellows. I was SO frustrated with yellows I developed my own strain so they would be hardy. I ended up working with BD to increase hardiness, but ultimately I ended up selling them so I could focus on other projects. The various strains of Blues (Blue Velvets, Carbons, my Sapphires) and Pumpkins all are pretty hardy as well. IN fact, most other colors of Cherries do pretty well. Orange rilis I'm up in the air about. I just don't know on how sensative they are. It could be that they were just not in great health by the time they got to me in cold weather. So are they sensative? Honestly I don't know. If someone else could chime and and tell us both, it would be nice. heh

OKay, so I figured I'd start a journal here to be added to infrequently, I'm sure. heh I've recently seen a couple new strains hobbyists are working on and I'm very excited more people are trying/experiemnting with selective breeding. If you read this journal, chances are you'll here me talking about the "trinity" quite a bit. I'm not talking about religion, (although I do believe deeply what I believe), however in this case I'm talking about 3 main principles that are necessary for selective breeding- more necessary for me perhaps since I tend to have gone a bit overboard. Trinity= 1) Space, 2) Time, 3) Money 1) The space pretty much refers to how much space you have devoted to your project. It may be a nano tank, or a whole room of tanks. Let's not forget additional space such as any products that take up shelving, storage, cords, walking room, etc. 2) Time is referred to for length between shrimplet to berries, developing a true breeding strain, feeding, tank maintenance, shopping (yes even that), learning new information on forums, searching out new techniques, rearranging, netting, actively studying the tanks (important for finding shrimp health, hydra, problems, selecting best quality, etc.) and so on. 3) This is often the most important. Money. Why money? Upgrading equipment, foods and suppliments, remineralization products, electricity, etc. The more space you use, the more money is involved. So, this is why I tend to laugh when people tell me "You must make a lot of money doing this." or "I want to do an aquatics business for a full time job." Is it possible? If you have a farm and turn it into a machine that cranks out aquatics, maybe. But honestly, you get into selective breeding for the love of the challenge to create the best possible product you are able- and HOPE you break even. LOTS(!!!) of sweat, tears, and sometimes blood follows. heh But, to me it's all worth it. --- New vars are ALWAYS a gamble. Neo colors are my main interest. I bought around $400 orange rilis this year. They were shipped and died on me all in about 2 weeks. Don't know if it was bad luck, water too different or what. At some point I'd like to try again. I'm currently very frustrated with the quality coming from big breeders. Not enough work put into the shrimp strain before releasing them, methinks. If a hobbyist releases a new strain, I automatically expect to have to work with them to get to a desired goal- let's face it- hobbyists don't have the big budget, staff of people and space to work with that the big breeders do. Often we have less than a few tanks to work with and many do not want to dedicate selecting and culling from a strain that may be unending for years and years. I understand that. I do. Big breeders, however, IMHO at this momant in time care more about being the first to put out a strain than the quality or health of it. Strains that don't breed true, health issues, too sensative, etc. unfortunately are becoming the norm now it seems like. Lets hope more hobbyists decide to get involved and take matters into their own hands.

Well, I think the next shrimp I get will be snowballs. I want to get into TB this year and am starting to get equipment piece by piece. When you are ready for carbons, hit me up. Any sales I do I pretty much put right back into maintaining livestock and equipment.

I think that would be great. No one has attempted a Malawa color strain yet, and I see all kinds of possibilities. I focused on chocolate awhile back and now I have mostly brown, but other colors still come out because I let other projects come first and dropped that one. I'm told the females have a brown saddle. I've never been able to distinguish males and fems with much success, however if you can figure it out- feel free to teach me!

Nice indeed. I only use moss, but I admire people who can grow all kinds of plants.

Welcome! What rare inverts are among your interests?

Looks yummy Steph!

Maybe more than one can be chosen for different purposes?

You are very welcome here, my friend. I'm glad you found us, and feel free to start any threads!

Thanks, Puddles. Working on Shrimp strains definately teaches patience. heh I'm an impatient person by nature. In a way, bettering shrimp teaches me to better myself. Does that make sense? It aggrivates me sometimes that the big business breeders don't work on their shrimp more to make them more stable before selling them now, but I guess that's business. If I have enough by summer, I'll offer some up for sale. However my shrimp sometimes have other plans than I do. LOL

Merry Christmas and God Bless us- Every One!

Welcome! Glad you could join us. "I will not be using RO; distilled and remineralized is an option for only really tiny tanks" I'm curious why you think that? heh I use tenners and up for my shrimp. If you buy Salty Shrimp remin powder, it lasts a very very long time. Of course as you mentioned, bump the GH up to 6+ and you'll do fine with Neos or Malawa.

Good infor to know MABJ. Nice coloration on the yellows, GB.

Thanks. Still not as consistant as I'd like, but getting there.

I always encourage selective breeding. We need people to better strains.

Params look good. You used prime and have floaters. I'm at a loss. As a last resort, did you do a water change?

I really need to get a better camera. It doesn't do too well shooting at close range.

I've done that. You know when to clean it as the sponge turns into hour glass shapes.