Soothing Shrimp

Lots of different ways to do it.  The big thing is to find one and stick with it.  Babies will grow in that param and each generation will be more used to it.

LOL  I call that price for my selective breeding the "trinity:"  Time, Space and Money.

You have good thinking, my friend.  If you can't find what you want- make them.  That's what got me into selective breeding. I couldn't find the quality I wanted, or if I did the health was low.  So, like you, I increased quality myself. *thumbs up*

There are some great lens clips for phones that take awesome macros.  Unfortunately, I don't own a cell phone.

Sorry to hear that, my friend. Unfortunately, sometimes "stuff" happens.

Depends.  Are you keeping the best to breed from?  Then I'd call ya a selective breeder.

Only by keeping the best does your stock quality improve, and you have better stock to offer.

I read once of a guy who had decided to make his own guppy strain of delta tails.  He started with wild guppies and every 3 months he would cull the ones that didn't make the cut.  Using only one tank, he made his goal in 3 years.  Could he have done it sooner if he separated the fish and did careful selecting, etc?  Sure.  But his goal was to relax and to produce healthy fish that had the trait.  He had a goal and had fun doing it.  THAT'S what selective breeding is all about.  Having fun striving for your goal.  THAT is a kind of success in itself.

Good to know Merth.  Thanks!  I'm a total noob at this!

Oblong, I'll put you at the top of my waiting list for CPD offspring.

I had to look really long and hard to find red fins.  I found orangish, but not the nice red ones.  Finally when I found them I was overjoyed!

Which leads me to my soapbox:  There are a LOT of people who sell shrimp and fish who just "borrow" another photo from the web, or add untrue "color corrections" to their photos. IMHO not only is this misleading, but it is downright dishonest.

If I want to buy someone's stock, I want to see THEIR stock.  Not someone else's or an untrue color.  If they suck at pics, so what?  I do too! (You can tell by my sales pics.) Most times if the seller says he can't get a good pic, I say, "Bye."  Been burned too many times before.  If you have not heard of the seller before, you can always ask for the date on a piece of paper held up next to their stock.

Okay, off my soapbox before it breaks under my weight. LOL

The 200 is in microsiemens. I think that means roughly around 140 TDS.

Multiply microsiemens by .7 to get roughly TDS value (ppm)

so 200 x .7 = 140 TDS

As oblong said, you want to drop your TDS lower.  His 80-100 is a good param and gives you some play room if it starts creeping up.

You have some really pretty strains it sounds like.

Sure thing, Merth.  I was lucky to get them from an international show breeder, so they are already very good quality.

I separated the dark colored ones today into a small holding tank.  All Black eyed of course.  I'll let them grow for a while I'm figuring out what to do with them.

I still need to separate the light bodied Black eyes from the Albinos.  At this point I don't want any immediate crossing. 

Takes about a month before the gonopodium and tail is formed.  NOT easy sexing these fry yet.

Gong to switch the BEW female to her own tank when I can.

I guess I should change the title of this thread to Soothing's Fish Fun. heh  Okay.  I did.

From reading it looks as if these two strains are weird.  Usually the males carry the color.  In these the females are the ones you want to select carefully for carrying color.  It's not on the Y gene, but the X gene that makes the males show the best whites.  Weird!

Site was down earlier tonight.  Any idea why?

I'm starting on CPDs next week actually.  Big problem is that they are egg eaters.  As far as I know there are no var of them yet, so maybe I can do something interesting with them.

I would LOVE an automated system.  But with over 50 tanks, it would cost me a small fortune in many ways...

Oblong, have you had experience using vinegar to lower ph?

Welcome hollyh.

I see a couple things you may be able to correct in your water to help.  You are on the right track slowly changing the water for RO. *thumbs up*

The kh is working to keep your ph from dropping.  Ideally for CRS you'll want to aim for 0 or as close as you can get to it.

The GH is considered too high for CRS as well.  Ideally it should be 5ish or below. 

What is your TDS?  If too high, that can cause casualties as well.

Strips often are not as sensative as liquid tests.  Keep using the liquid tests if you can, as strips can really lead a person astray when keeping shrimp.  Can't tell you how many times I've heard "but the strips said everything was fine." when it wasn't.  Not the person's fault they didn't work correctly.

CRS are beautiful shrimp, but more sensative than neos- and thus less forgiving about water params.

As for No Planaria, I was cautioned against it by other shrimp forums because of shrimp deaths.  Instead Fenbendazole is recommended.  .1g per 10g  After 2-3 days you may have to repeat teh dose depending on how many planaria are there.

Welcome Barb!

What guppies do you have?

Beautiful BP.  Are all yours that blue?

I'd love to see some pics of your glass shrimp.

Thanks folks.

I really like the hard to get animals, and these are some of the rarest.

Oblong, I'm slowly expanding into fish.  I've always found them interesting, and I recently realized that as a selective breeder, I can selectively breed those too! (D'uh!)   

Merth, I've been told the fems can hold sperm for between 6 mo to a year!

I also have Least Killifish (Heterandria formosa) I've bred for several generations now.  They only grow about an inch or so.  Beautiful with their tiger striping!  I also love that I am able to breed them and offer them so that many less are taken from the wild. (!)

1. Merth
8. Soothing Shrimp
22. JerSaint
41. Mosspearl

56. BluePearls
76. MarkNJD15

Fixed for numerical order.

My surprise Black Eyed Platinum White Female

Albino Platinum White Males

Albino Platinum White Male

Another selective breeder!  Wonderful!  Great to have you here.

I recently bought some Albino Platinum White guppies.  Very pricey, but very pretty. 

I received a gift guppy from the breeder as well, that had dark eyes that I assumed was ruby.

That guppy had fry that perplexed me a little.  The fry had dark eyes, which I though was ruby dominant over pink so I wasn't really suprised.  What did surprise me was that maybe 5 fry were dark.

How could this be, I wondered.  Albino x Albino = Albino.  Perplexed, I wrote the breeder and inquired.

Turns out that that the one he sent along as a hit gift REALLY IS A BLACK EYED WHITE!  Awesome!!!

He's been working on the line for about 3 years now and outbreeds the APWs with them every 3 or 4 generations for optimal health. In fact he won the IFGA AOC class last year with his Black Eyed White Line! *swoon*

So now, not only do I have the rare Albino Platinum White fry, I have the even RARER Black Eyed White fry, and some dark fry that popped from recessives.

Mystery solved...and yeah....I'm ECSTATIC! They are beautiful!!!

Believe it or not, this is the first time I've ever seen them that young.  Great vid!

It does look like a pseudo TiB (TT x CBS)

*chanting* He's number 1.  He's number 1...