4 Rules to successful shrimp journey

One of the reason for having the 4 rules to successful shrimp breeding works for me and it doesn’t just work on the shrimp hobby, i think it can also be applied to your daily life.

If we want to be successful and truly enjoy the hobby, i think these 4 rules are for you.

1. Have a vision and goals
2. Working Hard
3. Ignore the naysayers
4. Give something back

When i use these 4 rules in the shrimp breeding hobby, it helps me navigate to where i would like to be. While all the rules are important, the very last one is actually one of the most important of all.

I’ll take this opportunity to share how i structure and why i do it that way so that we can continue this hobby for a long long time.

Having a vision is important because it charts the course to where you would like to be. Having the goals is going to help you get to where you want to be. This is important because while we do enjoy the shrimp hobby, we share our experiences, we build that friendship but at some point without a goal/vision you just float by. There is nothing wrong about that, however if you would like to be successful you will need to have a direction.

The best ship without a Captain to chart the course is still a ship aimlessly sailing in the sea.

When i first started the aquarium hobby, i had very good friends who taught me and answer my constant questions. I am very grateful and even in the shrimp hobby, i have met very good breeders who share with me, took time to cultivate and grow me into the hobby.

With all that, my vision became very clear it is to share information and experiences so that people will benefit from it. Hence, my goals yearly is to achieve that sets the direction to keep sharing information with the rest. Also to uplift and encourage more breeders to sieve through the large amount of information available.

Isn’t this a hobby? Why do we need to set goals?

I think one of the biggest difference is if you would like to enjoy the hobby even further, over time as we improve ourselves through newer racks and adding more tanks and optimizing the space, every new change is a new improvement.

For example if the goal is to reduce water change time without affecting quality. Then this will help reduce time needed for water change yet achieving the same results. Now you have more time to do more things on the ones that you want to.

Hence, goal setting is very important and it can be big or even as small as goal to breed better Boa this year.

When you have set your goals, than comes the hard work. To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did. This quote is certainly true as to reach where you would like to be you got to put the hard work in. You cannot climb the mountain of success with your hands in the pocket.

Hence every year i set goals and i work towards them, i have to allocate time for the work of sharing information, be it blog or youtube. This takes time and to keep improving myself i can constantly and consistently share information with the rest.

There are days where i have trouble writing, i can’t allocate time because of schedule however i always remind myself that i need to continue to be consistent to achieve my goals.

Hard work, works. Doing the water change, resetting the tank and learning how to improve the process of your hobby.

I know many hobbyist and breeders dislike tank reset because it takes time to do so. Some even gave themselves reasons not to reset. However, we all know that at some point of time the optimum breeding time has past and while they may still be alive, they may not be breeding as optimally as before.

Hence, this is why i told some breeders i can’t wait to reset my tank, the more i do it, the closer i am to my goals. i keep improving the process so i can be more efficient and all these are hard work and certainly back breaking.

While during this process, sometimes your shrimp die, but don’t even take it as a setback but a setup for better things to come. Reason being is it is the best time for you to learn what was the cause of it.

Ignore the naysayers. I think this is one very critical piece in the 4 rules to successful shrimp breeding hobby. There are many that will tell you that you cannot succeed with the shrimps you have. You will never going to have great looking shrimps. You cannot be as good as the Taiwanese.

If i would have listen to the naysayers, i would have gone out of the shrimp hobby long ago.

There are yet again many ‘online professional’ dishing out advise on 1, 2 or maybe 3 tries of the product. Have the product been tried on really high grade shrimps on their own shrimp before sharing? When i’m referring to high grade these are shrimp that are of at least 1k per piece. Yes! i have heard some tell me, Ben you are absolutely crazy to risk it all.

i didn’t listen to them.

I tested on the most expensive shrimp tank because i wouldn’t put my name on a product that doesn’t have the best in me. Tested proven over many years before even sharing it.

Then information sharing, i think this should be shared freely and of cause there are good breeders who have gave me good suggestion to earn more when i’m sharing. i appreciate that thought and yes have thought about it, however, i would like to share the information freely so people can do the same.

Taking an example: 

The Lubao ball, there have been hobbyist trying to pull me down or even down play the importance of it citing reasons to prove their stance. Some even try to make videos and skew the test, some tried and didn’t work out.

If i would have listen to the naysayers, i wouldn’t have great looking shrimps today.

I think the easiest way to differentiate and cut through all these noise is simply look at the shrimp. The quality of the shrimp is a non-bias measure of information authenticity.

Another Example:

How would you be able to manage so many things in life with work, kids, racks and racks of tank, i don’t think you can make it. Doing youtube, blog, kids, shrimps, work.

i took it as a good feedback so i can improve.

That is where i made the change to switch all the tanks to semi-automatic draining system without drilling holes in the tank. Helped me reduce time in water changes and such.

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Hence, it is important to keep trying until you succeed. You are not a failure if you keep trying. Down 5 times up 6 and keep pushing forward. There are many people in life that will tell you what you cannot achieve, don’t listen to those naysayers (some even call themselves realist).

If you keep the 2nd rule always on the back of your mind it will help you to get where you want. If someone tells you, no it cannot happen, don’t listen to that. Look at different ways to approach it.

As long as you have set your mind to where you would like to be, then keep trying and trying and trying until you get there.

Instead of just taking, it is important to give something back to the society or even the hobby. When you are successful in breeding good shrimps, teach the next person who wishes to be as good as you. Each one teach one.

Giving back to the hobby is at the cornerstone of why Shrimp Sanctuary existed because i was personally at the receiving end of being scam because of a lack of information and knowledge.

With that, that is the reason why i have made it a point to share and give back to the hobby. In life, we are not measured by how much we take and achieve but at how much we give back.

Hence, remember when you have started to learn and understand how to breed great shrimps, it will be beneficial to the hobby as a whole to share the information so everyone benefits from it.