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This post shares a bit more information from this blog post where i have shared the difference between Main and Secondary line shrimps.
After you have read this, you can continue to read the additional post here.
One of the reasons for having this post is because i did a post in Facebook asking breeders to distinguish the difference between secondary and main line.
The one on the left is secondary line and the one on the right is main line. There are a few characteristic differences visually however if i would make it more difficult by selecting only the good ones for the secondary line, the differences can be very small and almost impossible to tell visually.
It was intended to leave the secondary line without selection if not it will be far too difficult to discern the difference. However, what i’m driving at is when we have a side by side comparison, we can then tell there are some difference. What happens if most of the time the shrimps are being selected to be sold without reference or guidance and most time without even telling you if they’re main or secondary line?
This is a secondary line RSD
Taking a step back and looking at a broader picture, if most of the shrimp sold are secondary line, wouldn’t that create ‘secondary’ line as a the benchmark for many since there isn’t widely available main line shrimps being sold or the prices are very high? Then wouldn’t that also means most of the shrimps sent for competition are secondary line?
Is there anything wrong with secondary line? I think no but i believe we need to clearly set the standard where breeders are aware of secondary line vs main line and when everyone says a particular shrimp is the “Benchmark” doesn’t make it a “main line”
The catch here is because far too many shrimps are being sold with unknown crosses diluting the genetic pool of what once was a stable line. For example the Red Stardust secondary line, the whole idea here is to massively produce to cater to the market at an acceptable price point. For Main line, they do not breed as readily as secondary line due to selective breeding.
To an untrained eye it is almost impossible to discern the difference, only when you experience it, breed them and see them would provide a rough idea of the minute difference.
When sending shrimps for competition, are they then mostly secondary line? Honestly it doesn’t matter because competition and contest is for show casing the work of the breeder. What should be taken into consideration is to use the outcome of a competition to then highlight that the shrimp is a main line, which then go against the grain of selective breeding. In other words, if a breeder is able to share if their line is main or secondary will be added value to other breeders.
Then the question is, how would one know if they have got secondary or main line shrimps? The long and short of it is it depends on the breeder they got from and traceability.
How do we go about this?
A prelude to what is coming in 2024, instead of looking at the shrimp to tell the difference, we would certify breeders who have the ability to share such knowledge and show case their work on main and secondary line as one of the many criterias of getting certified.
What this means?
Instead of certifying shrimps the way grading works, we will start having certification for breeders. This idea stems from the fish scene where there are many breeders who have attain Master Breeder status. However, for the shrimp side, there are no Governing body to actually certify this. In 2024, this will change and as we get nearer to the release of the certification process which we have already robustly define the scope and what it entails, Shrimp Sanctuary will start certifying breeders globally who meet the criteria. To make the criteria a pathway for breeders to attain and learn as they grow, it will take up to 10 years for any breeder to look forward. It provides a step by step approach to gain knowledge and experience. The criteria is not for the faint of heart and for breeders who want a guided path to walkthrough and experience it in a holistic manner.
Why do it?
This will help connect new breeders to gain knowledge from certified breeders, and as it stands the whole notion of building breeders up is then completed. The certified breeders will guide new breeders attain their next level and share information like how we share information widely here. The catch is it’s not an easy path to attain certification, it requires grit and determination not forgetting consistency and discipline. This will then setup a platform for breeders globally to have someone to turn to should there be a need. Today there are no differentiation or pathways to help breeders build credibility, and with the certification process helps to build credibility within the shrimp industry. It also helps breeders know where they stand in terms of shrimp breeding and helps position themselves in the industry. It increases integrity of the breeders globally to ensure more committed shrimp breeders stays within the hobby.
What in it for me?
There are multiple levels in the certification process, and each level attain will provide you with the needed skills and experience to go to the next level. Ultimately you drive the pace of certification, but a minimum 10 years to attain the highest level.
There will also be a certificate provided by us as it will be Globally recognised within the Shrimp industry.
Till then, we will keep refining it and release it in 2024.
It truly is my honor to be part of the judging committee for the North America Shrimp Contest 2023 held in North Carolina. It took me a grueling 18 hours direct flight from Singapore to Newark New York Airport before having a lay over of 3 hours for the next flight around 2 hours to North Carolina. Having travel so far, it is indeed something i was looking forward to meeting the judges, panels and most importantly the breeders that i finally put a face to the name that i was talking online.
It is interesting to note the fact this year contest has lesser tanks but of quality entry. This blog post however is not to discuss about the contest but to discuss on what entails a competition grade shrimp.
For those who are interested to learn more about shrimps prior to joining a contest, these are some tips for you.
In the beginning we needed to get entries rolling in and that is where we entered a couple of entries.
As i was part of the jury i couldn’t judge this category so that means i wouldn’t be able to give high scores to myself! That is a common rule in the committee that we will not be able to judge for those categories we entered.
i wanted to take this opportunity to highlight here even fundamental shrimps such as the black ninja or black/red crystal category, can still be entered into the contest and showcase your selective breeding methodology.
Over here we can look at the very first important aspects to grading:
Color:
These pictures were taken by a breeder in the US from Kevin Sheppard. As you can see the colors of the black ninja even under intense lighting which is hung no further than 15cm from the top.
Black ninja are generally fairly translucent as their color pigmentations are often not very densely structured. It get worst as they age and may go into different shades such as brownish, red, transparent. To get to a full jet black with size, may take some time and a few tanks to keep selecting. what is important however is starting with a good source, as this will save you a few years.
Colors on legs, and other areas, are they transparent or with colors?
These are some of the areas where we will award additional points if they have them. So to have good colors at a fairly large size will give you more points.
Next in my opinion is about the patterns or Size, for this shrimp, the black ninja has a white mask on the head face area and are they the same throughout. These are some of the areas we look at when we are judging.
Overall Appearance
usually here is more of a homogeneity where we want to have the same size of shrimps form/pattern to denote stability of the shrimp. Also we look at the size ratio in the group. Sometimes over here, we do also look at how difficult is it to attain such a shrimp.
For example:
Black ninja is a reverse cross of the 4 banded PBL, it goes to black ninja and then finally we select it to make it totally black. In other words, when we select from 4 band to Black ninja, we must ensure quality ones as the further down we select it will help. In other words, if we have poor quality with lots of transparency and hoping to select it better in future will add more years to the long process.
From this to
this and from this
This
So from here we continue to select for quality of the shrimp and become more stringent in the process of selection.
How difficult is it to arrive at this stage? After i have done it, it doesn’t feel that difficult just need to have good stock, time, an eye for detail and patience.
Level of difficulty:
Depending on the judges experience, and many have difference experiences based on their learning curve. Difficulty of breeding and degree of innovation is different things but similar direction, because the more difficult it is to achieve, the higher the degree of innovation.
Also this is relatively subjective in the sense that i may feel it is difficult based on my experience but may be easy to you. Hence it is important for judges to have a wide range of experience globally and with an eye for details, the quality of the results will be great.
Activity/Health of shrimps:
How are the shrimps looking good? Here we look at individual shrimps and see if there are any deformation or potential deformity that may arise. Is the head to body ratio in accordance to the 1:3 ratio.
How active the shrimps are within the tank and are they looking stress etc? In the next section i’ll share more about breeding for competition.
In this section i would not be discussing about selective breeding which i have touched on numerous time on my blog and youtube. However what is important here is that we breed the shrimps with vigor.
Vigor:
It means that we shouldn’t be pampering our shrimps too much yet we give them the care needed to look good and survive well. The fittest survive. Why i say that, is because when we bag our shrimps for competition, the committee will put the shrimps into the tank which has a different tank water than the ones they were being at. So by ensuring the shrimps are strong and rigorous, they’ll need to be kept in such a way that they can withstand a range of parameters.
i did mention this in one of my youtube above absolute vs range. If we are able to keep them in a stable environment but do not chase for an absolute pH or TDS or anything, then as long as they survive well in that range it will give them ad edge over others.
Shrimps generally can survive well between 2-6 GH. Instead of adjusting your GH always so often, a stable tank is more important than chasing a value.
De-vein:
This process is widely known in the fish industry where they stop feeding a day or 2 before the packing process. The shrimps are then net out to an area where they will start to de-vein. This will ensure the shrimps are of great condition when packed and shipped.
Bags:
Breather bags, poly bags, any bags so as long they’re of high quality and process of preparing the shrimps and packing them are done well, they will survive for a long time in the bag. We normally ship with ice pack, due to the heat in Singapore.
What if you don’t do it:
We have seen many shrimp die even before we can judge them or they do not fare as well, also there are various reasons to it, like red shrimps generally have their colors faded during shipping, hence it is important to breed with higher intensity of color to offset some of these small adjustments. For example a darker shade of red will look lighter during stress, but a light shade of red will turn transparent. Remember that shrimp colors are by pigmentation very fine spots, so the more intense the pigmentation or density to size ratio the fuller the color.
Meeting new people:
Of cause all events highlight is really to meet with new breeders and those who are very passionate about the hobby. It is surprising to know that while we are divided far from each other, we share the same passion nevertheless.
In this blog post i would like to share my journey from a learning perspective over the years. I always have this question in my head, how can one learn and experience quicker. As shrimp breeding cycle from breeding to shrimplets to selective breeding takes years, can we accelerate the process with more tanks and can anybody from a hobbyist perspective upkeep this?
So i think we all started somewhere and i too started with 12 tanks and then as time goes on expanded to more than 100 tanks, does it mean that having more tanks equate to better shrimps?
The long and short of this is Not Necessary.
Time
One of the more influential factor is time, having more tanks means more time needed or a more complex process/infrastructure to ensure time isn’t been taken away too much for it is still a hobby; albeit very passionately.
Taking water change and reset for example, if we have 12 tanks weekly water change and reset once every 8-12 months all the time adds up.
This calculation is a very rough estimate of what could have happen, and if we first started off with 12 tanks the time taken in a year is 5 days. 5 Full Days doing nothing but water change for 12 tanks.
If we would to expand to 100 tanks with the same method and process it will then become1 month. This seems a bit unsustainable as out of the 12 months we have in a year, 1 month is doing nothing but water change.
Hence, when businesses or hobbyist decided to scale up, we try to save time by doing what takes the most time. Water change and reset, which lead to automation.
Automation, semi automation
This is where we can see hobbyist start with automation and yes even for us we started semi automation when i increase my tank count from 12 to 17 to 24 where i use gravity as discharge without having to drill holes in the tank. Yes slower but certainly a start.
In addition, we moved away from RODI to just DI. DI speeds up the process by filling the tanks up at the speed of 20 seconds per Litre. The draining process is 10.7 seconds per Litre.
In my YouTube and Blog post i have shared some of the methods we have used for water discharge and top up.
Tracking
When it comes to 12 tanks, we can still recall when was the last time a reset is done, a water change is done, a feeding is done.
When we multiply the number of tanks, the increase in complexity increases drastically.
At least for us tracking data is highly critical to ensure we know what is going on with one glance with some automation this excel sheet updates whenever we input in the raw data when the water change was done and a dashboard shows when we will need to do the next water change. The formula can be adjusted based on your water change intervals.
This gives a good overview of what needs to be done, when.
Finances
It is important for us to discuss in depth what it means to progress to more tanks as the whole process from 12 to 100 to 200 tanks require a direction and a viable plan.
From a finance perspective on expansion, we are looking at almost 7x the initial cost setup for 10 tanks to 100. This exclude all livestock/shrimps which will exponentially increase the cost.
More tanks even a conservative calculation, shrimps cost increases exponentially.
So does it mean there are no benefits to expansion?
If you have read this far, it means that inside of you there is something that you’re looking for in terms of rationalizing. If we put this across a few years of progress it will certainly help to put this into perspective.
Learning by doing and experience is by far a great journey for many hobbyist including myself. Different shrimps different lines and even learning the difference between main line and secondary line takes time.
Learning
There are many benefits to learning and to really put your knowledge to the test.
Selective breeding
With more tanks does not necessarily means better selective breeding. That is also the reason at the onset of this post i mentioned it is not necessary that expanding is beneficial. The direction and intent is important when expanding, and personally if we’re worst off than when we started, it will be detrimental to other parts of our life.
Selective breeding is a strict, discipline and consistent process where shrimps are move around with an intention in mind. The removal of shrimplets from one tank to another to grow up is part of the process and having more tanks allows you to do selective breeding more accurately. After talking to many global breeders, i do find there are certain characteristic and personality traits that breeders have in common if they’re willing to go the extra mile to selectively breed their shrimp and undergo the hard work to do so.
Selectively breeding are often loosely use and mentioned, but it entails a very strict process and a laser focus approach and not for everyone.
Personally, even with the many tanks that we run, we openly share that we do not do selective breeding for all shrimps types as we will easily run out of tanks if we do for every tank. However, what we do is to remove the shrimps with undesirable traits.
Outcome
The quality of the shrimp will be a good indicator if the process should be tweaked to further optimize or major changes need to be made. The question here still remain if your lifestyle is able to keep up with the number of tanks?
At the end of the day, this is still a shrimp hobby, and you can decide where you would like to take this to. Doesn’t mean that you cannot have fun during all these and you probably should find fun doing this.
In this journey we believe if automation to water change is considered then it is certainly viable to expand. How many tanks? I would recommend anything below 100 as the diminishing returns starts at 100 and move where projects can easily be neglected. However, who am i to tell you this ? So go ahead and expand because only when you’re there, would you be able to look back and say ah….. yes…. this make sense. One thing we can be certain of is the learning curve through more tanks and shrimps does gives you a more holistic understanding of shrimp breeding.
Hope you all enjoy this post!
There will be a potential release of more new shrimps in the market as new and more innovative shrimp hybrids are being done with certain stability. However, it depends on when the shrimp will be suitable for release and please stay tune for new releases during International shrimp contest.
I would like to take the opportunity for the organizers for the German International Shrimp contest for hosting it and making it an eventful one. Certainly appreciate the time and effort on doing that.
Before we go straight into the background information of Snowfall, it is a great opportunity to share the reason and also some information that got us here today.
Over the last few years, new shrimps that are nice and popular has ceased to exist due to covid and the lack of new shrimps. There are actually 2 criteria for having a “New Shrimp”. First obviously it have to be new and second it must be well accepted.
What it means for breeder is to ensure they think of a potentially well liked shrimp to create. This by itself is no guarantee an outcome that will work for all. Hence to try and create a well liked new shrimp is not as straightforward as it seems. However, we have done it and while it is always a work in progress, this could also be a birth to something even greater. In other words, Snowfall can be use as a ‘tool’ shrimp to create new and better shrimp in future as the options for crossing increases.
Snowfall:
The name Snowfall resides in having taken Japan as the origin of where the hobby was founded. In honor of the origin, we used the word はつゆきwhich means the first snow of a new winter.
はつゆき (Hatsuyuki pronounce as Ha tsu yuki) or 初雪 (Chinese pronounce as Chu Xue) With that the name “Snowfall” was coined.
With Snowfall coming in two color variations, take your pick! The spots on the shrimp resembles the snowfall glittering and sparkling behind a red sunset. The stunning appearance captures the eye of the breeder with legs transforming into multiple red and white spots.
The white spots against the night skies highlights Black Snowfall. This splendid looking shrimp still requires refinement to maintain the line of having multiple spots on the shrimp.
Snowfall captures new and experienced hobbyist due to the contrasting patterns that continues to stabilize through selective breeding. Snowfall is relatively easy to breed and will do well in a wide range of water parameters. As this is a newly create shrimp, please note that we are the only ones so far that will have the original shrimps. If in doubt of lineage of snowfall, please contact us directly.
As we continue to see awesome looking shrimps online with nice colors, size and ask ourselves how can we be one of them. If you are aspiring to be a great breeder, this post will help outline some of the elements that guides you through this undulating journey.
Why some breeders are better than others?
Have you asked yourself why are there only a handful of great breeders and if those breeders are willing to share their information? I have the honor to meet various great breeders globally at least this side of the world. I have traveled to many countries and many great breeders have come visit me in Singapore.
As most of their journey are similar they have their ups and down in their progress and most of them share with me that patience is what is needed. To have sufficient tanks and to do selective breeding.
It takes years of trying and continuing on and with a very simple process able to support their hobby in the long term. Remember that shrimp breeders that does it for a living has to make it economically viable and hence most long time hobbyist breeders knows the in and out of it to make it simple.
Do Breeders change their method every other month?
This is something that stays with them for awhile, but there is something in them that is slightly different and that is the willingness to explore and keep an open mind. They have great processes and they are also willing to explore new things because the age old saying, if you’re not failing, you’re not even trying.
Simplicity is something that everyone wants to achieve but due to the constant onslaught of media and innovation is simply to pull people further away from the goal of simplicity.
Quality is not an Act it is a habit
Generally we can see this through the breeders character as we meet them to understand them a bit deeper. Meeting breeders like Juri Jansen, Istvan, Alexander, Josef, Hwa, Skyfish shares a common trait. The desire to do good in them is huge, i can personally see how quality becomes part of their life they live. I am truly blessed and humbled by their guidance and the discussions we have which make me walk this journey holding my head high knowing that what is the true test of quality.
Mind set is what separates the best from the rest rings true and if you would like to be one of them upholding the high integrity of quality and honesty, first it has to come from within. Each of them have great examples of how they run their breeding tanks, the habitual desire to always only produce high quality shrimps are already in their blood. We all share a common goal of sharing this journey with anyone who wishes to run this race together.
Most of the experience and well known breeders keep their processes and tank setup as simple as possible because selective breeding is be-all end all. In other words their tanks are generally free from many other inputs other than soil, water and plants. However, this is a tough decision for many and most will add things to the tank because of novelty.
We generally use a rule of thumb to gauge and as long as renowned breeders don’t use it, there is a high chance it is not useful if you choose to be on the journey of breeding quality shrimps.
The shrimp industry is being service by many breeders and shops at different segments and while there is no right or wrong in your journey, we often recommend to offer a great shrimp breeding experience.
Groups; chats; social media
We are certainly weary of this and too keep it simple because having too many information not only clouds your judgement in the beginning, it confuses different thoughts. Hence, it is important to be sure not to mix different information together and implement them in your tank. If you’re starting out as a new hobbyist, it is ok to make mistakes but always ask the question “Why am i doing it”.
In the beginning of my personal journey, i was told to do a list of things to ensure i have great shrimp breeding experience. Only until i started asking why am i doing it, then i realized there isn’t much scientific data supporting it mostly economic reasons.
Anything that cannot be explained as we dwell deeper into science i often get answers like it’s bad but it cannot be further quantified. Hence, it is important for us to truly understand and continue questioning the norms of why are we doing what we were taught to do.
There will be times where you’ll find that certain social media platform are use solely personal/group agenda. Seeds of truth are sometimes buried before they can grow, which often becomes a setback to a growing community of breeders. Free speech is critical as honest debates and discussion should be allowed to take place to grow the community.
Yardstick
A simple yet effective way of measure is simply looking at the shrimps of the breeder, if what has been said and taught does not truly correlate with their shrimps then it is more often than not an agenda yet again of economic reasons.
Another effective way is to look at their shrimp journey background what they truly uphold and are they part of colluding groups.
In this shrimp jungle, to weave through the differing information can be a challenge, so i recommend having a good mentor to guide you through it. A great mentor brings you up and set you up for better things to come. I have chosen a journey of sharing because of where i came from.
You can read more of it through this article.
https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/living/ornamental-shrimp-keeping-singapore-hobby-310096
For those who are unable to understand Chinese, the long and short of the news being broadcast is simply to share information freely like in the English Article.
It is becoming difficult to ignore the fact that with rising prices of commodities and inflation, things get more and more expensive and what do we expect can happen in the shrimp industry.
Eventually the shrimp industry will also be hit by the rising cost of raw material and logistics, however as we know these are not beyond our control, it is important to note what is truly important. Additionally, it is also a good time to reflect on what is necessity.
This is the same as what we will try to look out for in a tank that may crash. I have been discussing with a few breeders local and overseas regarding their journey and one of the common reasons for them having dead shrimp is because the tank crash.
Many factors can contribute to a tank crash, one of the more evident issue resulting in tank crash is by adding too many things into the tank. I have been discussing with one of the US breeder who had his tank crash overnight. To his horror when he woke up, most of his shrimp had die of ammonia poisoning.
What did he do differently?
Nothing.
Yes he did nothing differently before 2 of his tank crash, but why would something like this happen. This is the fallacy of the shrimp industry and i chalk this up to knowledge and experience. As more and more breeders continue on their breeding journey they’ll realized that what they’ve learn in the beginning may not apply to what they are experiencing or doing now.
So how can someone do everything the same he has always been doing and the tank just ‘miraculously’ crash over night? He did the same water change and added powder bacteria.
The prognosis:
From this, we understood that over time the bacteria powder have caused the accumulation of ammonia that resulted in a spike. Some of the shrimps couldn’t take the spike forces them to force molt, some got stuck, and die. This dead shrimp over a few hours released higher ammonia, together with all these created an Armageddon. This is not even coincidental, as 2 tanks with the same method done had the same cause and effect.
These are two pictures of his tank.
What it really meant is the water parameters have already been peaking to a point where the tipping point came when the water change was done and powder added. Is there a way to tell if the tank is breaking?
Like one of my topics on ammonia vs porosity, where we cannot measure the amount of beneficial bacteria we can however measure the porosity of filter media. In other words, if the filtration is unable to handle the added powder the tank has reached it’s tipping point.
When hobbyist encounter such incidences majority may quit the hobby and totally give up. Some persist on after finding out new found knowledge. Those who continue will then get afraid of doing what they normally do. I think while powder bacteria is not an issue, using in large dosage and frequently after water change have caused the tank to crash when the filtration/media no longer able to convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrate, robbing away oxygen during the bacteria bloom process.
So while we may be in this hobby being taught different things, there is no one best way and i guess there can only be one way that suit you better.
Recommendation:
For me i treasure the simplicity of the hobby and to keep them as fuss free as possible, streamlining things, eliminating optional stuff whenever possible. This would then help to enjoy the hobby a lot more.
Hence, when there are issues such as tank crash, it is important to have a standby tank or emergency tank where you can immediately transfer the shrimp into the tank or hang breeder box to house the shrimps and hopefully you rescue them in time.
There isn’t much you can do at this point but to reset the tank and continue on the hobby with the new found knowledge.
I’m still in contact with him and i’m sure now he will now be able to breed back the number of shrimps he use to have.
If you are wondering if shrimplet are getting sufficient food after they are born, you are right to have that question because like all living things, survival is instinct.
All shrimplet are born with the instinct to survival and to be as close to food and shelter as the fundamental elements of survival. It is by no coincidence that shrimplets especially those that are relatively young within 14 days of being born.
This observation can be seen here where the shrimplet are all congregating at one particular spot in the tank. While there are some in other areas of the tank but it is very evident that most of them are near the vicinity of the kallax ball within the ceramic/terracotta dish.
In the video below, it becomes very clear that majority of shrimplet have congregate in that area. There are some found at the moss area but the most are on the feeding dish where it’s close to the food source. As shrimplets are small they thrive readily on available biofilm and kallax ball helps with that production of biofilm which the shrimplet can directly benefit.
While using the kallax ball it is important to note that it has to be soak 3 days prior to using and the effect will last up to a month, sometimes longer.
Are all biofilm create equal? The long and short of it is no they’re not create equal. The content to create the biofilm makes a difference in the quality of biofilm. If you have tried putting driftwood into a new tank you’ll realize there are some slimy white cotton thing appearing. Those are biofilm, however created out of the wood, which we believe have no direct benefit.
For our Kallax ball/ Kallax plus and lubao are carefully formulated and individually hand packed myself to ensure the goodness reaches your shrimp in good order.
The quality of this can be seen by various breeders around the world who have learn how to use it to their benefit.
While we understand there are quite a bit of competition in the market but we trust that the Original will provide the best biofilm for your prized shrimp.
Trust you have learn something from this article and appreciate the support once again. It has been a great journey sharing information with all of you and those who are keen in learning how to breed quality shrimps.
Basically there are 4 signs you should look out for to give you a sense if the shrimps are still actively feeding or hiding from stress and shock.
If the shrimps are hiding constantly it means the shrimp is in stress. Usually cause either by internal or external factors.
When they’re not actively feeding due to hiding, then it is a telltale sign something is amiss and need to be rectified.
In addition, if they are not breeding it could mean somewhere there are deterrence to that. Lastly if there were cases of fail molt, it is best to keep observing.
This is as simple as it get, why are my shrimp dying? What are the main causes of shrimp death?
External factors such as :
Transportation and packing:
This is important as when the shrimps are transported it is a stressful event with the water swirling around. A good packing method is required to reduce the stress of shrimp. Inverted double bag will be good.
Temperatures:
Large swing in temperature upwards during heat wave of sudden day high above 28 degrees Celsius is dangerous. The heat stress can impact the shrimps and cause issue a few days later.
Shrimp like all living things die
All living things die – we like it or not. There is no way we can keep all 100% of our shrimp alive and this is esp. true if they’re genetically weak. For example i haven’t experience a PRL die for a long time but occasionally i still get a selectively line bred shrimp dead (it’s part and parcel of shrimp keeping)
It is becoming difficult to ignore the fact that shrimplet survival is often less discussed because more often than not the shrimplets do survive in a tank. However, i also believe that in the course of their growing up stage, the fragile little one will be expose to elements that could put them at risk. Hence, i would like to share some of the tips in this post.
Sufficient hiding space is a critical piece of the puzzle and this is to alleviate cannibalism during molting. Shrimplets are small and when they molt multiple time to grow big, every molt has risk associated to it. Hence it is becoming difficult to ignore the fact that hiding space helps increase shrimplet survival.
Personally i like using natural plants to act as a natural hiding space and mosses are great in that. There are a lot of nooks and crevices for the shrimp to hide. There are certainly other kinds of decorative hiding space and as long as there are water circulating passing through them, i think they are fine to use.
Many a times a natural hiding space is also a food source which means it could double up like a grazing material and hide out. However, i prefer to keep this separated for the purpose that every placement have a primary purpose. For example Soil primary purpose is to buffer the water, filtration to maintain high quality water and beneficial bacterial, etc.
Hiding space offer a safe haven for shrimplet to grow up to a certain size before the risk of cannibalism is greatly reduced.
Grazing material is a necessity and i learn that the hard way because shrimplets are not able to compete with adult shrimp on daily feed. Even if the shrimplet goes all out and compete they may get injure during the process causing adult shrimp to immediately turn their attention to the shrimplet.
Having sufficient biofilm in the tank will encourage shrimplets to graze 24/7 so they can reduce the dependency of competition of food. Grazing material comes in all form like leaves, cholla wood and of cause The Original Lubao.
It is also important to have a daily feed that is able to break down over time to provide shrimplet a chance to consume the daily feed long after the adults had their fill. There are plenty of food out there and i have tried a lot of them and some are really good and if it works for you stick with it. For my personal success i stick with using Hwa version 1 feed as it has a good draw factor plus the side of the pad breaks down into smaller pieces but the core of it remains hard for adults to pick on.
I have experience that when there are shrimplets in the tank, adding new active soil is a big no no for me, the sudden ammonia spike when the soil releases is detrimental to very small shrimplet that are within 7-14 days after they are born. This is relative as sometimes we are unsure of how old the shrimplets are but in general i would advise that we do not add new soil to a tank that is establish and have small shrimplets all around.
Lastly, i would encourage to remove all shrimplet to another tank which is a grow up tank. This will ensure the highest survival rate of shrimplet however the points listed above like hiding space, adding the lubao and having good filtration still applies.
Why do we need grow up tank? There are quite a lot of benefits of a grow up tank and if you are like me is passionate about selective breeding, than a grow up tank is encouraged.
I was struggling in the beginning when i had to give up tank space for a grow up tank. However, once i started the selective process and using the grow up tank it became clear to me that there are a lot of benefits to it.
I think firstly the most importance aspect of having a grow up tank is the shrimplets certainly have a higher survival rate.
Having a higher survival rate is understood from the following:
It is also important to note that shrimplet as small as 0.8-1cm will start mating and if you are selective breeding, this is not ideal. If an un-desirable male mates with the stock females in the main tank, this will means that the selection process is halted.
That is also one key element that having a grow up tank is critical.
I learnt and actually also see from my observation that shrimplet that have their own tank grow up much faster than those who are together with their parents. This could be contributed by many factors such as availability of space and food.
In addition, i learn that to trigger quicker molting, perform a much higher frequency of water change such as every 3-4 days instead of the weekly routine. This helps trigger the shrimplets to molt faster and grow.
The faster the shrimplet grows up the quicker you can start selecting and kickstart the next generation of shrimp breeding by crossing back.
With these in mind, it is important that having a grow up tank is important. They will have their own space, food and grazing material. Hence, for my own breeding tanks and grow up tank, i do see a significant increase in shrimplet survivability and also faster growth rate.
If you do not have the space to have a grow up tank, my recommendation is that we can re-think the number of types you would like to keep and breed. This will then allow you more time and space to focus on the ones you really like to breed.
Hope you learn something from this post!
One of the most critical aspect in learning how to differentiate male and female shrimp is one of the key to successful selective breeding. This post is really for the avid breeders who want to ensure and breed a line of beautiful shrimps.
When we are able to select male and female at a very young age, we will be able to control the selective breeding process which is important. Reason for that is because if a sneaker male who isn’t very nice breeds with all the female, the next generation of shrimplet will not be your ideal direction. Test your breeder the next time you get shrimps from them.
I get this question quite a bit and i would like to take this opportunity to share with you what i was taught in Taiwan on how to differentiate male and female shrimps.
There are basically a few ways to tell between a male and female shrimp when they are of certain size, however at 0.8cm onwards we know some of the male start to fly and mate. Hence it is important to either remove the shrimplet to their grow up tank or get the males out. However, to avoid any possibilities of shrimplet mating with the parents unintentionally, we will remove the shrimplet to another tank.
There when the shrimplet grows up, it will then be again split between male and female.
Differentiating Male and Female:
Antennae
This is the most accurate at 0.8cm onwards to identify between a male and female. I rank this as the top most reliable source to differentiate between male and female. However, this requires a steep learning curve as it is not as straight forward. I learn that in Taiwan apprenticeship to learning shrimp is to get the gender right. They do this day in and out to learn and differentiate and over years of learning they become master of it. I am very impress so far by how the Taiwanese have identify the male and female shrimp even at 0.8cm.
It is very difficult for this to be shown on a picture but the long and short of this “With the same body length, the male have longer antenna while female shorter”
This is by far the most use in Taiwan breeders to differentiate shrimplet between male and female. There are however still risk of Miss ID.
Saddle and Curve Belly
This usually happens when the female shrimp is already of a certain breeding size where the saddle can be seen and Curve belly.
Trying to see saddle in Caridina can be quite challenging however given time you will be able to peek into the gap between the body and head.
The curve belly as one can see is a tell tale sign that it is a female, however if we reach this size to ID male and female, it is way too late from a selection process perspective, it has to be done way before that. This small yet crucial step can make or break the next generation of shrimplet.
This is also one of the reasons why all the shrimplets are house in a grow up tank to avoid unintentional breeding happening.
Other factors:
Such as curve 2nd carapace cannot be use as an ID of male and female because some males of high quality do have similar size carapace as female.
size is also not use when ID-ing the gender.
Pictures are not good at determining size of shrimp and hence do not send pictures of shrimplets and asking if they are male or female. Keep in mind that the antennae is in relation to body size. Hence, it is important that instead of providing the fish to you, teaching you how to fish is important.
Identification of male and female is the fundamental basis for shrimp breeding and it can be daunting at first, however over time and lots of shrimp practice you will soon graduate from the school of shrimp academy.
With the ability to differentiate male and female you will now be able to start splitting the males out from the grow out tank as we would usually only use a few males of good quality during selective breeding.
While sexing male and female is important, it is part of the entire process of breeding good shrimps including cycling of tanks and setting them up for success.
I’m sure you have benefitted from this post and a special shoutout to those who have requested for this article.
Cheers! and Peace out.
Molting as you already know is a process where the shrimp grows out of their old shell and then grow bigger. It is how it is like with snakes and spider as a means to grow.
Without molting, shrimps are unable to grow bigger and it is during this very fragile week or so which the shrimp become more vulnerable. During this time it is important that measures are taken to ensure water parameters, male to female ratio and hiding space are well established.
Molting is also a sign of new life where females molt so they can berry and have their next generation all in this entire lifecycle.
The long and short of the molting cycle begins when the shrimp reduce feeding to eventually stop feeding a day to hours before molting begin. During the process a new shell is being developed under the old shell which takes time to fully develop.
During the molt, the outer shell breaks usually along the top area where the head and back meets.
After molting, the shell are left in the tank for the shrimp to consume as a source of food. Now that the shrimp has fully molted out of the shell, the new shell is very soft and it requires 24-48 hours before it gets hard again. The faster the shrimp is able to harden the shell the better chances of it surviving.
During this period they are also very vulnerable.
Molt fail:
During the entire cycle, the shrimp wasn’t able to molt cleanly as sometimes when we see a break between the head and back but the molt fail to come out despite several attempts to get it out.
The new shell hardens before the old shell is able to come out fully, and this is generally caused by a few factors.
Water Parameters:
When we discuss about water parameters against fail molt, it is important to discern between an occasional molt fail vs a consistent molt fail. When you have been keeping the shrimps for 3-4 months and there are generally no issue and out of the blue 1 shrimp had a molt fail, this can be classified as part and parcel of the normal lifecycle. If your shrimps are constantly weekly having molting issues it is generally due to water parameters.
There has been a lot of debate between what kind of water parameters will help reduce molt fail, but there isn’t one way of resolving it. Adding calcium will not encourage success molt because it is not the lack of calcium that prevent the old shell from coming out.
but is calcium important? Yes. Actually Calcium and Magnesium is required for a good successful molt but where do we get calcium and magnesium from? A good reminerizer have sufficient proportion of this and a constant daily feed with natural food like biofilm will ensure that the shrimp get all the necessary foundation for a good clean molt.
GH:
Over the last few months i have been talking to European breeders on how their levels of GH is which hovers around 5-6 GH whereas in Asia we normally do 3-4 GH. Is there any risk of concerns with the differing GH because Calcium and Magnesium are present in reminerizer? i believe that shrimps are hardy and being at the range of 3-6 GH is absolutely fine.
Types of Salt:
There are many brands of reminerizer and also the concentration of them are fairly different. For example while we tried different brands of salt some takes up to 120 TDS to arrive at GH of 3 whereas the ones we use from Hwa is GH 3 at TDS 90. This means the concentration level differs. If you have experience molting issues you might want to test you GH against your TDS level to test the salt.
Does Fixing GH fix everything?
It doesn’t, still you will experience fail molt because shrimp keeping isn’t 1+1. It does not have an absolute cause and effect. So there are other factors that need to be address fundamentally.
Fundamental: Water parameters
Over here it is important to discuss this as it is not a natural occurrence molt fail happen frequently. Usually it starts with the very beginning when the tank is setup and it is far more difficult to adjust the water parameters after it has been setup and running. I have discussed this in depth on water parameters here. Setting it up right the first time is much a better approach than to use band aid and further adjust later on because adding/removing later on is going to be a tricky affair.
I’m currently guiding a few local breeders and i can be very strict when coming to cycling of the tank to ensure strong healthy shrimp later on. i always believe in doing it first time right. anyway it’s easy to reset a tank so might as well do it right.
When they see my tanks they know the shrimps are really happy in there because the females breeds right after they release their clutch. The level of comfort for the shrimp is ideal and i’m referring to more difficult to breed shrimps.
Source:
Shrimp source is also critical in this as having a good shrimp source will also determine if the livestock are healthy, poor looking shrimp and unhealthy husbandry is a sure fire way of experiencing more of these issues. Choose your source wisely and ensure they have a good process and able to explain everything in much detail why they do what they do.
Male to Female Ratio:
There are simply too many males in the tank causing a higher probability of females being harass and eventually succumbing to death. This is because too many males will try to mount onto the female shrimp which during the process might injure it as the shell is very soft after molting. It does not really happen to males because when male shrimp molt they do not emit the pheromones like female do. So chances are the male will be left alone for the shell to harden after molting.
Hiding Space:
A dense coverage of natural vegetation will be the best cover for females and shrimplet to molt in peace because the natural cover act like a barrier against other shrimp. While we add coverage please note that females release pheromones so it doesn’t matter where, the males will keep flying around until they find the female. However, what it means is the female has the ability to play ‘tag’ so she can go round in some maze and lose the male. Do not provide coverage that has one entrance. Keeping things simple, using moss and plants are the best natural coverage you can offer.
As you can see a nice boa right after molting was hiding away from the rest, a good natural coverage.
Food:
I generally stick to the food with strong draw factor like Hwa v1 food. From this i know the shrimps are consuming the food which have high nutrients for them to grow and breeding profusely.
In addition, it is also important to provide biofilm which not only is the natural food for shrimps to get their nutrients, it helps water parameters as well. Kallax ball/lubao encourage the multiplication of microorgansim which indirectly helps a tank water reach a better level.
I hope this post shed some light on what it meant to get to a point where molting shouldn’t be an issue. The entire eco-system is fairly fragile and hence important to ensure at every check point it is well setup.
If you like this post, remember to share and subscribe so you get updates every time there is a new release.
Cheers!
A shoutout to the breeder who have asked for this article to be covered, thanks for your support!
According to definition inbreeding is breeding very closely related shrimps with each other such as father-daughter (F0-F1), mother-son (F0-F1) brother-sister (F1-F1). Outcrossing is breeding totally unrelated shrimps or very distance relative, While line breeding is breeding lies somewhere in the middle.
Line breeding as you can see lies somewhere in-between inbreeding and outcrossing and can be understood as a planned inbreeding or a strategized inbreeding.
The purpose of inbreeding is to keep or enhance a certain trait or bloodline such as to continue for example the redness or size of a PRL.
The purpose of linebreeding is to keep the trait of a particular shrimp. For example red legs on a PRL.
So using both breeding method has it’s pros and con because too much inbreeding while can continue or enhance the desirable trait but run the risk of degrading shrimps of deform nature.
When we first purchase our shrimp from a breeder, high chance the shrimps are closely related, however buying from a bigger breeder the chance of the shrimp being related are further apart.
When the shrimps are closely related, we can assume that they’re most likely brother sisters or cousin or close cousin. That way, we will start with mass breeding them before starting to select.
For example, i have selective took out from a brood 2 males and 3 females to selective breed, they are closely related cousins as i control the males that i use from 2-4 depending also on the number of females. 
When close cousin breed, they will firstly continue the desirable trait but will not really enhance the trait and with mass breeding, the idea is to get as many shrimplets as possible in the shortest possible time. From there lock in after a few generations the desirable trait you would like and then start inbreeding.
We can safely assume when we purchase shrimps from a breeder chances are the shrimps are very closely related unless the breeders keeps multiple tanks of the same parentage and keeps a strict breeding methodology.
As you can see in the example if we start off with a pair and slowly breed them to masses and then when we have our shrimplets (also helps to prevent too much inbreeding as male as small as 0.8cm can fly), it is important to remove them. The whole idea is to create 2 lines and relative or half/brother/sister (cousins). This way it will help pass on desirable trait and minimize undesirable trait when half brother/sister mate and at the end of the continuum if one would like to inject yet another desirable trait, an outcross can be made when you purchase the same line from the same breeder as we can safely again assume they are distant relative.
This PRL has been inbred (crossback) to maintain the desirable trait of size and redness. Now i’ll start breeding to a good number and split into two tanks so that i’ll have cousins. It takes almost 2 years to get to this stage.
Selective breeding takes time, years and years of consistency but many give up before results are seen. Selective breeding is the Be All End All in raising the quality of the shrimps.
This can be modified depending and minimally you’ll need 3 tanks to get to the desirable trait, i have expanded the number of tanks to split out the improvement tank and championship tank.
Main Breeding tank: when we start breeding 2M 8F of decent quality, this tank will continue to breed for shrimplets.
Shrimplet tank: this is where we will house all the shrimplets and once you have decent female, put it back into the main breeding tank. Over time you will find that there could be 2-3 good males and 10 good females, you can then take them out and put into the improvement tank.
Improvement tank: Strict inbreeding happens, and then the shrimplet can be scoop out into another shrimplet tanks and then the process above continues and then get to the championship tank which would probably be your goal to get there.
However, when you get there, the shrimps are fairly inbred, so now it will be good to split the tank into two and then get cousins so that the genetics pool do not get too similar.
Hope it helps! If not drop me a PM in messenger facebook and i can clarify any questions 🙂
A shout out to a breeder down under and this post is dedicated to you. Your question regarding if lighting helps with shrimp breeding. I think the long and short of this is it will really depends. What kind of answer is this?
Sunlight is the food source of everything and it is important to the entire ecology of Mother Nature. So is lighting important to breeding, yes it does to a certain extend but does not have an immediate impact however critical.
The reason for this is because light helps plants such as moss and floating plants grow and make food which in turn provide shelter and food for microorganism. In the same line the plants also help cultivate biofilm providing food to shrimps. With this it may appear that lighting is important.
Does shining light for long hours make shrimps nicer? No it doesn’t. Light does not make a shrimp nicer by shining long hours on it. They too do not get sun tan like humans do. The only thing that is achieve certainly is a higher electricity bill.
There are plenty of light choices in the market now and are fairly affordable. When i first started this aquarium hobby it was only florescent light tubes and then then Pressured Lamp and moved on to T5/T8 and eventually now with LED with multiple colors for different purposes.
I have used quite a number of light sets before and for shrimps it is rather straight forward, since we are not growing high light plants, then there isn’t really a need to splurge on high end light sets. However, it is important that the lights promote growth of your plants at least and not so dim that even mosses don’t survive.
For shrimp keeping both T5 and LED are recommended, however i will now lean towards LED because it is light, doesn’t give off too much heat and have a very long lifespan.
T5 light sets are fairly heavy and i have retired my T5 light as there is a need to change the tubes annually and it is expensive to keep it running. LED on the other hand can be cable tie to the rack and or place on the tank and easily moved around since they are lightweight.
The prices for LED nowadays are as affordable as T5 if not more affordable as the massive shift towards LED. With more advance LED light set there is also dimmable feature, sunset feature, timer, wifi all inbuilt.
Currently because it is fairly affordable to get LED lights hence i’m using Chihiros normal white light LED which does the job well.
Generally if you see plants such as mosses and floating plants growing then you have sufficient light for your tank. I’m using a 6000k Chihiros light there are 5 levels of light intensity i’m setting it to level 3 and they are doing great. When the entire ecosystem is well establish and mature, while light doesn’t appear to have immediate impact but overall it does help.
Just like lubao/kallax ball which create biofilm, while they don’t have immediate impact but overall it helps with the ecological system in your tank. This is yet another soft value that is often overlooked.
So does the amount of light helps or impact breeding, indirectly it does because a decent amount of light certainly still help with the whole eco-system hence all these small sum adds up to a successful breeding experience.
Hope you have a good read!
It truly is my honor to be part of the judging committee for the North America Shrimp Contest 2023 held in North Carolina. It took me a grueling 18 hours direct flight from Singapore to Newark New York Airport before having a lay over of 3 hours for the next flight around 2 hours to North Carolina. Having travel so far, it is indeed something i was looking forward to meeting the judges, panels and most importantly the breeders that i finally put a face to the name that i was talking online.
It is interesting to note the fact this year contest has lesser tanks but of quality entry. This blog post however is not to discuss about the contest but to discuss on what entails a competition grade shrimp.
For those who are interested to learn more about shrimps prior to joining a contest, these are some tips for you.
In the beginning we needed to get entries rolling in and that is where we entered a couple of entries.
As i was part of the jury i couldn’t judge this category so that means i wouldn’t be able to give high scores to myself! That is a common rule in the committee that we will not be able to judge for those categories we entered.
i wanted to take this opportunity to highlight here even fundamental shrimps such as the black ninja or black/red crystal category, can still be entered into the contest and showcase your selective breeding methodology.
Over here we can look at the very first important aspects to grading:
Color:
These pictures were taken by a breeder in the US from Kevin Sheppard. As you can see the colors of the black ninja even under intense lighting which is hung no further than 15cm from the top.
Black ninja are generally fairly translucent as their color pigmentations are often not very densely structured. It get worst as they age and may go into different shades such as brownish, red, transparent. To get to a full jet black with size, may take some time and a few tanks to keep selecting. what is important however is starting with a good source, as this will save you a few years.
Colors on legs, and other areas, are they transparent or with colors?
These are some of the areas where we will award additional points if they have them. So to have good colors at a fairly large size will give you more points.
Next in my opinion is about the patterns or Size, for this shrimp, the black ninja has a white mask on the head face area and are they the same throughout. These are some of the areas we look at when we are judging.
Overall Appearance
usually here is more of a homogeneity where we want to have the same size of shrimps form/pattern to denote stability of the shrimp. Also we look at the size ratio in the group. Sometimes over here, we do also look at how difficult is it to attain such a shrimp.
For example:
Black ninja is a reverse cross of the 4 banded PBL, it goes to black ninja and then finally we select it to make it totally black. In other words, when we select from 4 band to Black ninja, we must ensure quality ones as the further down we select it will help. In other words, if we have poor quality with lots of transparency and hoping to select it better in future will add more years to the long process.
From this to
this and from this
This
So from here we continue to select for quality of the shrimp and become more stringent in the process of selection.
How difficult is it to arrive at this stage? After i have done it, it doesn’t feel that difficult just need to have good stock, time, an eye for detail and patience.
Level of difficulty:
Depending on the judges experience, and many have difference experiences based on their learning curve. Difficulty of breeding and degree of innovation is different things but similar direction, because the more difficult it is to achieve, the higher the degree of innovation.
Also this is relatively subjective in the sense that i may feel it is difficult based on my experience but may be easy to you. Hence it is important for judges to have a wide range of experience globally and with an eye for details, the quality of the results will be great.
Activity/Health of shrimps:
How are the shrimps looking good? Here we look at individual shrimps and see if there are any deformation or potential deformity that may arise. Is the head to body ratio in accordance to the 1:3 ratio.
How active the shrimps are within the tank and are they looking stress etc? In the next section i’ll share more about breeding for competition.
In this section i would not be discussing about selective breeding which i have touched on numerous time on my blog and youtube. However what is important here is that we breed the shrimps with vigor.
Vigor:
It means that we shouldn’t be pampering our shrimps too much yet we give them the care needed to look good and survive well. The fittest survive. Why i say that, is because when we bag our shrimps for competition, the committee will put the shrimps into the tank which has a different tank water than the ones they were being at. So by ensuring the shrimps are strong and rigorous, they’ll need to be kept in such a way that they can withstand a range of parameters.
i did mention this in one of my youtube above absolute vs range. If we are able to keep them in a stable environment but do not chase for an absolute pH or TDS or anything, then as long as they survive well in that range it will give them ad edge over others.
Shrimps generally can survive well between 2-6 GH. Instead of adjusting your GH always so often, a stable tank is more important than chasing a value.
De-vein:
This process is widely known in the fish industry where they stop feeding a day or 2 before the packing process. The shrimps are then net out to an area where they will start to de-vein. This will ensure the shrimps are of great condition when packed and shipped.
Bags:
Breather bags, poly bags, any bags so as long they’re of high quality and process of preparing the shrimps and packing them are done well, they will survive for a long time in the bag. We normally ship with ice pack, due to the heat in Singapore.
What if you don’t do it:
We have seen many shrimp die even before we can judge them or they do not fare as well, also there are various reasons to it, like red shrimps generally have their colors faded during shipping, hence it is important to breed with higher intensity of color to offset some of these small adjustments. For example a darker shade of red will look lighter during stress, but a light shade of red will turn transparent. Remember that shrimp colors are by pigmentation very fine spots, so the more intense the pigmentation or density to size ratio the fuller the color.
Meeting new people:
Of cause all events highlight is really to meet with new breeders and those who are very passionate about the hobby. It is surprising to know that while we are divided far from each other, we share the same passion nevertheless.
It is becoming difficult to ignore the fact that the shrimp industry can be quite daunting if you are just entering the hobby. Even those who are in this for a few years may still find some of the things confusing. In this post we will help to share some information so you’ll be able to better decide with the information.
Main line shrimps
What do we mean main line shrimps? In simple terms main line shrimps are the breeders selectively bred shrimps. Selective breeding instead of mass breeding.
Main Line crossing
A main line cross is where a Boa x Boa and then the shrimplet that are boa are then use again for selective breeding. No other lines or shrimps are utilize to continue the line.
Secondary Line Shrimps
This is where mass breeding occurs and any shrimps can be use to generate volume and does not focus on lineage or colors, anything really goes.
Secondary Line Crossing
When a Deep blue bolt x with Black King Kong, there will be shrimplet that may look like DBB and some like BKK or some in between and some different. Hence in such circumstances this isn’t selective breeding. They are massing the shrimps to cater for the general market based on market pricing.
In general these shrimps will throw out anything and everything and if they are kept in planted tanks i believe they will be fine. However if your intention is to have a selected line to breed, this isn’t for you.
If you have read this far, it shows you are keen in understanding the notion behind it. Keep reading. Here is where it get even more interesting and is happening all the time.
Breeders that share the line if they are main or secondary line is critical. One of the most important reason here is because as hobbyist we should be buying the shrimp we want and breeding out the shrimp we want. For example, if a breeder sells a “Deep Blue Bolt” which is a secondary line as Main line, and when the hobbyist buy it back and the shrimplet comes out anything but blue bolts. This can become very concerning. For example, i have also experience this and this is the sole reason why this blog and sharing exist because i feel strongly we need to be open and transparent.
From a cost perspective, the gap between a main line vs secondary line is huge. It can go up as far as 5x difference. This is preyed upon hobbyist who are not in the know. A reputable breeder will share openly the line if it’s secondary or main. There is nothing to really hide!
Secondary Line
Main line
The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
Sharing a perspective on this and are you truly getting what you are paying for. While business survive based on profits, where is the line where it is drawn?
To the untrained eye, it is difficult to discern between main and secondary line BUT the first bred out will almost show everything or down the line there will be other shrimps that comes out of it.
While we support local businesses we need to be truthful to buyers. “Not Knowing” is not an excuse for selling secondary line shrimps as main line.
If we use this in today’s market space with high price tag of main line boa vs secondary line, it will be exponential. Hence, buyers beware and if you are really keen in getting what you pay for, please ensure you ask everything you need to.
Here are some of the questions that can be asked:
Some telltale sign that you’ll need to watch for:
I hope this post have shed some light on it, i have created a video on this as well.
Thanks for reading!
In one of my Youtube videos i was talking about Ammonia reading and being able to measure that. However, what should we do with the readings?
In other words, we may know from a cycling process that ammonia is present in the water column and throughout the cycle, there will be a peak in Ammonia. When there is beneficial bacteria to convert the ammonia that is in the water column, it will then be converted to Nitrite and eventually to Nitrate.
The beneficial bacteria is the catalyst to convert the harmful ammonia to less harmful nitrite and eventually to nitrate.
While we can measure the ammonia reading, we can’t really measure beneficial bacteria, or can we? We are able to know if a tank is colonized with beneficial bacteria by measuring Ammonia. If Ammonia reading is 0 then we can safely “assume” there is beneficial bacteria present.
While we are not able to measure the number of beneficial bacteria in the tank we can however measure the surface area or Meter square available in the tank surface for bacteria colonization.
We can consider measuring porosity of filter media such as pads/substrat/ media/ etc to give an indication of how much surface area is potentially available for beneficial bacteria to colonize.
Many manufacturer market their product based on “Great Surface Area” but how great is great?
Hence to get an indication of what surface area are in filter media and sponges:
| m2/L | |
| Powerhouse S Soft | 1620 |
| Powerhouse M Soft | 1030 |
| Powerhouse L Soft | 800 |
| Poret Sponge 10ppi | 899 m2/m3 |
| Seachem Matrix bio | 700 |
| Biohome Ultimate | 680 |
| Eheim Substat pro | 450 |
| Sera Siporax | 270 |
While this post is not about which media is better for which purpose, as this can be found in other online information.
The table provides an indication of how much potential growth of beneficial bacteria at a given ammonia level.
There are many ways to get to Rome and what i’m trying to share in this post is about ammonia vs beneficial bacteria.
Do you have sufficient beneficial bacteria to shorten the duration of an ammonia spike. There are many causes of ammonia spike, it can be a dead shrimp, can be an over dose of bacteria products and other things. So it is not the ammonia spike that is scary but the duration of the spike that should be looked into.
Reason being is that if the tank have insufficient beneficial bacteria than the ammonia spike will be rather long in duration until the current beneficial bacteria have multiply to cope up with the given ammonia before the spike goes back down.
In other words, it doesn’t mean having a higher porosity filter would mean higher beneficial bacteria count, but it does mean that the potential for higher beneficial bacteria count is possible.
For example if you are using 1600 m2/L filter media vs 400 m2/L both will have beneficial bacteria of the same level if the ammonia level is kept the same. However, as we all know that shrimp breed and with more shrimplet the colony grow giving rise to higher ammonia. If there is insufficient space for more beneficial bacteria to grow than the tank will have hit it’s max capacity.
On the other hand if the ammonia level continue to rise due to more bioload, on the 1600 m2/L filter media, it will then continue to colonize new beneficial bacteria to upkeep with the ammonia changes.
Technically while we measure ammonia, we should also measure the duration of such a spike because the longer the spike the more damage it will do. Now with porosity given in another light, you can now look at why large area of sponge like HMF are working so well because of the large surface area.
If you are a filter media person, you can consider using filter media of good porosity to ensure high surface area. While they do clog up eventually, it is noted that a 10% change in filter media in 6-12 months can be considered to ensure new beneficial bacteria get colonize as sometimes the soil and dirt get stuck in the pores of the filter media rendering them less efficient.
With the thoughts behind porosity vs ammonia, it is important to discern the difference and that ‘getting by’ is ok but having an abundance will be beneficial in the long term. In other words, a larger potential area for beneficial bacteria to colonize is advantageous as you get into the more tricky shrimps.
Ammonia is your best friend in the aquarium because they are the food source for beneficial bacteria to colonize and continue to colonize. The higher the ammonia source the higher the POTENTIAL the growth of beneficial bacteria depending on the surface area. If there is very low surface area such as using 1L of soil for 100L as filter media, than the beneficial bacteria will be much lesser compare to the same with a large surface filter media.
We can prevent ammonia spike by having good water parameters both hard and soft value. Also we can reduce possibility of ammonia spike by not adding too many products into the tank to ‘mix’ it up. The lesser we add, the better and more stable it will be. The more products you add, the less likely you will know what is causing the trouble.
While there are many products on the market, it is important to discern the difference and once the tank is stable, i only use a product to enhance shrimp gut health which is optional.
other than that, i personally do not add nitrifying bacteria or other things after every water change. The only thing i would add is Natto bacteria occasionally for good gut health.
Can read more here regarding no requirement for nitrifying bacteria after every WC: https://www.tfhmagazine.com/articles/freshwater/nitrifying-bacteria
Yes the active soil we use for example Tropica and ADA soil are porous in nature since they’re clay and soil but the porosity of the soil if use in large quantity per L of water such as 1L of soil per 16L of water and having it up to 100L of water in the tank would house quite a lot of soil which then i believe can get away from having filter media.
However, any lesser soil would generally mean the porosity vs ammonia may be insufficient to begin with. Hence, it is important to note that if soil is use as a filter media it should also be considered the amount of soil use to per L of water. A general rule is the tank have to be at least 100L with 80L being filled with water. Meaning 1L of soil to 16L of water or 5L of soil. That is then sufficient as a media and buffering.
If there are lesser porosity or surface area for beneficial bacteria to colonize, the cycle will take a long time hence using soil solely for the tank as filtration and in small quantity will not be beneficial to the entire ecosystem.
Probably can get away with the more hardy shrimps but as we advance to more challenging type, every single detail matters.
There are a lot of factors influencing the shrimp ability to breed from water parameter to food to shrimp genetics. However, today i would like to touch on a fairly common topic on Shrimp Food. The first question i get asked frequently is how often should i feed my shrimps? If you have a lot of shrimps like 20 or more, you might want to consider a daily staple feed fed twice daily and also a grazing material. Grazing material such as Lubao, Indian Almond leaves, Alder cone, cholla are some good examples.
The reason to feed them twice is so all your shrimps are fed and the female will ‘Think” that the tank have sufficient food to support their next generation. The whole idea is to feed lesser quantity but high frequency. So twice is good and if you can do 3 times it works as well.
If you feed in the morning and the shrimps are unable to finish it within 4 hours, then you’re not required to feed the second time in the evening Thats my general rule of thumb, Remove the food by then or if you have ramshorn snail, they will help with scavenging and foraging on the shrimp food. If the shrimps are not feeding, it could be there are still plenty of biofilm in the tank but do watch out if the shrimps are looking lethargic and not feeding.
A grazing material aids in building up biofilm for shrimps to consume between meals. Think of it like a snack and a good grazing material will be the food source between feeds.
There is a wide range of food in the market and i think we are spoiled for choice and which one is good for my shrimps? Personally i like using a good staple food and that is Hwa V1.
Staple Food
Grazing material
Now here we get serious, grazing material in my opinion is equally important to daily feed. The amount of surface area for creating biofilm is important as it mimics the natural environment where Shrimps feed on biofilm.
Lubao, Indian Almond leaves and moss are three very popular and recommended grazing material. Alder cone and Cholla are not native to at least this part of the world, so i defer that information to those who have them. For Indian Almond leaves and Lubao we have very easy access to them hence we use them readily. I really like using Lubao because it is technically a microoganism food that produces food for cultivating microorganism for the shrimp to feed on and also biofilm. Indian almond leaves without going too deep into this topic has antibacteria properties, produces biofilm and are well liked by most shrimp. Grazing material is important because shrimp feed constantly and if there are not enough biofilm in the tank and daily feed is not consistent, the shrimps will not breed. They will start cannibalizing during molting. Hence, it is highly critical to have grazing material available.
A living grazing material that works very well is moss. Moss harbour a lot of microorganism which allow adults and shrimplets to graze on. Moss also provide cover for berried shrimp and shrimplets however it is also important not to over crowd the tank with moss because if it get too dense, some of the berried female may get stuck in there and die. Hence, always thin out the moss to a small bunch the size of your hand
Male to Female Ratio:
There are simply too many males in the tank causing a higher probability of females being harass and eventually succumbing to death. This is because too many males will try to mount onto the female shrimp which during the process might injure it as the shell is very soft after molting. It does not really happen to males because when male shrimp molt they do not emit the pheromones like female do. So chances are the male will be left alone for the shell to harden after molting.
A good ratio to consider:
As the pandemic continues on, i would like to reach out to everyone and say please stay safe!
This post is really about sticking with it and staying the course. I have received good feedback about breeders who truly stuck with it and make it work. Those who really stuck with it got to make it work.
Shrimp breeding is fairly straight forward and there isn’t much you need to do once everything is in place. Letting the shrimp do their thing and breed with the environment you have setup for them matters.
There isn’t one best way to breed shrimps nor a best water parameters, there are many ways to breed shrimp just finding a suitable and optimal way. In most of my post, i often share what works for me and stuck with it because it has given me results.
i would encourage you find yours and make as much mistakes in the beginning to learn. Once a method is really doing well for you, can stick with it until you learn something that you never had known about. Then adjust and gain better and better. Improve them over the years and do what you can for creating the environment for them.
Selective breeding in my other post have provided an in-depth information on what it takes to breed good shrimps. However, to build the shrimps up for breeding, the often overlooked part is biofilm because the rest of the process are quite similar.
In many of my articles i have shared the importance of biofilm and the consistent use of it will encourage breeding and overall enhancement of water quality. Continual usage will ensure that beneficial bacteria have food source to feed on and the biofilm is the key to better saddling and breeding.
When we use the kallax ball or lubao, it helps encourage growth of beneficial bacteria but if we remove the food source for them, the beneficial bacteria will lower in tandem with the amount of available food. We all know that beneficial bacteria helps maintain high quality water condition and it is important to maintain it stably.
using and introducing biofilm is a long and slow process, quitting won’t make it faster and to get there we need to stick to the process and continue on while we may not see results in 10 days or even 20 days. As ecosystem require a longer time frame before the shrimps start growing into it, we will need to be patient and stick to it.
For those who stuck with it at least for 3-6 months started seeing results because the entire ecosystem start to work well for the shrimps. Breeding will increase and shrimplets will breed through.
As long as you are using the lubao and kallax ball that were carefully blended and individually hand pack by myself will be fine. The process of preparing it for use followed to the T will certainly bring many more breeding females in the long term. Many renowned breeders have use the ball crafted by me and have real positive effects and does not float after 5 days. I’ll not put my name on something that doesn’t have the best in me, as i too wouldn’t want to have a ball floating up after a week. When the ball is half submerge between the water surface and ambient air, the fermentation process is disrupted and it create a rancid smell when expose to air. That is the reason why the Shrimp sanctuary ball will continue to remain under water where the shrimps are.
if we take a look at this example, we start with 2M 10F and after awhile, we got 4 female to berry and ideally we get about 40 shrimplet for a newly minted female since they’re not large yet to carry bigger brood size.
What i have observed is that if our conditions are right and biofilm is introduce from like plants/moss/lubao, it encourage more female to saddle which overall helps to get more female to breed. With the additional 20 shrimplet will certainly provide more shrimp numbers so you can start selecting process easier. While not all females look the same and to get that particular nice female you have to breed is like playing Russian Roulette, so we have to induce and encourage females to saddle as much as we can.
The more difficult the shrimp for example BFT, Boa, the more we would like the females to berry constantly and carry out their next generation because time isn’t on our side. There is only so much time we have to ensure the shrimp breed to good numbers before they retire.
Another example would be to get that particular nice female to saddle and breed may take in general 3-4 months but by introducing biofilm, it helps to further encourage to get saddle as soon as possible since biofilm is usually the last missing puzzle.
While there are setbacks in shrimp keeping, it is important to know that the setbacks are actually meant as a setup for you for better things to come. Reason being is that if we don’t fail, we are not even trying. I’m not asking you to fail but it is important that failing is an option and that you pick it up each time you fall. As you grow through it, you gain more and more experience and breed better and better shrimps. There are many successful breeders breeding excellent shrimp and you can follow their methodology and get there as well.
Remember, don’t be discourage, give it your best!
Thanks for reading!
A shoutout to the breeder who have asked for this article to be covered, thanks for your support!
According to definition inbreeding is breeding very closely related shrimps with each other such as father-daughter (F0-F1), mother-son (F0-F1) brother-sister (F1-F1). Outcrossing is breeding totally unrelated shrimps or very distance relative, While line breeding is breeding lies somewhere in the middle.
Line breeding as you can see lies somewhere in-between inbreeding and outcrossing and can be understood as a planned inbreeding or a strategized inbreeding.
The purpose of inbreeding is to keep or enhance a certain trait or bloodline such as to continue for example the redness or size of a PRL.
The purpose of linebreeding is to keep the trait of a particular shrimp. For example red legs on a PRL.
So using both breeding method has it’s pros and con because too much inbreeding while can continue or enhance the desirable trait but run the risk of degrading shrimps of deform nature.
When we first purchase our shrimp from a breeder, high chance the shrimps are closely related, however buying from a bigger breeder the chance of the shrimp being related are further apart.
When the shrimps are closely related, we can assume that they’re most likely brother sisters or cousin or close cousin. That way, we will start with mass breeding them before starting to select.
For example, i have selective took out from a brood 2 males and 3 females to selective breed, they are closely related cousins as i control the males that i use from 2-4 depending also on the number of females.
When close cousin breed, they will firstly continue the desirable trait but will not really enhance the trait and with mass breeding, the idea is to get as many shrimplets as possible in the shortest possible time. From there lock in after a few generations the desirable trait you would like and then start inbreeding.
We can safely assume when we purchase shrimps from a breeder chances are the shrimps are very closely related unless the breeders keeps multiple tanks of the same parentage and keeps a strict breeding methodology.
As you can see in the example if we start off with a pair and slowly breed them to masses and then when we have our shrimplets (also helps to prevent too much inbreeding as male as small as 0.8cm can fly), it is important to remove them. The whole idea is to create 2 lines and relative or half/brother/sister (cousins). This way it will help pass on desirable trait and minimize undesirable trait when half brother/sister mate and at the end of the continuum if one would like to inject yet another desirable trait, an outcross can be made when you purchase the same line from the same breeder as we can safely again assume they are distant relative.
This PRL has been inbred (crossback) to maintain the desirable trait of size and redness. Now i’ll start breeding to a good number and split into two tanks so that i’ll have cousins. It takes almost 2 years to get to this stage.
Selective breeding takes time, years and years of consistency but many give up before results are seen. Selective breeding is the Be All End All in raising the quality of the shrimps.
This can be modified depending and minimally you’ll need 3 tanks to get to the desirable trait, i have expanded the number of tanks to split out the improvement tank and championship tank.
Main Breeding tank: when we start breeding 2M 8F of decent quality, this tank will continue to breed for shrimplets.
Shrimplet tank: this is where we will house all the shrimplets and once you have decent female, put it back into the main breeding tank. Over time you will find that there could be 2-3 good males and 10 good females, you can then take them out and put into the improvement tank.
Improvement tank: Strict inbreeding happens, and then the shrimplet can be scoop out into another shrimplet tanks and then the process above continues and then get to the championship tank which would probably be your goal to get there.
However, when you get there, the shrimps are fairly inbred, so now it will be good to split the tank into two and then get cousins so that the genetics pool do not get too similar.
Hope it helps! If not drop me a PM in messenger facebook and i can clarify any questions 🙂
This post shares a bit more information from this blog post where i have shared the difference between Main and Secondary line shrimps.
After you have read this, you can continue to read the additional post here.
One of the reasons for having this post is because i did a post in Facebook asking breeders to distinguish the difference between secondary and main line.
The one on the left is secondary line and the one on the right is main line. There are a few characteristic differences visually however if i would make it more difficult by selecting only the good ones for the secondary line, the differences can be very small and almost impossible to tell visually.
It was intended to leave the secondary line without selection if not it will be far too difficult to discern the difference. However, what i’m driving at is when we have a side by side comparison, we can then tell there are some difference. What happens if most of the time the shrimps are being selected to be sold without reference or guidance and most time without even telling you if they’re main or secondary line?
This is a secondary line RSD
Taking a step back and looking at a broader picture, if most of the shrimp sold are secondary line, wouldn’t that create ‘secondary’ line as a the benchmark for many since there isn’t widely available main line shrimps being sold or the prices are very high? Then wouldn’t that also means most of the shrimps sent for competition are secondary line?
Is there anything wrong with secondary line? I think no but i believe we need to clearly set the standard where breeders are aware of secondary line vs main line and when everyone says a particular shrimp is the “Benchmark” doesn’t make it a “main line”
The catch here is because far too many shrimps are being sold with unknown crosses diluting the genetic pool of what once was a stable line. For example the Red Stardust secondary line, the whole idea here is to massively produce to cater to the market at an acceptable price point. For Main line, they do not breed as readily as secondary line due to selective breeding.
To an untrained eye it is almost impossible to discern the difference, only when you experience it, breed them and see them would provide a rough idea of the minute difference.
When sending shrimps for competition, are they then mostly secondary line? Honestly it doesn’t matter because competition and contest is for show casing the work of the breeder. What should be taken into consideration is to use the outcome of a competition to then highlight that the shrimp is a main line, which then go against the grain of selective breeding. In other words, if a breeder is able to share if their line is main or secondary will be added value to other breeders.
Then the question is, how would one know if they have got secondary or main line shrimps? The long and short of it is it depends on the breeder they got from and traceability.
How do we go about this?
A prelude to what is coming in 2024, instead of looking at the shrimp to tell the difference, we would certify breeders who have the ability to share such knowledge and show case their work on main and secondary line as one of the many criterias of getting certified.
What this means?
Instead of certifying shrimps the way grading works, we will start having certification for breeders. This idea stems from the fish scene where there are many breeders who have attain Master Breeder status. However, for the shrimp side, there are no Governing body to actually certify this. In 2024, this will change and as we get nearer to the release of the certification process which we have already robustly define the scope and what it entails, Shrimp Sanctuary will start certifying breeders globally who meet the criteria. To make the criteria a pathway for breeders to attain and learn as they grow, it will take up to 10 years for any breeder to look forward. It provides a step by step approach to gain knowledge and experience. The criteria is not for the faint of heart and for breeders who want a guided path to walkthrough and experience it in a holistic manner.
Why do it?
This will help connect new breeders to gain knowledge from certified breeders, and as it stands the whole notion of building breeders up is then completed. The certified breeders will guide new breeders attain their next level and share information like how we share information widely here. The catch is it’s not an easy path to attain certification, it requires grit and determination not forgetting consistency and discipline. This will then setup a platform for breeders globally to have someone to turn to should there be a need. Today there are no differentiation or pathways to help breeders build credibility, and with the certification process helps to build credibility within the shrimp industry. It also helps breeders know where they stand in terms of shrimp breeding and helps position themselves in the industry. It increases integrity of the breeders globally to ensure more committed shrimp breeders stays within the hobby.
What in it for me?
There are multiple levels in the certification process, and each level attain will provide you with the needed skills and experience to go to the next level. Ultimately you drive the pace of certification, but a minimum 10 years to attain the highest level.
There will also be a certificate provided by us as it will be Globally recognised within the Shrimp industry.
Till then, we will keep refining it and release it in 2024.
It truly is my honor to be part of the judging committee for the North America Shrimp Contest 2023 held in North Carolina. It took me a grueling 18 hours direct flight from Singapore to Newark New York Airport before having a lay over of 3 hours for the next flight around 2 hours to North Carolina. Having travel so far, it is indeed something i was looking forward to meeting the judges, panels and most importantly the breeders that i finally put a face to the name that i was talking online.
It is interesting to note the fact this year contest has lesser tanks but of quality entry. This blog post however is not to discuss about the contest but to discuss on what entails a competition grade shrimp.
For those who are interested to learn more about shrimps prior to joining a contest, these are some tips for you.
In the beginning we needed to get entries rolling in and that is where we entered a couple of entries.
As i was part of the jury i couldn’t judge this category so that means i wouldn’t be able to give high scores to myself! That is a common rule in the committee that we will not be able to judge for those categories we entered.
i wanted to take this opportunity to highlight here even fundamental shrimps such as the black ninja or black/red crystal category, can still be entered into the contest and showcase your selective breeding methodology.
Over here we can look at the very first important aspects to grading:
Color:
These pictures were taken by a breeder in the US from Kevin Sheppard. As you can see the colors of the black ninja even under intense lighting which is hung no further than 15cm from the top.
Black ninja are generally fairly translucent as their color pigmentations are often not very densely structured. It get worst as they age and may go into different shades such as brownish, red, transparent. To get to a full jet black with size, may take some time and a few tanks to keep selecting. what is important however is starting with a good source, as this will save you a few years.
Colors on legs, and other areas, are they transparent or with colors?
These are some of the areas where we will award additional points if they have them. So to have good colors at a fairly large size will give you more points.
Next in my opinion is about the patterns or Size, for this shrimp, the black ninja has a white mask on the head face area and are they the same throughout. These are some of the areas we look at when we are judging.
Overall Appearance
usually here is more of a homogeneity where we want to have the same size of shrimps form/pattern to denote stability of the shrimp. Also we look at the size ratio in the group. Sometimes over here, we do also look at how difficult is it to attain such a shrimp.
For example:
Black ninja is a reverse cross of the 4 banded PBL, it goes to black ninja and then finally we select it to make it totally black. In other words, when we select from 4 band to Black ninja, we must ensure quality ones as the further down we select it will help. In other words, if we have poor quality with lots of transparency and hoping to select it better in future will add more years to the long process.
From this to
this and from this
This
So from here we continue to select for quality of the shrimp and become more stringent in the process of selection.
How difficult is it to arrive at this stage? After i have done it, it doesn’t feel that difficult just need to have good stock, time, an eye for detail and patience.
Level of difficulty:
Depending on the judges experience, and many have difference experiences based on their learning curve. Difficulty of breeding and degree of innovation is different things but similar direction, because the more difficult it is to achieve, the higher the degree of innovation.
Also this is relatively subjective in the sense that i may feel it is difficult based on my experience but may be easy to you. Hence it is important for judges to have a wide range of experience globally and with an eye for details, the quality of the results will be great.
Activity/Health of shrimps:
How are the shrimps looking good? Here we look at individual shrimps and see if there are any deformation or potential deformity that may arise. Is the head to body ratio in accordance to the 1:3 ratio.
How active the shrimps are within the tank and are they looking stress etc? In the next section i’ll share more about breeding for competition.
In this section i would not be discussing about selective breeding which i have touched on numerous time on my blog and youtube. However what is important here is that we breed the shrimps with vigor.
Vigor:
It means that we shouldn’t be pampering our shrimps too much yet we give them the care needed to look good and survive well. The fittest survive. Why i say that, is because when we bag our shrimps for competition, the committee will put the shrimps into the tank which has a different tank water than the ones they were being at. So by ensuring the shrimps are strong and rigorous, they’ll need to be kept in such a way that they can withstand a range of parameters.
i did mention this in one of my youtube above absolute vs range. If we are able to keep them in a stable environment but do not chase for an absolute pH or TDS or anything, then as long as they survive well in that range it will give them ad edge over others.
Shrimps generally can survive well between 2-6 GH. Instead of adjusting your GH always so often, a stable tank is more important than chasing a value.
De-vein:
This process is widely known in the fish industry where they stop feeding a day or 2 before the packing process. The shrimps are then net out to an area where they will start to de-vein. This will ensure the shrimps are of great condition when packed and shipped.
Bags:
Breather bags, poly bags, any bags so as long they’re of high quality and process of preparing the shrimps and packing them are done well, they will survive for a long time in the bag. We normally ship with ice pack, due to the heat in Singapore.
What if you don’t do it:
We have seen many shrimp die even before we can judge them or they do not fare as well, also there are various reasons to it, like red shrimps generally have their colors faded during shipping, hence it is important to breed with higher intensity of color to offset some of these small adjustments. For example a darker shade of red will look lighter during stress, but a light shade of red will turn transparent. Remember that shrimp colors are by pigmentation very fine spots, so the more intense the pigmentation or density to size ratio the fuller the color.
Meeting new people:
Of cause all events highlight is really to meet with new breeders and those who are very passionate about the hobby. It is surprising to know that while we are divided far from each other, we share the same passion nevertheless.
If you are wondering if shrimplet are getting sufficient food after they are born, you are right to have that question because like all living things, survival is instinct.
All shrimplet are born with the instinct to survival and to be as close to food and shelter as the fundamental elements of survival. It is by no coincidence that shrimplets especially those that are relatively young within 14 days of being born.
This observation can be seen here where the shrimplet are all congregating at one particular spot in the tank. While there are some in other areas of the tank but it is very evident that most of them are near the vicinity of the kallax ball within the ceramic/terracotta dish.
In the video below, it becomes very clear that majority of shrimplet have congregate in that area. There are some found at the moss area but the most are on the feeding dish where it’s close to the food source. As shrimplets are small they thrive readily on available biofilm and kallax ball helps with that production of biofilm which the shrimplet can directly benefit.
While using the kallax ball it is important to note that it has to be soak 3 days prior to using and the effect will last up to a month, sometimes longer.
Are all biofilm create equal? The long and short of it is no they’re not create equal. The content to create the biofilm makes a difference in the quality of biofilm. If you have tried putting driftwood into a new tank you’ll realize there are some slimy white cotton thing appearing. Those are biofilm, however created out of the wood, which we believe have no direct benefit.
For our Kallax ball/ Kallax plus and lubao are carefully formulated and individually hand packed myself to ensure the goodness reaches your shrimp in good order.
The quality of this can be seen by various breeders around the world who have learn how to use it to their benefit.
While we understand there are quite a bit of competition in the market but we trust that the Original will provide the best biofilm for your prized shrimp.
Trust you have learn something from this article and appreciate the support once again. It has been a great journey sharing information with all of you and those who are keen in learning how to breed quality shrimps.
In one of my Youtube videos i was talking about Ammonia reading and being able to measure that. However, what should we do with the readings?
In other words, we may know from a cycling process that ammonia is present in the water column and throughout the cycle, there will be a peak in Ammonia. When there is beneficial bacteria to convert the ammonia that is in the water column, it will then be converted to Nitrite and eventually to Nitrate.
The beneficial bacteria is the catalyst to convert the harmful ammonia to less harmful nitrite and eventually to nitrate.
While we can measure the ammonia reading, we can’t really measure beneficial bacteria, or can we? We are able to know if a tank is colonized with beneficial bacteria by measuring Ammonia. If Ammonia reading is 0 then we can safely “assume” there is beneficial bacteria present.
While we are not able to measure the number of beneficial bacteria in the tank we can however measure the surface area or Meter square available in the tank surface for bacteria colonization.
We can consider measuring porosity of filter media such as pads/substrat/ media/ etc to give an indication of how much surface area is potentially available for beneficial bacteria to colonize.
Many manufacturer market their product based on “Great Surface Area” but how great is great?
Hence to get an indication of what surface area are in filter media and sponges:
| m2/L | |
| Powerhouse S Soft | 1620 |
| Powerhouse M Soft | 1030 |
| Powerhouse L Soft | 800 |
| Poret Sponge 10ppi | 899 m2/m3 |
| Seachem Matrix bio | 700 |
| Biohome Ultimate | 680 |
| Eheim Substat pro | 450 |
| Sera Siporax | 270 |
While this post is not about which media is better for which purpose, as this can be found in other online information.
The table provides an indication of how much potential growth of beneficial bacteria at a given ammonia level.
There are many ways to get to Rome and what i’m trying to share in this post is about ammonia vs beneficial bacteria.
Do you have sufficient beneficial bacteria to shorten the duration of an ammonia spike. There are many causes of ammonia spike, it can be a dead shrimp, can be an over dose of bacteria products and other things. So it is not the ammonia spike that is scary but the duration of the spike that should be looked into.
Reason being is that if the tank have insufficient beneficial bacteria than the ammonia spike will be rather long in duration until the current beneficial bacteria have multiply to cope up with the given ammonia before the spike goes back down.
In other words, it doesn’t mean having a higher porosity filter would mean higher beneficial bacteria count, but it does mean that the potential for higher beneficial bacteria count is possible.
For example if you are using 1600 m2/L filter media vs 400 m2/L both will have beneficial bacteria of the same level if the ammonia level is kept the same. However, as we all know that shrimp breed and with more shrimplet the colony grow giving rise to higher ammonia. If there is insufficient space for more beneficial bacteria to grow than the tank will have hit it’s max capacity.
On the other hand if the ammonia level continue to rise due to more bioload, on the 1600 m2/L filter media, it will then continue to colonize new beneficial bacteria to upkeep with the ammonia changes.
Technically while we measure ammonia, we should also measure the duration of such a spike because the longer the spike the more damage it will do. Now with porosity given in another light, you can now look at why large area of sponge like HMF are working so well because of the large surface area.
If you are a filter media person, you can consider using filter media of good porosity to ensure high surface area. While they do clog up eventually, it is noted that a 10% change in filter media in 6-12 months can be considered to ensure new beneficial bacteria get colonize as sometimes the soil and dirt get stuck in the pores of the filter media rendering them less efficient.
With the thoughts behind porosity vs ammonia, it is important to discern the difference and that ‘getting by’ is ok but having an abundance will be beneficial in the long term. In other words, a larger potential area for beneficial bacteria to colonize is advantageous as you get into the more tricky shrimps.
Ammonia is your best friend in the aquarium because they are the food source for beneficial bacteria to colonize and continue to colonize. The higher the ammonia source the higher the POTENTIAL the growth of beneficial bacteria depending on the surface area. If there is very low surface area such as using 1L of soil for 100L as filter media, than the beneficial bacteria will be much lesser compare to the same with a large surface filter media.
We can prevent ammonia spike by having good water parameters both hard and soft value. Also we can reduce possibility of ammonia spike by not adding too many products into the tank to ‘mix’ it up. The lesser we add, the better and more stable it will be. The more products you add, the less likely you will know what is causing the trouble.
While there are many products on the market, it is important to discern the difference and once the tank is stable, i only use a product to enhance shrimp gut health which is optional.
other than that, i personally do not add nitrifying bacteria or other things after every water change. The only thing i would add is Natto bacteria occasionally for good gut health.
Can read more here regarding no requirement for nitrifying bacteria after every WC: https://www.tfhmagazine.com/articles/freshwater/nitrifying-bacteria
Yes the active soil we use for example Tropica and ADA soil are porous in nature since they’re clay and soil but the porosity of the soil if use in large quantity per L of water such as 1L of soil per 16L of water and having it up to 100L of water in the tank would house quite a lot of soil which then i believe can get away from having filter media.
However, any lesser soil would generally mean the porosity vs ammonia may be insufficient to begin with. Hence, it is important to note that if soil is use as a filter media it should also be considered the amount of soil use to per L of water. A general rule is the tank have to be at least 100L with 80L being filled with water. Meaning 1L of soil to 16L of water or 5L of soil. That is then sufficient as a media and buffering.
If there are lesser porosity or surface area for beneficial bacteria to colonize, the cycle will take a long time hence using soil solely for the tank as filtration and in small quantity will not be beneficial to the entire ecosystem.
Probably can get away with the more hardy shrimps but as we advance to more challenging type, every single detail matters.
Tank size: If you have a 20L/40L or bigger tank, it is important that you cycle the tank a full 40 days based on nitrogen cycle. A bigger tank with higher water volume will have more stable water parameters, the margin of error you are allowed to make is also bigger.
Soil: Now you have got your tank, what soil do i recommend? I still recommend ADA but i know there are other soil out there which can be suitable as well. For example Tropica is another great example of soil that can be use. As long the soil is active and has the capability to lower pH and keep the water soft with consistent buffering throughout the soil life can be considered.
Filtration: Sponge filter, hang on, external cannister, UGF, Uplift, etc. There are a ton of filtration out there that does the one thing: Filtration. Depending on how much time and budget you have, this is certainly the more important aspect in my opinion. Water parameters is the utmost important element in shrimp keeping/breeding and this affect directly to our shrimp. If you have a lot of tanks and want to keep cost down like how Taiwan breeders are doing than 2 unit of dual sponge filter per 100L tank is recommended. If you have a smaller tank and wish to put 2 x dual sponge filter, it is also possible. If you have a slightly higher budget and wish to provide more filtration, the matten filtration and external cannister is a good option. I’m a filter media person ever since i started aquarium hobby 19 years ago. So for my setup, i use a specialize Totto filter which i have mentioned in some of my post, it has the ability to remove nitrate as well. Yes Nitrate. The entire process from breaking down ammonia to nitrite and then onwards to Nitrate and eventually release as Nitrogen into the water column and dissipated. I enjoy having the ability to trust the system and view my shrimp given my very busy schedule, hence i opt for this option. I have tried many types of filter but this method suit my schedule the best. If i have slightly more time i would gone for sponge filter because they are really inexpensive and you have to just wash them in tank water once a month or more depending on how clog up it gets. So ask yourself how much time are you willing to allocate for maintaining the tanks, then it will give you an indication what kind of filter you can use. So far the better filter i have tried are uplift, sponge, cannister, hang on back, permanent UGF (not box) are possible ones.
Keeping things simple and focus time on selective breeding than water changes. Water changes need to be done but can be done semi automatically.
While everything can be set the same but the outcome of the cycled tank is going to be different. Every tank is different.
Plants: In one of my post i have mentioned about the types of plants you can use. I would give a summary here that any aquatic plants are suitable however you have to ensure it is contain and not over grown as this is a shrimp tank vs a planted tank. A planted tank has the focus on the plants with shrimp as one of the inhabitants whereas a shrimp tank has focus on the shrimp and plants as inhabitants. I like a lot of aquatic plants and hence i setup planted tank to satisfy my love for plants. For my shrimp tanks, i usually use Taiwan moss and plants such as echinodorus, crypto or buceps. The key to all these is they don’t grow too crazily over time unlike many stem plants that require weekly trimming. We don’t want to be dipping our hands into the tank every few days. Floating plants are fine too to absorb excess nitrate.
Bacteria: Startup bacteria is often sold as to help speed up the nitrogen cycle, however there are a myriad different type of bacteria in the market. While i’m an old school aquarist, i still stick to the very traditional free method of cycling it 40 days. While i have easy access to beneficial bacteria but still i prefer to ensure i don’t speed up things that shouldn’t be sped up. You have a lifetime ahead of you to breed the shrimps well, 40 days in a grand scheme of things is not too long. Understanding the nitrogen cycle is simply to get the beneficial bacteria ready to convert ammonia to nitrite into nitrate.
Cycling: I’ll still put here a minimum of 40 days cycling time, there are ways to improve the speed of the cycling time however the key to stable water parameters is to start the note on the right foot.
Airstone: What? Yes i actually like placing an airstone either to the outlet of the filter to introduce more agitation to the surface thus having a higher O2 exchange. The reason for this is more true for countries where we use cooling methods to cool down the tank. When temperature rises, ammonia become highly dangerous and thus consuming Oxygen, that is also why when there is an ammonia spike fishes gasp for air at the surface, shrimp doesn’t really do that (no indication). This is to help prolong the time for you to diagnose what the issue is (faulty chiller, dead shrimp that was concealed resulting in an ammonia spike, etc. Airstone are inexpensive and last a long time so drop one into every tank can be beneficial.
Food: A newly setup tank will have quite a lot of ‘food’ biofilm in the tank hence there is really not much you need to feed them after the first introduction. However, if you are going to introduce a lot of shrimp (50-100), they can strip off the biofilm in a matter of a day or 2. A good staple food i use is Hwa version 1 which is highly recommended as my main feed. It helps stressed shrimp to get to the food and consume as it has a strong drawing power. While the drawing power is important but more importantly the ingredients are all rounded. When there are a lot of shrimp, it becomes critical to introduce lubao as a grazing material as it has a long time duration in the tank up to 1-2 months per ball (i know some hobbyist use it even longer with no adverse effect – recommended still 1-2 months max). So in this section we listed 2 important word: Drawing power and Time Duration. Whenever i categorize the food and give ratings, i usually use these 2 as a basis for my understanding. Like for example, Moss is a very good ‘food’ as it harbors microorganism and also biofilm and time duration is endless. However the quantity it produces is fairly low. Indian Almond leaf is also another very good one, high creation of biofilm, medium time duration. While you can use a combination of those grazing material it is important to get that checklist tick.
There are a lot of factors influencing the shrimp ability to breed from water parameter to food to shrimp genetics. However, today i would like to touch on a fairly common topic on Shrimp Food. The first question i get asked frequently is how often should i feed my shrimps? If you have a lot of shrimps like 20 or more, you might want to consider a daily staple feed fed twice daily and also a grazing material. Grazing material such as Lubao, Indian Almond leaves, Alder cone, cholla are some good examples.
The reason to feed them twice is so all your shrimps are fed and the female will ‘Think” that the tank have sufficient food to support their next generation. The whole idea is to feed lesser quantity but high frequency. So twice is good and if you can do 3 times it works as well.
If you feed in the morning and the shrimps are unable to finish it within 4 hours, then you’re not required to feed the second time in the evening Thats my general rule of thumb, Remove the food by then or if you have ramshorn snail, they will help with scavenging and foraging on the shrimp food. If the shrimps are not feeding, it could be there are still plenty of biofilm in the tank but do watch out if the shrimps are looking lethargic and not feeding.
A grazing material aids in building up biofilm for shrimps to consume between meals. Think of it like a snack and a good grazing material will be the food source between feeds.
There is a wide range of food in the market and i think we are spoiled for choice and which one is good for my shrimps? Personally i like using a good staple food and that is Hwa V1.
Staple Food
Grazing material
Now here we get serious, grazing material in my opinion is equally important to daily feed. The amount of surface area for creating biofilm is important as it mimics the natural environment where Shrimps feed on biofilm.
Lubao, Indian Almond leaves and moss are three very popular and recommended grazing material. Alder cone and Cholla are not native to at least this part of the world, so i defer that information to those who have them. For Indian Almond leaves and Lubao we have very easy access to them hence we use them readily. I really like using Lubao because it is technically a microoganism food that produces food for cultivating microorganism for the shrimp to feed on and also biofilm. Indian almond leaves without going too deep into this topic has antibacteria properties, produces biofilm and are well liked by most shrimp. Grazing material is important because shrimp feed constantly and if there are not enough biofilm in the tank and daily feed is not consistent, the shrimps will not breed. They will start cannibalizing during molting. Hence, it is highly critical to have grazing material available.
A living grazing material that works very well is moss. Moss harbour a lot of microorganism which allow adults and shrimplets to graze on. Moss also provide cover for berried shrimp and shrimplets however it is also important not to over crowd the tank with moss because if it get too dense, some of the berried female may get stuck in there and die. Hence, always thin out the moss to a small bunch the size of your hand
Male to Female Ratio:
There are simply too many males in the tank causing a higher probability of females being harass and eventually succumbing to death. This is because too many males will try to mount onto the female shrimp which during the process might injure it as the shell is very soft after molting. It does not really happen to males because when male shrimp molt they do not emit the pheromones like female do. So chances are the male will be left alone for the shell to harden after molting.
A good ratio to consider:
In this blog post i would like to share my journey from a learning perspective over the years. I always have this question in my head, how can one learn and experience quicker. As shrimp breeding cycle from breeding to shrimplets to selective breeding takes years, can we accelerate the process with more tanks and can anybody from a hobbyist perspective upkeep this?
So i think we all started somewhere and i too started with 12 tanks and then as time goes on expanded to more than 100 tanks, does it mean that having more tanks equate to better shrimps?
The long and short of this is Not Necessary.
Time
One of the more influential factor is time, having more tanks means more time needed or a more complex process/infrastructure to ensure time isn’t been taken away too much for it is still a hobby; albeit very passionately.
Taking water change and reset for example, if we have 12 tanks weekly water change and reset once every 8-12 months all the time adds up.
This calculation is a very rough estimate of what could have happen, and if we first started off with 12 tanks the time taken in a year is 5 days. 5 Full Days doing nothing but water change for 12 tanks.
If we would to expand to 100 tanks with the same method and process it will then become1 month. This seems a bit unsustainable as out of the 12 months we have in a year, 1 month is doing nothing but water change.
Hence, when businesses or hobbyist decided to scale up, we try to save time by doing what takes the most time. Water change and reset, which lead to automation.
Automation, semi automation
This is where we can see hobbyist start with automation and yes even for us we started semi automation when i increase my tank count from 12 to 17 to 24 where i use gravity as discharge without having to drill holes in the tank. Yes slower but certainly a start.
In addition, we moved away from RODI to just DI. DI speeds up the process by filling the tanks up at the speed of 20 seconds per Litre. The draining process is 10.7 seconds per Litre.
In my YouTube and Blog post i have shared some of the methods we have used for water discharge and top up.
Tracking
When it comes to 12 tanks, we can still recall when was the last time a reset is done, a water change is done, a feeding is done.
When we multiply the number of tanks, the increase in complexity increases drastically.
At least for us tracking data is highly critical to ensure we know what is going on with one glance with some automation this excel sheet updates whenever we input in the raw data when the water change was done and a dashboard shows when we will need to do the next water change. The formula can be adjusted based on your water change intervals.
This gives a good overview of what needs to be done, when.
Finances
It is important for us to discuss in depth what it means to progress to more tanks as the whole process from 12 to 100 to 200 tanks require a direction and a viable plan.
From a finance perspective on expansion, we are looking at almost 7x the initial cost setup for 10 tanks to 100. This exclude all livestock/shrimps which will exponentially increase the cost.
More tanks even a conservative calculation, shrimps cost increases exponentially.
So does it mean there are no benefits to expansion?
If you have read this far, it means that inside of you there is something that you’re looking for in terms of rationalizing. If we put this across a few years of progress it will certainly help to put this into perspective.
Learning by doing and experience is by far a great journey for many hobbyist including myself. Different shrimps different lines and even learning the difference between main line and secondary line takes time.
Learning
There are many benefits to learning and to really put your knowledge to the test.
Selective breeding
With more tanks does not necessarily means better selective breeding. That is also the reason at the onset of this post i mentioned it is not necessary that expanding is beneficial. The direction and intent is important when expanding, and personally if we’re worst off than when we started, it will be detrimental to other parts of our life.
Selective breeding is a strict, discipline and consistent process where shrimps are move around with an intention in mind. The removal of shrimplets from one tank to another to grow up is part of the process and having more tanks allows you to do selective breeding more accurately. After talking to many global breeders, i do find there are certain characteristic and personality traits that breeders have in common if they’re willing to go the extra mile to selectively breed their shrimp and undergo the hard work to do so.
Selectively breeding are often loosely use and mentioned, but it entails a very strict process and a laser focus approach and not for everyone.
Personally, even with the many tanks that we run, we openly share that we do not do selective breeding for all shrimps types as we will easily run out of tanks if we do for every tank. However, what we do is to remove the shrimps with undesirable traits.
Outcome
The quality of the shrimp will be a good indicator if the process should be tweaked to further optimize or major changes need to be made. The question here still remain if your lifestyle is able to keep up with the number of tanks?
At the end of the day, this is still a shrimp hobby, and you can decide where you would like to take this to. Doesn’t mean that you cannot have fun during all these and you probably should find fun doing this.
In this journey we believe if automation to water change is considered then it is certainly viable to expand. How many tanks? I would recommend anything below 100 as the diminishing returns starts at 100 and move where projects can easily be neglected. However, who am i to tell you this ? So go ahead and expand because only when you’re there, would you be able to look back and say ah….. yes…. this make sense. One thing we can be certain of is the learning curve through more tanks and shrimps does gives you a more holistic understanding of shrimp breeding.
Hope you all enjoy this post!
It is becoming difficult to ignore the fact that with rising prices of commodities and inflation, things get more and more expensive and what do we expect can happen in the shrimp industry.
Eventually the shrimp industry will also be hit by the rising cost of raw material and logistics, however as we know these are not beyond our control, it is important to note what is truly important. Additionally, it is also a good time to reflect on what is necessity.
This is the same as what we will try to look out for in a tank that may crash. I have been discussing with a few breeders local and overseas regarding their journey and one of the common reasons for them having dead shrimp is because the tank crash.
Many factors can contribute to a tank crash, one of the more evident issue resulting in tank crash is by adding too many things into the tank. I have been discussing with one of the US breeder who had his tank crash overnight. To his horror when he woke up, most of his shrimp had die of ammonia poisoning.
What did he do differently?
Nothing.
Yes he did nothing differently before 2 of his tank crash, but why would something like this happen. This is the fallacy of the shrimp industry and i chalk this up to knowledge and experience. As more and more breeders continue on their breeding journey they’ll realized that what they’ve learn in the beginning may not apply to what they are experiencing or doing now.
So how can someone do everything the same he has always been doing and the tank just ‘miraculously’ crash over night? He did the same water change and added powder bacteria.
The prognosis:
From this, we understood that over time the bacteria powder have caused the accumulation of ammonia that resulted in a spike. Some of the shrimps couldn’t take the spike forces them to force molt, some got stuck, and die. This dead shrimp over a few hours released higher ammonia, together with all these created an Armageddon. This is not even coincidental, as 2 tanks with the same method done had the same cause and effect.
These are two pictures of his tank.
What it really meant is the water parameters have already been peaking to a point where the tipping point came when the water change was done and powder added. Is there a way to tell if the tank is breaking?
Like one of my topics on ammonia vs porosity, where we cannot measure the amount of beneficial bacteria we can however measure the porosity of filter media. In other words, if the filtration is unable to handle the added powder the tank has reached it’s tipping point.
When hobbyist encounter such incidences majority may quit the hobby and totally give up. Some persist on after finding out new found knowledge. Those who continue will then get afraid of doing what they normally do. I think while powder bacteria is not an issue, using in large dosage and frequently after water change have caused the tank to crash when the filtration/media no longer able to convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrate, robbing away oxygen during the bacteria bloom process.
So while we may be in this hobby being taught different things, there is no one best way and i guess there can only be one way that suit you better.
Recommendation:
For me i treasure the simplicity of the hobby and to keep them as fuss free as possible, streamlining things, eliminating optional stuff whenever possible. This would then help to enjoy the hobby a lot more.
Hence, when there are issues such as tank crash, it is important to have a standby tank or emergency tank where you can immediately transfer the shrimp into the tank or hang breeder box to house the shrimps and hopefully you rescue them in time.
There isn’t much you can do at this point but to reset the tank and continue on the hobby with the new found knowledge.
I’m still in contact with him and i’m sure now he will now be able to breed back the number of shrimps he use to have.
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.
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.
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.
Hope you guys like this post which i use it as my guiding star to ensure having that 4 rules will help with the shrimp breeding journey.
To always remember to have a vision and goals, hard work, ignore the naysayers and giving back to the hobby.
When you use the 4 rules you will have a truly meaningful journey and i’m sure there are some of you out there who have already a few of the rules that you are using and certainly a great way to enjoy the hobby as a whole.
While it may be difficult for change as it requires work and action, but change by itself if for the better helps in the long term.
Tank reset:
While we know we have to reset our tanks sooner or later, eventually some even put off the tank reset and convince themselves it will last another month or 6 months or a year. I think there are no best way to shrimp keeping, as long as the breeding continues i think it will be great. However, many a times soil depletes it’s buffering capacity if using the thin soil method at a rather quick time frame. A reset between 8-12 months is something to consider.
It will also help clear up all the debris, filters and re-create a better place for the shrimps again.
Infrastructure:
While we progress on with the hobby it’s always good to learn new things, new method to improve the current process, this will help save you time and energy. For example, water change process and also keeping things simple on the air system.
The more time it is to create that new infrastructure in the beginning will certainly help with saving more time in future.
De-cluttering:
Have you wonder why some breeder’s setup is so neat and tidy and very pleasing to the eye? Yes they have make it simple by decluttering their space and also the tank setup.
In general a telltale sign between a hobbyist and a commercial breeder is the tank setup. In general, a hobbyist would have more resources to allocate for a few tanks vs a commercial breeder.
The in between is like me where i have both hobbyist setup and commercial setup for the sole purpose of bringing in good shrimps and of cause to share it with friends in the hobby.
During this process i have also learn more about the differences on the shrimp adaptability, while the more hardy ones can take more ‘beating’ the more sensitive ones still require special attention.
I think when we stop growing and learning, we stop progressing, be it for shrimp hobby or life, it’s quite the same. Hence, i ask myself, when do people stop growing and learning? Esp. When we are going through the rat race, the mindless repetition of spending hours and than go back home and not pursue your dreams. A quote
“Do not go to work for 8-10 hours a day and go back home and not work on your dreams. You are not tired, you uninspired”
Even small steps towards your goal would be great if we keep doing it everyday for 1 hour, in a year we are better than we are before with 365 hours put in.
I have seen many procrastinating about change and the work they have to do, putting it off to tomorrow, and tomorrow didn’t come. For me it is straight forward, there is no one day, it is because there is only Monday to Sunday. One day doesn’t come in, some day doesn’t come in.
Also the fear of failing is too great for some, but without failing you are not even learning. Some don’t and never will learn because they are too afraid to take that first step. When they fall, they forgot how to stand up. Like a child, when they’re learning how to walk, they fall very often until they are able to walk on their own.
The older we get, the more we forgot the basic in life to always stand up when we fall if not we will never walk. We started ‘rationalizing’ about things but ultimately anything that prevents you from being greater isn’t rationalizing.
Live fully, die empty.
Appreciate all the feedback and comments on the content i have created and shared so far, it is certainly awesome to get great feedback on it. While rare to share openly information, i think there should be a depositary where all the information are gathered together to educate the shrimp hobby.
coming back to today’s post on Hwa Bacter, and it took me a good 4 years before i actually share this information because i didn’t had sufficient data to back them up and also haven’t been a religious user of bacteria products.
The only reason why i share this information is because i wanted to give a different perspective of bacteria product and when can and should be use.
Basically why we need to use bacteria such as Hwa bacter and what it actually contain?
Like most of the bacteria product on the market i think we need to differentiate the different type of bacteria and usage.
These are some of the questions i get and i would take this opportunity to share the information.
Nitrifying Bacteria:
This bacteria is essentially to convert Ammonia to Nitrite and then to Nitrate. That is the purpose of this bacteria and they do not mulitply fast under low pH which is normal in Caridina tank. Hence, it takes time for this bacteria to multiply and go through the entire cycling process.
Probiotics (bacillus subtilis)
This bacteria shouldn’t be confuse with the nitrifying bacteria as they have a different purpose. Bacillus subtilis can be understood as probiotics like in human however the ones from Hwa are extracted from the Japanese Fermented Soya Bean also known as Natto. Hence there is a variant of Bacillus subtilis var. natto. In other words the plant base probiotics has a great potential to improve nutritional value to shrimps.
This has long been used for aquaculture with those against the use of antibiotics. There has been many articles regarding shrimp farm (for consumption) where they’re fed with doses of antibiotics to prevent bacteria infection. However, in recent time antibiotic usage has been frown upon and the rise of more natural products to help the long term farming of shrimps. This also help reduce reliance of antibiotic to get a better harvest.
This now being used under the aquarium hobby for some time and being sold in many different name and brands. The Hwa Bacillus subtilis var. natto has undergone quite a lot of refinement over the last few years while we are at it. It is important to note the history of progress on this as the powder used to be gray in color and some were dark brown which is natural since the original color of the Natto is light brown. The extraction process using a normal method which is less costly derived gray powder however over time as we continue to refine the powder it is now white.
Lubao/Kallax ball
This is again a totally different purpose, and shouldn’t be confuse with bacteria powder production of biofilm. The fermentation of the plant base lubao is to extract the best of the properties to form the biofilm for shrimps to feed on.
Using the Natto bacteria is certainly more an art than a science because depending on the tank size and number of shrimps, i would always error on the side of conservative. However, before we go into the usage, it is also good to note that in some of the articles regarding Bacillus subtilis in general will prohibit diseases from formation through inhibiting the environment.
For the Natto bacteria, we can consider using them when you have a mature tank after cycling and because there are a lot of ‘food’ or biofilm available, the use of bacteria Natto may not be as efficient. An approach you can consider is when they start feeding pads and once they are able to do so, you can consider feeding them after every water change once a week. Weakly weekly. A small spoon, stirrer plastic spoon or half a stirrer plastic spoon for 20L and a full one with 40L and above. Like i have mentioned, this should be highly depending on the tank volume and number of shrimp. Giving a bit mix into the water after water change for them to consume and then shortly after (an hour or 2) you can resume normal feeding.
Can i use this during tank setup and cycling? Yes you certainly can too and add about 2-3 of the stirrer spoon to startup. I personally haven’t use it to start a tank as i always like to cycle for a long time and only then when the shrimps are in i’ll start it but in general, it’s always weakly weekly.
Like all products, overdosing is harmful as your filter may not have the capability to remove them and the sudden surge of powder will clog filters and thus increasing ammonia spike. Hence, if you accidentally put a lot of them into the tank, it is generally best if you remove the shrimp to another tank. Hence, please use all product carefully and as per direction.
I hope this article shed some light on the properties of bacillus subtilis var. natto.
Cheers!
This is a less in-depth shrimp post and taking this time to share some of the background of the Why’s of Shrimp Sanctuary and why it exist.
As the title says sharing and supporting has created Shrimp Sanctuary with the sole purpose of educating the hobby. This to me is one of the cornerstone of why it exists. In my home page, i did share the high level reasons for the existence of Shrimp Sanctuary and would take this opportunity to share more.
I get the opportunity to communicate to a lot of shrimp breeders all over the world and have forge strong friendship from it. From Russia to Malta to Poland to most of Europe countries and to Africa, Brazil, USA and not forgetting Asia. This has given me a very broad perspective of what is happening in each of these countries.
While we all have different languages, the common language we talk about is shrimp. However, what i also observed is that the politics we have in common in this hobby is fairly similar across the countries and the many sub groups within groups.
In Singapore there is no difference, however i believe that this can be change a person at a time with the notion of Sharing and Supporting. Sharing information that allow breeders or even beginners to kick start their hobby. In this day and age, information is widely available however we need to discern between accurate data and not so accurate data.
Like all new hobby, there is a learning curve and many prefer talking to someone to get up to speed as quickly as possible. So usually platform like YouTube and Facebook are great ways to obtain information if they couldn’t find someone to guide them. However, one must also be weary on what information is beneficial. A litmus test is to see if they are truly a shrimp breeder who have high quality shrimps. This will differentiate between noise and voice because great ideas cut through all the noise.
Why do i take hours and hours every week just to share something which i feel passionate about.
One of it is to debunk the fallacies in the hobby is we are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. A lack of knowledge creates fear, seeking knowledge creates courage. So when one is able to gain knowledge and put it to use, it dispel fear.
The secret to having good shrimp breeding is actually knowledge. The knowledge of breeding, knowledge of food, knowledge of setting it up. when we have all these have success, share them because knowledge gain is wisdom, sharing knowledge is humanity.
As the name denotes, a sanctuary for breeders and new hobbyist to come and learn more about the shrimp hobby. Information is free and can be use for learning but putting these information together and then trying it will give you knowledge over time. Experience does it.
At Shrimp Sanctuary we value free sharing of information which would otherwise have been kept a secret as i understand that good information is really lacking and hence learn from Taiwan and share it here. This journey continues as i continue to provide more information about shrimp breeding and sharing what works for us here in Singapore.
Wouldn’t we offend sellers by revealing all these information? I have been asked about this why invest time in things without benefit? At the end of the day we need to stand up for something we believe. Yes there will certainly be people for and against us.
Everyone have a finite time on this earth, time can either be invested or wasted, so i choose to stick to investing my time and energy to the top two quadrant, which accounts for 50% of the breeders. A special shout out to those who continue to read my blog following closely every week and encouraging me to continue writing. Thanks for that and for those who have sent me a token for “Virtual Coffee” greatly appreciate it.
For those in the last square, i simply do not invest any time to even try, and i’m sure many of you have them in your life. They will tell you what you can, what you cannot. Just Ignore the naysayers, because they may temporarily bring you down, but they will not be able to write your story. It is your story and it is your life, they don’t run it.
Hence, i continue to forge on creating blog entries to share as much as i can, which i learn from Taiwan. Do let me know what would you like to see in the next blog entry and i can write them for you while sharing with the rest.
Everyone has 24 hours, nobody have more of it or less of it. It is how we fully utilize and the willingness to allocate time for things that matter. This is because i believe that let us strive to improve continuously; for we cannot remain stationary. One either progresses or retrogrades.
This post helps to conceptualize the Why of things and streamline the processes to gain back time.
We all have busy life with work and family that we need to take care. We have jobs that need us to be there majority of time and we still need to spend time with our love ones. However, without giving up any of those we can stream line our processes and optimize our setup so we can spend more time with things that matter. At least for me, i would want to spend as much time as i can with my family, so this the “Why” i invest in the initial setup. Time and Resources during the setup.
There are two things that takes up majority of time (excluding seeing them), water change and reset of tanks. There is no escaping that water change is necessary and resetting of tanks is necessary but both takes up a lot of time if you have a lot of tanks.
Hence, this is the why of things that i do what i do and still progress on the hobby, which in retrospect helps me a lot more in visualizing what i want to do with the next project and such.
I’m going to share with you how i do it in the following paragraph.
During the course of my journey and as i learn how to better optimize the infrastructure such as the tank setup and location, it becomes important to me. For example there are 2 main important things which i really look for :
Though very basic for shrimp keeping, i needed these two important things due to ease of water change. Water change is a large part for shrimp breeding. This small yet essential change to the infrastructure helps reduce time taken to drain water and fill it up.
There are a few ways to do so, either we drill a hole in the tank and make it an outlet for draining or we can use gravity with another hose to drain the water.
since filling the water up is fairly quick, i have opt for using gravity to drain the water in the tank.
Lastly is a small sink which allows me to wash and disinfect tools, unpacking of shrimps and so on. A sink provides a lot of flexibility when dealing with the aquatic hobby. With the opportunity to re-do everything again, what i did was to have a sink, a drainage and water outlet all in one place. This helps contain and reduce movements in and out of the facility.
Draining using gravity requires some calibration to the hose use to fill the tank up. It uses the same inlet into the tank but with an additional valve to drain the water out. 
This method if done correctly will help save a lot of time in draining the water. However, this doesn’t remove the need to siphon or clean your soil once in 3-6 months.
From the picture below the first 4 tap is for the inflow of water into the 4 tanks after draining and the last tap (5th) is the drainage valve. What this does is if the “main water in tap” is shut off and the “water out tap” is turn on, than the draining process will begin. If multiple tiers are connected, it is important to note the draining hoses connected at the next tier below for draining need to be lower than the draining height. A safe method is the connecting valve on the next tier be at the level of the bottom of the tank.
Alternatively, individual tiers can have it’s own drainage outlet but all connected to the main drainage outlet.
The reason why i use thin layer of soil is because it is easier to manage from a 3-6 months siphoning (cleaning of soil) perspective and it is also faster to reset the tanks when needed.
These two elements help reduce time spent in resetting and siphoning. With thinner layer of soil yes we do need to increase frequency of tank reset but resetting tanks frequently also helps boost the shrimp to breed.
During reset, what i do is to vacuum out the soil and water together and i can now reset tanks very quickly. The entire end to end process takes 15 mins per tank but does not exponentially increase with more tanks because now i can reset 4 tanks in an hour. In the past when i have UGF setup and box UGF i couldn’t reset as fast.
Now it is a breeze.
Daily feed is still a routine for me and it is something i do so the inspection of the shrimps are done that way, looking at how the shrimps are doing. While i feed once or twice daily, i have opt for using lubao as a grazing material. This helps and allow me to go on vacation or days without feeding if needed. Increasing the grazing material helps with extending the time between feeds.
Personally i would like to achieve minimizing time spent in the various necessary task essential to shrimp breeding, and with the above steps taken i was able to truly enjoy the shrimp hobby as it doesn’t steal away a lot of time yet able to achieve good results in breeding. Over time i was able to keep improving through the years and consistently do what i believe is great work.
Life is short to live in regrets because tomorrow is no guarantee. We can’t become fit if we go to the gym once a year, it is through small steps, small changes, small adjustment and doing it consistently that will eventually adds up to the goal.
i’ll close with this quote which i like from Roy Bennett “Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses in your life; you realize that everything that happens in life is a result of a previous choice you’ve made and start making new choices to change your life.
Hope this post is beneficial for those who are rethinking their setup and or going towards a different phase of shrimp breeding.
It is difficult to ignore the fact that the shrimp breeding journey can be quite daunting. Why so? Reason being is because there are many different methodology and processes to keep and breed shrimps. My opinion is that there isn’t one best way, there is only a better way.
Adding to the complexity of shrimps breeding are the external environment where knowledge are often seek, information gathered via the internet. With so many information, which one suit me the best? I do use one personal gauge to help me filter out the noises.
Look at the quality of shrimps by the person.
Yes a very simple with flaws definitely but effective way, because i believe how you do anything is how you do everything. The quality of shrimp continues on year after year, because ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle
That will help cut through the clutter of information and onto where better information is found.
Have we wondered why some breeders are more successful than others?
I will share my perspective on this and we can relate that some breeders shrimp are often a league above the rest, why? Is there a special methodology or anything? No. There isn’t. There is no dark secret on getting better shrimps.
Again i’m going to repeat the above sentence from the paragraph, “How you do anything, is how you do everything”.
An example:
Breeder A and Breeder B get similar shrimps from the same batch. Breeder A breeds them and didn’t really select, complains about quality of shrimp and poorness of genetics and after 2 years have not much results to show. Blames the seller for poor genetic shrimp, unable to achieve good results and stopped trying.
Breeder B on the other hand, started selecting and after 2 years, though couldn’t improve the line but had at least maintain the quality of the line, still don’t have much results to show. Feedback to the seller that he will buy another batch to try again. Seller was very touch by the determination of the breeder decided to net something better for the breeder to breed. He keeps on trying and journey was positive.
The outlook of two different breeders given the same circumstances makes a huge difference in the outcome. Breeder B didn’t quit and that is where the success is.
I have seen this time and time again, and it is also very interesting because over the years, breeder A don’t last quite long as breeder B in the hobby. The negativity and poor information shared by breeder A could have already spread like Covid.
– Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity – Dr. Rick Ridley
Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right – Henry Ford.
I have seen breeders who had set a goal for themselves and focusing solely on something that they would want to achieve and being successful. There are many good examples of breeders who don’t have very good stock shrimp to start with, but end up with excellent looking ones. Selective breeding is the end all be all. while the environment to get there has many ways, this is where the complexity/confusion comes about because if breeder A from the above example was sharing his information, while breeder B share his, there is a clash of notion.
Hence, it is very important and critical when gathering information, do ask questions and certainly look at the quality of the shrimp.
Hope you have enjoyed this post.
This post shares a bit more information from this blog post where i have shared the difference between Main and Secondary line shrimps.
After you have read this, you can continue to read the additional post here.
One of the reasons for having this post is because i did a post in Facebook asking breeders to distinguish the difference between secondary and main line.
The one on the left is secondary line and the one on the right is main line. There are a few characteristic differences visually however if i would make it more difficult by selecting only the good ones for the secondary line, the differences can be very small and almost impossible to tell visually.
It was intended to leave the secondary line without selection if not it will be far too difficult to discern the difference. However, what i’m driving at is when we have a side by side comparison, we can then tell there are some difference. What happens if most of the time the shrimps are being selected to be sold without reference or guidance and most time without even telling you if they’re main or secondary line?
This is a secondary line RSD
Taking a step back and looking at a broader picture, if most of the shrimp sold are secondary line, wouldn’t that create ‘secondary’ line as a the benchmark for many since there isn’t widely available main line shrimps being sold or the prices are very high? Then wouldn’t that also means most of the shrimps sent for competition are secondary line?
Is there anything wrong with secondary line? I think no but i believe we need to clearly set the standard where breeders are aware of secondary line vs main line and when everyone says a particular shrimp is the “Benchmark” doesn’t make it a “main line”
The catch here is because far too many shrimps are being sold with unknown crosses diluting the genetic pool of what once was a stable line. For example the Red Stardust secondary line, the whole idea here is to massively produce to cater to the market at an acceptable price point. For Main line, they do not breed as readily as secondary line due to selective breeding.
To an untrained eye it is almost impossible to discern the difference, only when you experience it, breed them and see them would provide a rough idea of the minute difference.
When sending shrimps for competition, are they then mostly secondary line? Honestly it doesn’t matter because competition and contest is for show casing the work of the breeder. What should be taken into consideration is to use the outcome of a competition to then highlight that the shrimp is a main line, which then go against the grain of selective breeding. In other words, if a breeder is able to share if their line is main or secondary will be added value to other breeders.
Then the question is, how would one know if they have got secondary or main line shrimps? The long and short of it is it depends on the breeder they got from and traceability.
How do we go about this?
A prelude to what is coming in 2024, instead of looking at the shrimp to tell the difference, we would certify breeders who have the ability to share such knowledge and show case their work on main and secondary line as one of the many criterias of getting certified.
What this means?
Instead of certifying shrimps the way grading works, we will start having certification for breeders. This idea stems from the fish scene where there are many breeders who have attain Master Breeder status. However, for the shrimp side, there are no Governing body to actually certify this. In 2024, this will change and as we get nearer to the release of the certification process which we have already robustly define the scope and what it entails, Shrimp Sanctuary will start certifying breeders globally who meet the criteria. To make the criteria a pathway for breeders to attain and learn as they grow, it will take up to 10 years for any breeder to look forward. It provides a step by step approach to gain knowledge and experience. The criteria is not for the faint of heart and for breeders who want a guided path to walkthrough and experience it in a holistic manner.
Why do it?
This will help connect new breeders to gain knowledge from certified breeders, and as it stands the whole notion of building breeders up is then completed. The certified breeders will guide new breeders attain their next level and share information like how we share information widely here. The catch is it’s not an easy path to attain certification, it requires grit and determination not forgetting consistency and discipline. This will then setup a platform for breeders globally to have someone to turn to should there be a need. Today there are no differentiation or pathways to help breeders build credibility, and with the certification process helps to build credibility within the shrimp industry. It also helps breeders know where they stand in terms of shrimp breeding and helps position themselves in the industry. It increases integrity of the breeders globally to ensure more committed shrimp breeders stays within the hobby.
What in it for me?
There are multiple levels in the certification process, and each level attain will provide you with the needed skills and experience to go to the next level. Ultimately you drive the pace of certification, but a minimum 10 years to attain the highest level.
There will also be a certificate provided by us as it will be Globally recognised within the Shrimp industry.
Till then, we will keep refining it and release it in 2024.
It truly is my honor to be part of the judging committee for the North America Shrimp Contest 2023 held in North Carolina. It took me a grueling 18 hours direct flight from Singapore to Newark New York Airport before having a lay over of 3 hours for the next flight around 2 hours to North Carolina. Having travel so far, it is indeed something i was looking forward to meeting the judges, panels and most importantly the breeders that i finally put a face to the name that i was talking online.
It is interesting to note the fact this year contest has lesser tanks but of quality entry. This blog post however is not to discuss about the contest but to discuss on what entails a competition grade shrimp.
For those who are interested to learn more about shrimps prior to joining a contest, these are some tips for you.
In the beginning we needed to get entries rolling in and that is where we entered a couple of entries.
As i was part of the jury i couldn’t judge this category so that means i wouldn’t be able to give high scores to myself! That is a common rule in the committee that we will not be able to judge for those categories we entered.
i wanted to take this opportunity to highlight here even fundamental shrimps such as the black ninja or black/red crystal category, can still be entered into the contest and showcase your selective breeding methodology.
Over here we can look at the very first important aspects to grading:
Color:
These pictures were taken by a breeder in the US from Kevin Sheppard. As you can see the colors of the black ninja even under intense lighting which is hung no further than 15cm from the top.
Black ninja are generally fairly translucent as their color pigmentations are often not very densely structured. It get worst as they age and may go into different shades such as brownish, red, transparent. To get to a full jet black with size, may take some time and a few tanks to keep selecting. what is important however is starting with a good source, as this will save you a few years.
Colors on legs, and other areas, are they transparent or with colors?
These are some of the areas where we will award additional points if they have them. So to have good colors at a fairly large size will give you more points.
Next in my opinion is about the patterns or Size, for this shrimp, the black ninja has a white mask on the head face area and are they the same throughout. These are some of the areas we look at when we are judging.
Overall Appearance
usually here is more of a homogeneity where we want to have the same size of shrimps form/pattern to denote stability of the shrimp. Also we look at the size ratio in the group. Sometimes over here, we do also look at how difficult is it to attain such a shrimp.
For example:
Black ninja is a reverse cross of the 4 banded PBL, it goes to black ninja and then finally we select it to make it totally black. In other words, when we select from 4 band to Black ninja, we must ensure quality ones as the further down we select it will help. In other words, if we have poor quality with lots of transparency and hoping to select it better in future will add more years to the long process.
From this to
this and from this
This
So from here we continue to select for quality of the shrimp and become more stringent in the process of selection.
How difficult is it to arrive at this stage? After i have done it, it doesn’t feel that difficult just need to have good stock, time, an eye for detail and patience.
Level of difficulty:
Depending on the judges experience, and many have difference experiences based on their learning curve. Difficulty of breeding and degree of innovation is different things but similar direction, because the more difficult it is to achieve, the higher the degree of innovation.
Also this is relatively subjective in the sense that i may feel it is difficult based on my experience but may be easy to you. Hence it is important for judges to have a wide range of experience globally and with an eye for details, the quality of the results will be great.
Activity/Health of shrimps:
How are the shrimps looking good? Here we look at individual shrimps and see if there are any deformation or potential deformity that may arise. Is the head to body ratio in accordance to the 1:3 ratio.
How active the shrimps are within the tank and are they looking stress etc? In the next section i’ll share more about breeding for competition.
In this section i would not be discussing about selective breeding which i have touched on numerous time on my blog and youtube. However what is important here is that we breed the shrimps with vigor.
Vigor:
It means that we shouldn’t be pampering our shrimps too much yet we give them the care needed to look good and survive well. The fittest survive. Why i say that, is because when we bag our shrimps for competition, the committee will put the shrimps into the tank which has a different tank water than the ones they were being at. So by ensuring the shrimps are strong and rigorous, they’ll need to be kept in such a way that they can withstand a range of parameters.
i did mention this in one of my youtube above absolute vs range. If we are able to keep them in a stable environment but do not chase for an absolute pH or TDS or anything, then as long as they survive well in that range it will give them ad edge over others.
Shrimps generally can survive well between 2-6 GH. Instead of adjusting your GH always so often, a stable tank is more important than chasing a value.
De-vein:
This process is widely known in the fish industry where they stop feeding a day or 2 before the packing process. The shrimps are then net out to an area where they will start to de-vein. This will ensure the shrimps are of great condition when packed and shipped.
Bags:
Breather bags, poly bags, any bags so as long they’re of high quality and process of preparing the shrimps and packing them are done well, they will survive for a long time in the bag. We normally ship with ice pack, due to the heat in Singapore.
What if you don’t do it:
We have seen many shrimp die even before we can judge them or they do not fare as well, also there are various reasons to it, like red shrimps generally have their colors faded during shipping, hence it is important to breed with higher intensity of color to offset some of these small adjustments. For example a darker shade of red will look lighter during stress, but a light shade of red will turn transparent. Remember that shrimp colors are by pigmentation very fine spots, so the more intense the pigmentation or density to size ratio the fuller the color.
Meeting new people:
Of cause all events highlight is really to meet with new breeders and those who are very passionate about the hobby. It is surprising to know that while we are divided far from each other, we share the same passion nevertheless.
In this blog post i would like to share my journey from a learning perspective over the years. I always have this question in my head, how can one learn and experience quicker. As shrimp breeding cycle from breeding to shrimplets to selective breeding takes years, can we accelerate the process with more tanks and can anybody from a hobbyist perspective upkeep this?
So i think we all started somewhere and i too started with 12 tanks and then as time goes on expanded to more than 100 tanks, does it mean that having more tanks equate to better shrimps?
The long and short of this is Not Necessary.
Time
One of the more influential factor is time, having more tanks means more time needed or a more complex process/infrastructure to ensure time isn’t been taken away too much for it is still a hobby; albeit very passionately.
Taking water change and reset for example, if we have 12 tanks weekly water change and reset once every 8-12 months all the time adds up.
This calculation is a very rough estimate of what could have happen, and if we first started off with 12 tanks the time taken in a year is 5 days. 5 Full Days doing nothing but water change for 12 tanks.
If we would to expand to 100 tanks with the same method and process it will then become1 month. This seems a bit unsustainable as out of the 12 months we have in a year, 1 month is doing nothing but water change.
Hence, when businesses or hobbyist decided to scale up, we try to save time by doing what takes the most time. Water change and reset, which lead to automation.
Automation, semi automation
This is where we can see hobbyist start with automation and yes even for us we started semi automation when i increase my tank count from 12 to 17 to 24 where i use gravity as discharge without having to drill holes in the tank. Yes slower but certainly a start.
In addition, we moved away from RODI to just DI. DI speeds up the process by filling the tanks up at the speed of 20 seconds per Litre. The draining process is 10.7 seconds per Litre.
In my YouTube and Blog post i have shared some of the methods we have used for water discharge and top up.
Tracking
When it comes to 12 tanks, we can still recall when was the last time a reset is done, a water change is done, a feeding is done.
When we multiply the number of tanks, the increase in complexity increases drastically.
At least for us tracking data is highly critical to ensure we know what is going on with one glance with some automation this excel sheet updates whenever we input in the raw data when the water change was done and a dashboard shows when we will need to do the next water change. The formula can be adjusted based on your water change intervals.
This gives a good overview of what needs to be done, when.
Finances
It is important for us to discuss in depth what it means to progress to more tanks as the whole process from 12 to 100 to 200 tanks require a direction and a viable plan.
From a finance perspective on expansion, we are looking at almost 7x the initial cost setup for 10 tanks to 100. This exclude all livestock/shrimps which will exponentially increase the cost.
More tanks even a conservative calculation, shrimps cost increases exponentially.
So does it mean there are no benefits to expansion?
If you have read this far, it means that inside of you there is something that you’re looking for in terms of rationalizing. If we put this across a few years of progress it will certainly help to put this into perspective.
Learning by doing and experience is by far a great journey for many hobbyist including myself. Different shrimps different lines and even learning the difference between main line and secondary line takes time.
Learning
There are many benefits to learning and to really put your knowledge to the test.
Selective breeding
With more tanks does not necessarily means better selective breeding. That is also the reason at the onset of this post i mentioned it is not necessary that expanding is beneficial. The direction and intent is important when expanding, and personally if we’re worst off than when we started, it will be detrimental to other parts of our life.
Selective breeding is a strict, discipline and consistent process where shrimps are move around with an intention in mind. The removal of shrimplets from one tank to another to grow up is part of the process and having more tanks allows you to do selective breeding more accurately. After talking to many global breeders, i do find there are certain characteristic and personality traits that breeders have in common if they’re willing to go the extra mile to selectively breed their shrimp and undergo the hard work to do so.
Selectively breeding are often loosely use and mentioned, but it entails a very strict process and a laser focus approach and not for everyone.
Personally, even with the many tanks that we run, we openly share that we do not do selective breeding for all shrimps types as we will easily run out of tanks if we do for every tank. However, what we do is to remove the shrimps with undesirable traits.
Outcome
The quality of the shrimp will be a good indicator if the process should be tweaked to further optimize or major changes need to be made. The question here still remain if your lifestyle is able to keep up with the number of tanks?
At the end of the day, this is still a shrimp hobby, and you can decide where you would like to take this to. Doesn’t mean that you cannot have fun during all these and you probably should find fun doing this.
In this journey we believe if automation to water change is considered then it is certainly viable to expand. How many tanks? I would recommend anything below 100 as the diminishing returns starts at 100 and move where projects can easily be neglected. However, who am i to tell you this ? So go ahead and expand because only when you’re there, would you be able to look back and say ah….. yes…. this make sense. One thing we can be certain of is the learning curve through more tanks and shrimps does gives you a more holistic understanding of shrimp breeding.
Hope you all enjoy this post!
There will be a potential release of more new shrimps in the market as new and more innovative shrimp hybrids are being done with certain stability. However, it depends on when the shrimp will be suitable for release and please stay tune for new releases during International shrimp contest.
I would like to take the opportunity for the organizers for the German International Shrimp contest for hosting it and making it an eventful one. Certainly appreciate the time and effort on doing that.
Before we go straight into the background information of Snowfall, it is a great opportunity to share the reason and also some information that got us here today.
Over the last few years, new shrimps that are nice and popular has ceased to exist due to covid and the lack of new shrimps. There are actually 2 criteria for having a “New Shrimp”. First obviously it have to be new and second it must be well accepted.
What it means for breeder is to ensure they think of a potentially well liked shrimp to create. This by itself is no guarantee an outcome that will work for all. Hence to try and create a well liked new shrimp is not as straightforward as it seems. However, we have done it and while it is always a work in progress, this could also be a birth to something even greater. In other words, Snowfall can be use as a ‘tool’ shrimp to create new and better shrimp in future as the options for crossing increases.
Snowfall:
The name Snowfall resides in having taken Japan as the origin of where the hobby was founded. In honor of the origin, we used the word はつゆきwhich means the first snow of a new winter.
はつゆき (Hatsuyuki pronounce as Ha tsu yuki) or 初雪 (Chinese pronounce as Chu Xue) With that the name “Snowfall” was coined.
With Snowfall coming in two color variations, take your pick! The spots on the shrimp resembles the snowfall glittering and sparkling behind a red sunset. The stunning appearance captures the eye of the breeder with legs transforming into multiple red and white spots.
The white spots against the night skies highlights Black Snowfall. This splendid looking shrimp still requires refinement to maintain the line of having multiple spots on the shrimp.
Snowfall captures new and experienced hobbyist due to the contrasting patterns that continues to stabilize through selective breeding. Snowfall is relatively easy to breed and will do well in a wide range of water parameters. As this is a newly create shrimp, please note that we are the only ones so far that will have the original shrimps. If in doubt of lineage of snowfall, please contact us directly.
As we continue to see awesome looking shrimps online with nice colors, size and ask ourselves how can we be one of them. If you are aspiring to be a great breeder, this post will help outline some of the elements that guides you through this undulating journey.
Why some breeders are better than others?
Have you asked yourself why are there only a handful of great breeders and if those breeders are willing to share their information? I have the honor to meet various great breeders globally at least this side of the world. I have traveled to many countries and many great breeders have come visit me in Singapore.
As most of their journey are similar they have their ups and down in their progress and most of them share with me that patience is what is needed. To have sufficient tanks and to do selective breeding.
It takes years of trying and continuing on and with a very simple process able to support their hobby in the long term. Remember that shrimp breeders that does it for a living has to make it economically viable and hence most long time hobbyist breeders knows the in and out of it to make it simple.
Do Breeders change their method every other month?
This is something that stays with them for awhile, but there is something in them that is slightly different and that is the willingness to explore and keep an open mind. They have great processes and they are also willing to explore new things because the age old saying, if you’re not failing, you’re not even trying.
Simplicity is something that everyone wants to achieve but due to the constant onslaught of media and innovation is simply to pull people further away from the goal of simplicity.
Quality is not an Act it is a habit
Generally we can see this through the breeders character as we meet them to understand them a bit deeper. Meeting breeders like Juri Jansen, Istvan, Alexander, Josef, Hwa, Skyfish shares a common trait. The desire to do good in them is huge, i can personally see how quality becomes part of their life they live. I am truly blessed and humbled by their guidance and the discussions we have which make me walk this journey holding my head high knowing that what is the true test of quality.
Mind set is what separates the best from the rest rings true and if you would like to be one of them upholding the high integrity of quality and honesty, first it has to come from within. Each of them have great examples of how they run their breeding tanks, the habitual desire to always only produce high quality shrimps are already in their blood. We all share a common goal of sharing this journey with anyone who wishes to run this race together.
Most of the experience and well known breeders keep their processes and tank setup as simple as possible because selective breeding is be-all end all. In other words their tanks are generally free from many other inputs other than soil, water and plants. However, this is a tough decision for many and most will add things to the tank because of novelty.
We generally use a rule of thumb to gauge and as long as renowned breeders don’t use it, there is a high chance it is not useful if you choose to be on the journey of breeding quality shrimps.
The shrimp industry is being service by many breeders and shops at different segments and while there is no right or wrong in your journey, we often recommend to offer a great shrimp breeding experience.
Groups; chats; social media
We are certainly weary of this and too keep it simple because having too many information not only clouds your judgement in the beginning, it confuses different thoughts. Hence, it is important to be sure not to mix different information together and implement them in your tank. If you’re starting out as a new hobbyist, it is ok to make mistakes but always ask the question “Why am i doing it”.
In the beginning of my personal journey, i was told to do a list of things to ensure i have great shrimp breeding experience. Only until i started asking why am i doing it, then i realized there isn’t much scientific data supporting it mostly economic reasons.
Anything that cannot be explained as we dwell deeper into science i often get answers like it’s bad but it cannot be further quantified. Hence, it is important for us to truly understand and continue questioning the norms of why are we doing what we were taught to do.
There will be times where you’ll find that certain social media platform are use solely personal/group agenda. Seeds of truth are sometimes buried before they can grow, which often becomes a setback to a growing community of breeders. Free speech is critical as honest debates and discussion should be allowed to take place to grow the community.
Yardstick
A simple yet effective way of measure is simply looking at the shrimps of the breeder, if what has been said and taught does not truly correlate with their shrimps then it is more often than not an agenda yet again of economic reasons.
Another effective way is to look at their shrimp journey background what they truly uphold and are they part of colluding groups.
In this shrimp jungle, to weave through the differing information can be a challenge, so i recommend having a good mentor to guide you through it. A great mentor brings you up and set you up for better things to come. I have chosen a journey of sharing because of where i came from.
You can read more of it through this article.
https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/living/ornamental-shrimp-keeping-singapore-hobby-310096
For those who are unable to understand Chinese, the long and short of the news being broadcast is simply to share information freely like in the English Article.