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In the realms of breeding shrimp would require persistence and consistency as one would be hit by many obstacles along the way but should never give up. To progress in breeding requires persistence and keep believing when you don’t see results in a year or two.
On the other hand, i have heard some share with me that they’ve invested so much time and effort and also money on shrimps but after 6 months they don’t see results. Movement shouldn’t be confuse with progress. Movement is really about doing the things like water change, resetting tanks, feeding, and the day to day things all these are what i call the hygiene factor. The very fundamental or building block of shrimp breeding and does not equate to progress. We can change water whole day every day but at the end, if we do not progress in selective breeding than it’s just going with the flow.
Progress on the other hand is about taking risk and doing something different than what you are doing currently. It also involves failing but people are afraid of failure and fear of looking like a failure. I think failure should be an option. Without failing you are not even trying, to get something you never had, you have to do something you never did. Trying to see results with 1 tank is going to be difficult because if we would to discuss about selective breeding we should need about 2-3 tanks per type. So by taking risk to expand your setup, investing in good sourced shrimp are some examples of sowing the seeds to progress forward.
Believing when there are no results
This is a really difficult one because people need to see a cause and effect to believe. Hence the term Seeing is Believing. However, in shrimp breeding if you’re unable to see the results in the first cross back are you going to give up? How about selective breeding project not taking root? It’s easy to get discourage in shrimp breeding and not continue on the process of selective breeding. Going back to the drawing board to see where can be improve in the selective breeding process.
Keep working on it and failing and trying again. Getting more tanks, trying and keep trying. So while everyone knows selective breeding is the “Be All End All”, but it takes generation to get there and if you see the goal in front of you and keep trying and improve, i believe you’ll get there one day.
The successful breeders are not the ones that didn’t fail, they are the ones that fail the most, but they believe and keep believing and they are the ones that stood up every time they fall. That separates those that achieve their goals and those who don’t. It’s common to hear this “I don’t have this, i don’t have that, i can’t have this, it’s too difficult, it’s too much for me, it’s impossible, i don’t have the resources, i’m afraid,” Put all these away if you would like to progress because we are what we speak.
We can learn to believe like Shrimp does, they can’t see their egg develop unlike human where we can see our babies grow bigger in the mother’s tummy. However, shrimps believe that if she keeps fanning her egg, shrimplets will come and although she can’t physically see her clutch, nature made it in such a way that she knows even without seeing she will hatch the babies.
It’s hard
Well, there is a saying “if you do the difficult thing in life, life will be easy”. One example would be the honey bee story where they were part of a space experiment being sent up to space to see how 0 gravity affect their flight. When they reach outer space, the bees started to float. They must be thinking, life should be like this, easy floating around effortlessly. I don’t even need to flap my wings, i can float around in life, how wonderful that is. I just drift around and i’ll get to where i want to. Flapping my wings all these while has been tiring!
Eventually, the honey bee die. The bees were not born to float around, they get confuse, orientation got distorted. In other words, doing the difficult thing in life may be difficult but also rewarding.
So we can choose to take the easy route and float around (nothing against that) but do not complain that you don’t see progress on your shrimps. Taking the difficult route and persist on will get you there.
Hope this post would cheer you on to get to where you want to be and as such, it is those things you don’t see that brings you forward. Keep believing.
https://i0.wp.com/shrimpsanctuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/PSX_20210903_000247-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=119202560benetayhttps://shrimpsanctuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/shrimp2-1-300x300.pngbenetay2021-09-08 09:44:182021-09-08 09:44:40Staying the course even when you don’t see results
There are a few reasons that resetting of tank is important and that can be first understood that what i’m referring here is on active soil. Active soil such as ADA/Tropica/platinum/aka/etc are soil that releases ammonia to the water column and also have the ability to lower the pH to an acidic level.
Buffering conditions wear off over time and the ideal state is no longer ideal over a certain period of time. This is one of the major factor influencing why a reset is necessary. The ability to buffer the water parameters like how it should has slow down drastically and visually it can be seen that the shrimps are no longer breeding as much/fast as they should.
A newly laid level of soil also have the strongest buffering condition which helps the eco-system in your tank to be in a much better state where microorganism and biofilm grows quicker than when the soil is near exhausting. Hence, it is important to know the reasons why it is necessary to reset your tanks over time.
When to reset
When buffering conditions become slow, water parameter changes and shrimp do not breed as frequently, shrimplets too don’t grow as quickly as they once would as everything in the tank is related to one another. This lead to the need to change the soil. These are visual appearance that you can probably see and observe.
I have used UGF with a lot of soil and also with tanks with just 1cm of soil, the buffering duration doesn’t appear to be exponentially different. Hence, while there are many methods of shrimp breeding, the one i use and follow is thin layer of soil but to reset more frequently.
Hence there is no hard and fast rule when to change your soil out however what i do is that i use two criteria and if one of them is met, i’ll reset. The first criteria is if the shrimps are no longer breeding as quickly as they should and the tank condition doesn’t appear to be favourable to shrimp breeding, i’ll reset.
Another criteria is when the tank is about 8-10 months old i’ll reset, considering that with a cycling time of 40 days hence it would mean i’ll reset once a year including a 40 days cycling time.
How i reset
A hard reset:
This means all soil plants etc are totally remove including changing out the filter medias everything to be brand new like setting a new tank.
A soft reset:
This is what i do most of the time.
Remove the shrimps to another tank.
Remove soil and water
fill up with new soil and add water
wash all filter media and change 10% of filter media.
cycle
A very simple process to reset the tank, without the UGF i could now reset much quicker and not be put off with the time needed to reset the tank.
i have much more success usually after resetting the tank when the water becomes rich again.
Factors delaying resetting of tanks
One of the biggest concern of resetting is where do i house my shrimps when i reset?
There are a few ways to do so, one is to house them in a big breeder box in another tank for some time and if a soft reset is used, the filter media which still have beneficial bacteria will certainly help speed up the cycling process.
Breeder box are not meant to house and breed shrimps long term but are like temporary housing until the shrimps are able to go back to their home.
I have heard and tried it before is to remove the soil partially during water change and adding new soil until 100% of the soil is being totally change out. For example 50% of the soil is vacuum out on the first month, then on the second month another 50% of the soil is removed. However, there are risk to this is because while active soil releases ammonia, it is important to note small shrimplets within 7 days may not be able to take the sudden ammonia spike when it’s release. However, because there are beneficial bacteria in the tank constantly, the spike doesn’t appear to affect the adults.
For me i’ll prefer to use a safer method whenever possible is to transfer the shrimp to another tank and so the shrimps location will shift over time as i kinda play musical chairs with all the tanks however usually only resetting one tank at a time depending on availability of tanks.
Summary
There are numerous benefit of tank reset and shouldn’t be put off to a “Later Time”. Instead of procrastinating about tank reset, i think it’s better to consider stream-lining the process of tank setup so that tank reset doesn’t become a burden to you. In the past i tried many ways including UGF and box UGF thinking that reset would be much easier, however, at the moment nothing appears to beat the thin layer of soil in terms of speed and ease of resetting because long term it all adds up.
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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.
Setting up the infrastructure
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 :
water source
drainage
Sink
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.
Drainage and Inflow
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.
Thin layer of soil but more frequent reset
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.
Increasing grazing material
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.
Enjoying Shrimp Breeding
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.
Why are some breeders more successful?
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
You can or you can’t, you are right
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.
https://i0.wp.com/shrimpsanctuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/PSX_20210809_001310-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=119202560benetayhttps://shrimpsanctuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/shrimp2-1-300x300.pngbenetay2021-08-11 14:53:342021-08-11 14:53:46How you do anything is how you do everything
If you like to try selective breeding using the cross back method this post is for you. There has been a lot on-going on my side but things will start settling down and i’ll be able to resume providing new blog post.
To recap what cross back is and does.
Cross back happens when the F1 female is use to cross back with the F0 Male. This way when the first shrimplet that comes out would be the Crossback 1 or CB1. Usually i will use the Female as the F1 cross with the F0 Male instead of the other way around. The reason for this so we have 1 fix variable to selectively breed.
As you continue to use CB1 female to cross back with F0 male again will result in CB2.
What it does with cross back in such a way is to increase the genetic similarity towards the male that was use to breed in this case F0.
This was the F0 male
After 2 back crosses this is the female that i have chosen to use for continuing the line. There is still a long way to go to improve the shell, the colors and such. The size is good at 2.5cm very big.
When we are in this stage, the F0 Male x BC1 Female will result in a higher % of trait similarity genetically to the F0 male.
F1
50
50
BC1
75
25
BC2
87.5
12.5
BC3
93.75
6.25
BC4
96.875
3.125
To prevent deform shrimps and also to keep a good line of shrimp require diligence in ensuring the shrimp do not over in breed. When you do see any of the above effects, the shrimp had already reached a very late stage of inbreeding. You can use that as a gauge if not you can consider injecting new blood/genetics whenever you can and the method of doing so is call outcrossing.
Outcrossing: The idea for outcrossing on the other hand is to inject new genome to the current shrimp which has been line bred for some time. The reason this need to be done is because when line breeding get too excessive, deform start showing, shrimps stop breeding, growth stagnant, etc hence it is important for the health of the line to occasionally introduce new blood. There is no hard and fast rule when to introduce the new genetic into the pool because different people get the shrimp at different generation. If the shrimp i have gotten is already line bred for 5-6 generations it will reach the deform point faster if the shrimp has been already outcross before. A reputable breeder will be able to provide high quality new generation of shrimps when they have a large number of tanks to prevent too frequent inbreeding.
Not all selective breeding projects are successful sometimes after a couple of years (Yes it takes this long), so having a few project running at the same time is recommended. In other words, you’ll need to have a few more tanks to select and try to see if it works.
I hope this post provided you some insights into breeding high quality shrimp.
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There must be sufficient grazing material for the shrimp to consume when you are away. Shrimps graze 24/7 and if you have a small tank without much surface area for biofilm to grow fast enough, it is risky. In addition if you have a lot of shrimp they can strip the biofilm in your tank in a day or 2. When shrimps start to go without sufficient biofilm it triggers cannibalisms, which means they will start preying on each other. This is detrimental if you are doing a selection process as your stock shrimp will be at risk. Hence, having a good source of grazing material not only is critical for a small tank, it enhances the probability of breeding as well.
How to use it?
Directions before using:
Soak the ball 3-6 days in RO Water and change the water daily
Pour the water used for soaking away, do not pour the soaking water back into the tank
place it in the tank, preferably in a feeding dish
use 1 ball per tank
General rule:
30L and above can use Lubao
30L and below can use Kallax ball
30L and below with a lot of shrimps i.e more than 20, can use lubao too (Soak 5-6 days)
If you have a big tank with less than 20 shrimps, there is really no need to use, but if you would like to use, the Kallax ball is more appropriate
if you have a heavily planted tank, there is actually no requirement of using the ball
if you are traveling on vacation, lubao or kallax ball is used to help provide additional grazing material on top of other grazing material such as leaves, moss etc. The ball do not replace food, when you come back from vacation/work, you’ll need to resume feeding regime.
Directions during using:
If you have a lot of shrimps, you will not see massive biofilm growth as shrimp has eaten them, means it’s good.
if you have lesser shrimp, you will see a lot of biofilm. If there is too much biofilm growth, you should consider using the Kallax ball than the lubao.
Directions during exchanging:
During replacement, use a net to take the ball out and quickly bag, seal and throw away the ball. When the ball is outside of the water, it will smell so quickly seal it and throw.
put in a new ball that has been soaked for 3-6 days.
Signs on removing:
When you experience cloudy water, remove the ball
Let the tank undergo a mini cycle as there isn’t sufficient beneficial bacteria
During the fermenting process to create biofilm, ammonia is release, hence a good cycled tank with beneficial bacteria will be able to convert the ammonia into nitrite and nitrate. Hence, if cloudy water is experience, remove the ball. A bacteria bloom is happening as there is now more food for the beneficial bacteria to feed and multiply. once clear, soak another new ball and put it in. this time it will be ok or use the kallax ball if you’re using the lubao initially.
Support
In doubt, always ask. I can be contacted via facebook messenger benetay or email which can be found in the contact section.
I believe in this “Each one, Teach one” so don’t be shy and contact me on how to use it.
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One of the more commonly seen and easier to keep shrimp are the Pure Red Line. There has been a lot of documentation on this shrimp with a history of how they come about. However, I will be touching on more about keeping and breeding this shrimps.
One of the things about this shrimp is that it really like good water condition to thrive with robust coloration and continuous breeding. These PRL are able to take a range of water parameters. However, my preference for water parameters is shown below.
Water parameters:
pH 5.8
Total dissolved solids : 85-90
kH : 0
GH : 4
Nitrate, nitrite, Ammonia 0
Temp 24-26 degrees Celsius
Building on all the content that is already posted in this blog, I wanted to mention the process of selective breeding can still be applied. Most of the processes and methodology can be applied as well. In other words, it is important to get that fundamental right.
One of the key difference in so many PRL from my perspective can be broken down into a few broad categories.
For example:
Color
Red: is bright red to a brick red coloration without much fading in the front region.
some have pinkish hue to it – as they age some have it pink but doesn’t cover the entire shrimp
White: The white coloration sometimes have a yellowish tinge to it but predominately white. Yellow tinge does not mean it is of mix lineage, on the other hand if it’s all white and sparkling, it’s good you trace that lineage.
Legs: Are they red, white or a mix? Or are there spider legs (if you see spider legs something isn’t right and I will classify them as CRS, it does happen in PRL but what i learn is a very very rare occurrence and doesn’t breed through to the next gen.
Swimmerets : Are they yellow, white or red?
Size
Shrimp is of good large size 2-3cm at adulthood
Head to body ratio: 1:3. It is important that it doesn’t look too distorted due to inbreeding. Many times the shrimp doesn’t have a good form where the head and body are 40:60 and some 20:80.
Legs: proportionate not stringly due to poor diet, genetics and water condition
Shell
shell have few blemishes and are of certain thickness. Aggressive feeding can sometimes cause shrimp to have some “war marks” but they generally can recover after the next molt. This goes the same to the feelers of male.
2nd Abdomen shell segment(of Male Shrimp) the biggest one in the middle is round and big resembling a female, which would show a much more robust characteristic
Thick, regularly spaced
Thick Carapace
colored Scaphocerite
Visible – colored rostrum
Age
Age of shrimp can sometimes be determine by the hunched back of shrimp when the shrimp grows bigger
another telltale sign is the Antennule curving down and backwards vs forward or upwards
https://shrimpsanctuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/shrimp2-1-300x300.png00benetayhttps://shrimpsanctuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/shrimp2-1-300x300.pngbenetay2020-05-16 09:04:532020-05-16 09:04:53Pure red line (PRL) shrimp
With so many different type of shrimp food available in the market, they are in all kinds of shapes and sizes.
In my opinion most of the food size do not cater to our shrimp size and a good method will be to feed An amount that they are able to complete within an hour. Any left over food will eventually break down and pollute the tank water.
These pads are snip to smaller sizes so I can easily feed most of the tank and would be better to have 2 or more “piles” of shrimp feeding than 1 big ball because aggression during feeding doesn’t do any good.
I have tried this pad food for sometime and i have specially ordered this version 1 food because of its potency. The food is a staple complete food that can be fed daily or even mix with other food such as spinach etc.
In addition to this, the pad are also very good for neos and have great success with them. This can be fed to shrimplets as well as it breaks down into small powder on the outer edge giving the opportunity for shrimplets to consume.
This is as simple as it get, why are my shrimp dying? What are the main causes of shrimp death?
Water Parameters
This is the first reason that your shrimps are dying by the numbers – 1-2 per day or weekly. Why is water parameters the number 1 reason for shrimp death? The old adage goes like this, if you want to keep good quality shrimp, first learn how to keep good water parameters. If your tanks have good water parameters, everything else will fall in place.
I have in my other post talk about water parameters and my water parameters recommendation.
If my water parameters are fine – (like many of us) then why are they still dying?
Source of shrimp
This means that the source of where the shrimp came from be it from source, at source or during transit might have already weaken the shrimp.
Ammonia poisoning, poor genetics, too much in-breeding
Pick your source wisely and don’t mix sources! (Please refer to the 4 main criteria of shrimp breeding – under choose your breeder)
Genetics of shrimp
The genetics of shrimp from the start is already weak
when a cross of two individually line bred shrimp comes together the difficulty level just increased many folds
for example a PRL vs a BFT – the PRL have better and more stable genetics compared to a BFT but that doesn’t mean the BFT will die easier, they just don’t breed as quickly/as easy as the PRL. (Pure line)
Too little or too much water change
i usually recommend at least 10% water change and if the tank volume is large (100L) and a few shrimp, a 5% water change will do.
On a very stable tank and shrimp, even changing 50% at once hasn’t proven to be an issue (Remember point 1 and point 2)
Stirring too much soil up during water change, creating a sudden spike and then returning back to normal
Itchy hand syndrome
There is no need to add bone meal, Cutterbone, decorative item, tons of plants, feeding excessively, adding wood, adding rock, adding any other thing other than reminerizer during WC
Mixing source A,B,C,D shrimp in 1 tank – stick to your trusted source
Putting your hand in there every few hours to move decorative item around.
Feeding more than twice a day – if you have a lot of shrimp
Your feed should be altered to the number of shrimps and should consume all of the feed within 2-3 hours. If not, cut the feed to a smaller portion and feed. if not, consider adding more shrimp.
Adding new soil in large quantity inside an established tank, tried that – adult shrimps does ok, shrimplets die.
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)
With the above, please note that if you’re doing selective breeding – have backup shrimp ready – That means if you have a tank ratio of 2M and 6F please have more Males and Females ready to go because if the 2M dies off, basically you have nothing to breed with.
Plan your purchases carefully and if your budget permits have a good breeding ratio – 2M – 20F x 2 sets with additional 1-2 males as backup in other tanks
For more in depth information – please read other post on breeding tanks.
The above is with the assumption you’re using RODI water as your primary water source during water change.
If you understand and fully grasp the concept, you’ll enjoy your shrimp breeding journey a lot better!
During this period of unknown certainly where businesses are slowing down and some come to a grinding halt. It is unfortunate some of the Companies globally fall short of their required revenue to keep them afloat. An increase in bankruptcy in most countries, also an increase in unemployment wade through this dire time.
It is unfortunate that i took the short end of the straw for one of the transaction with an Australian guy. With his refusal to pay for his package and shipping fee he too blocked me on messenger to cut off communication. I like to use this post as a warning to all that there are those few black sheep in the shrimp community that made it a better place. Many breeders refusal to share information openly unless you are a customer is the very reason why. However, i took on another approach with sharing information freely on the blog with all the information learnt first hand from Taiwan.
I have many avid followers in this blog and appreciative words to keep sharing. The reason i have slow down my writing is because i couldn’t get over the betrayal of trust – I have reached out to multiple people in the local community in Australia for help but i personally know it’s only hopeful; least i tried. I appreciate those who have tried knock some sense on him and have also agreed to boycott that person in future till the issue is resolved. However, i too know this is only temporary but this will not deter me to continue writing nor have an impact on my shrimp hobby.
The purpose of my blog in the very beginning and even till today is all about sharing and debunking myth from breeders who are out there trying to earn a fast one. From the feedback that i get locally and overseas; i know i have helped countless number of shrimp hobbyist from overpaying or even spending more than they actually need. It is a hard world out there and it is becoming difficult to ignore the fact that many are trying their best to sell their wares esp. during this dire times. While the white sheep outnumbered the black sheep in the community, i’ll continue to reach out to those who are keen to learn about the hobby.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from the masters directly in Taiwan with multiple trips to Taiwan in 2018/19 i took all the learning and translated it into what is written in the blog post. The investment to gather that knowledge, (remember that breeders only teach you when you are a customer) I wanted everyone to have that same level of knowledge not because they’re disadvantaged by language or otherwise. I still have information that i wish to share and i’ will continue to write when all this is said and done.
With that, i wish you and your families great health!
Took me sometime to think of a title for this and this is one of the more commonly asked question and also one interesting fact about this. In this post, I’m going to share with you something that is usually not known to many and would probably be a good information for those venturing into either Black or Red fancy. As we all know that there are different grades of shrimp and likewise for Black or Red fancy, but to make things simpler I’ll just touch on BFT.
Is there a chance for my Ugly Duckling BFT Juv to be nicer when they grow up?
Possible!
We have seen on many occasions that a ‘not fully covered’ BFT will have the potential of having a full dark base (if it’s of dark base lineage) when it grows up. So, when do we know that the changes are still possible? Usually when it passes 1.2cm there is not much left for the shrimp to change in appearance, for example a very transparent BFT at 1cm, there is no chance this will become a dark base. Small adjustment are possible not major ones.
However, a very nice looking Juv will only become nicer as it grows up. Usually by 1cm one can actually tell the current grade of the shrimp, for example at 0.8cm, if it’s at Grade 3, there is still potential of going to Grade 2. If the shrimp is already Grade 3 at young adult, then its grading is kind of fix till it ages. Please note that there is almost absolutely no chance for a gene shrimp to become Graded ones, so please do not get ‘con’ by breeders who tries to pull a fast one. Getting Juv is really a draw of luck but a very good breeder is able to split out the gene from the graded before 0.8cm so there isn’t much chance to get a graded BFT from a pool of gene BFT. For BFT grading, please look at my earlier posting.
For example the above it is highly unlikely the belly area will have any advancement in future to cover up the transparent area. However, not all is lost, with this we can easily cross it with black ninja to “patch” them up. So if you’re a breeder and have these, you don’t necessary need to cull them away, as there are still ways to still make use of it. You can however start a new tank with it to fully utilize the gene in it. The face pattern does have potential, the lines/stripes are decent as well. It will take at least 2-3 generations before some results can be seen, so all roads lead to Rome, it only depends how much time you’re willing to invest in it.
You can also consider crossing it with earlier generations of 4 line to introduce the BFT genetics into them in a new tank. Many possibilities!
However, if the BFT Juv has lots of undesirable trait then it need to be cull away. Some of the undesirable trait that i look out for:
I get this question quite a bit, can we have both planted tank and shrimps together? Sure why not. Anyway if the objective is a planted tank, then by all means go ahead and do a planted tank, paludarium, terrarium or any type and then add shrimps in.
If I want to breed shrimps like a breeder, can I put in a lot of plants? Yes, just that you will make your life a lot more difficult as the shrimps will not be easy to be selected out. If you would just want to breed them and not select them, yes I think keeping plants and shrimp together are fine too.
As a breeder myself, what would I recommend for plants? Frankly there is a lot of plants to choose from as long as you like them and they do not require frequent pruning and maintenance I think they all qualify. I like using Echinodorus as they are relatively inexpensive and they don’t propagate by runners and grow fairly slowly without CO2 injection. I also like using mosses; all kinds and then frog bits.
I grow my plants in a ceramic pot filled with ADA soil, you can use any other soil. The reason i keep them within ceramic pot is so the root ball do not get out of the pot disturbing the rest of the tank. It helps contain the plant and the pot is fairly shallow. I haven’t had any issues over the years using this method as long as the plant is growing well and the root is healthy.
For mosses I weigh them down using big ceramic filter media by putting the moss through the hole which then allow the moss to grow in various direction, I often put the moss near to a filter outlet so that the moss will help disperse the direct flow from the filter. This is also fairly beneficial for the moss as well as they like a gentle flow of water through them to help bring nutrients to them.
Lastly are some frogbits, I thin these out very regularly as they start growing too quickly over a few weeks. It helps with control of excess nitrate during my travel days or busy weeks where I have to go without a water change for 2 weeks.
With all addition of plants, it is important to note that plants that come from unknown sources have the chance of bringing pest that is unwelcome in shrimp tanks. Hence, it is important to quarantine your plants before adding into your tank. I do so by isolating the plants in a glass container for a few weeks and changing water till I don’t see any pest or you can purchase tissue cultured plants to be sure.
This is a low tech tank where plants and aqua scaping takes the primary focus. Shrimp kept are some Neocaridina and Caridina. As you can see selective breeder become almost a daunting task in such a setup. Hence, personally it will be much easier if i separate breeding tanks and planted tanks.
Have you wondered with a myriad of products in the market what do you really need to purchase to breed successfully ?frankly the lesser you use the better, in this case the necessary items is needed.
What is necessary? From all my blog post I have given a list of items I generally use for example:
Tank 100 litres
Ada soil (you can use 2 litres I know my recommendation is about 1litre of soil to 16 litres of water but 2 litres of soil for most is more achievable)
Filtration ( I use ugf and hang on back)
Hwa version 1 food
Lights (I now use chihiros)
Reminerizer
Is that really all that is needed ? Yes basically my setup is fairly straight forward with no bells and whistles because keeping it simple means I can control every element and pinpoint where the issue may come from. If you have a tank with a lot of gadgets and used a wide range of food product and this and that, when something happens there are too many variables. Could it be my plants or new filter or powder food etc etc. There is no way you will be able to know what is happening.
How many times have you look at products and description and said, maybe I need this. But do you really need it? Technically most products are either good to have or it requires some knowledge to use it. Those who know me Knows that I am not someone who use bacteria powder and do we really need it? Let’s break it down, what actually is bacteria powder or liquid or magic powder? They are nothing more than a product that makes you think you need it. The message put across as a fear to customers is there isn’t any harm using it but if you don’t use it your shrimps might not do well. This fear instilled many even today, where people purchase product because they follow the trend and realise after many years that such product will not turn your cull shrimp into graded or competition shrimp; selective breeding does.
Everything else is inexpensive except for high quality shrimp and while there are trends where prices peak and fall some of the shrimps today still maintain a very high price. Even pure red line of certain standard continues to command a high price and this is due to its lineage. What we are really paying is time, the time that the breeder does his line breeding. A higher grade shrimp will have a higher probability of producing high grade shrimps. It does not mean all the shrimplets will be high grade but the probability is definitely higher.
Why are some people more successful than others? Is there a trick in it? There isn’t. It really boils down to the fundamental notion of shrimp keeping, the more you add the less you know what went wrong. The less you add, the more you will know what goes in the tank. While I reach out to hobbyist and breeders alike to stand firm and ask the hard questions on shrimp breeding instead of selling “magic powder” to generate profit, I think everyone deserve the right to know the truth behind this hobby. It is a very simple straight forward hobby and you too can breed fantastic shrimps.
Everyone can keep and breed shrimps well and really deserve to have information readily available. This will help the whole hobby up the next level, why do some hobbyist stop and stagnate after awhile? Because they realise it has become a chore to even do what is necessary, does adding powder every water change, feeding powder food every 3 days, putting in plants, adding fertiliser, rotate 20 shrimp food, add different decorations etc sound like itchy finger syndrome ?
Keep it simple; the hobby in my opinion should be more rewarding if one can spend most of your time watching your high quality shrimp do their things in the open. Please do not get me wrong and I know there are breeders who enjoy the DIY part of the hobby which is cool. What I’m trying to put across is many times people ask why are my shrimps dying etc etc, I realise they needed information; true information. However it is very difficult to search through a ton of information and not knowing which is right. Hence, i wanted to share my breeding setup etc to everyone as a reference to what I do, how I do and why I do this or that. I’m also continuously learning about the hobby and certainly keep and open mind about methods on successful shrimp breeding.
Taken together what is necessary for shrimp breeding is really only the setup (you can read the other breeding tank setup if you haven’t) and once the setup and process is completed, it really becomes easy because all is required is feeding and water change while you let nature take its course.
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Thanks for all the support to the blog and as I continue to pen down my experience and thoughts, please keep those replies coming. For those who have supported me through “virtual coffee” really appreciate it. So in this entry, I will touch on what I focus and why. when I was scooping shrimps and shifting them in preparation for reset it kind of daunt in me, what’s worth the time?
What’s worth the time? I stood back and kind of think through as I update the whiteboard on shrimp placement.
I must keep what I like, and I can’t be keeping something that I don’t like. That is because I’m a hobbyist and not a seller who’s sole purpose is to sell and make a profit regardless if they like it or not.
As we grow over the course of shrimp keeping, our focus change and shrimp liking change but there will be a shrimp that holds a strong value in your heart and that is important. The reason is because this will drive what is needed to be done in terms of shrimp selection resetting etc. When it all comes down to that I will still select black fancy tiger as the main stay. I do have other high grade shrimp but the main focus for me is still BFT. For those who have followed my blog you can tell I have spend considerable time on the BFT topic. So when I was spending time on other shrimp I realize I should be focusing more time on the BFT and the reason is every hobbyist has a set given amount of time. Nobody have 25hours in their day so given the hectic pace of life and the short duration you can spend in your shrimp room, what will you think is worth your time.
It can be PRL, RFT, DBB or any other shrimp that you really like to keep and then focus on that shrimp. If you see I did not put a value over what is worth my time as I treat all shrimps equal. The only difference is how much value it holds dear in your heart. This will help in your shrimp keeping direction and continue to do well it it. Time to select out the males from females in the grow up tank can take an hour or two, if you don’t do that then you are literally going back 2-3 generation. Breeding shrimps can be fun but I guess the direction of where you are heading is important as well.
For those who know me, I have now 2 children, a day job that consist of 50% travel and a total of 17 tanks with empty space for more. I have over the years consolidated the smaller tanks to bigger tanks. So with the shear time away from home and the responsibility as a father, i really hope even those who are really busy to have a setup that you can let it run naturally and still enjoy the hobby of shrimp breeding. Once the setup is done right, most of the things fall in place, all is needed really is water change and feeding.
So today while you are looking at your shrimps, spend some time to see what is worth your time and what you are looking to change to make the excellent shrimp breeding hobby even better.
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There will be time when you have to be away from your shrimp tanks for a few days and sometimes a week or more. This can be due to work schedule or your shrimp tanks are being located in another place where you only can visit once every few days. This is totally possible given that the setup has to in a way that is catered towards sustainability.
Power Supply: One of the most important elements about leaving the tanks for a few days is the power supply running the setup. If you are in an area with a lot of power shortage, a backup UPS is probably a good investment. However, fear not, unless there are really very low or high temperatures, a few hours of supply cut will not be of any concern in general. However, there are many portable USB Airpump where it can run for a few hours per charge.
Filtration: if you like me enjoy over filtration, this is yet another critical element because if you need to have a peace of mind, a good filtration goes a long way. Sponge filters are great for multiple tanks as they are functional and inexpensive. There are also other types of filter like the lift sponge filtration which is also a good way. The reason for a good filtration when you are away is that it will have the capacity to ensure that the water is being taken care of. One of the more worrying point is there is a few dead shrimp when you are away and the rest of the shrimp hardly clear it causing a rise in ammonia. A good filtration will be able to reduce the risk of an ammonia spike. Drop in an airstone – this will be a lifesaver too. I have a few on standby just in case. Also i have a few large powerbank to ensure there are sufficient juice.
People often ask me what sponge filter do i recommend, actually there are many types of sponge filter and if you are just beginning to start with shrimp breeding and looking up and down for a sponge filter, you can try the tested and proven Qanvee filter. So what filters do i use? I actually use Totto filter which is a Japanese Filtration system that helps reduce nitrate as well. Yes you read it correctly.
I’m not sure if there are any distributor for Totto filter in your country but if you really want to get your hands on it, i have found it on a Japanese website.
This is the official website link but no direct sales: http://www.totto.co.jp/en/test.php
Food: There must be sufficient grazing material for the shrimp to consume when you are away. Shrimps graze 24/7 and if you have a small tank without much surface area for biofilm to grow fast enough, it is risky. In addition if you have a lot of shrimp they can strip the biofilm in your tank in a day or 2. When shrimps start to go without sufficient biofilm it triggers cannibalisms, which means they will start preying on each other. This is detrimental if you are doing a selection process as your stock shrimp will be at risk. Hence, having a good source of grazing material not only is critical for a small tank, it enhances the probability of breeding as well.
I tried a variety of grazing material and i think more critically is if the tank is very dense with moss and plants, than additional grazing material isn’t required if the shrimp population is low. However, if you like me like to see a mass number of shrimp in an open area than yes having grazing material is important. Indian Almond leaf is also an excellent source of grazing material and if you would like to speed up the process, soak them 3 days prior to using. It will now be soft for the shrimps to feed on. One of the best grazing material which one can control and contain is the lubao. This is one that i really enjoy using and certainly helps shrimps breed better, increase shrimplets survival and many advantageous elements just in the small ball.
We have discussed on Electricity Power, Filtration and food and the next most important element to this is to go enjoy your holiday or weekend get away! If you are like me, where i use Lubao, the shrimp tank can easily go without feeding for a week. There are times when your work schedule is overwhelming, family need your time and other things you need to attend to. This lil’ method will help you get through those time yet giving you a peace of mind.
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In the realms of breeding shrimp would require persistence and consistency as one would be hit by many obstacles along the way but should never give up. To progress in breeding requires persistence and keep believing when you don’t see results in a year or two.
On the other hand, i have heard some share with me that they’ve invested so much time and effort and also money on shrimps but after 6 months they don’t see results. Movement shouldn’t be confuse with progress. Movement is really about doing the things like water change, resetting tanks, feeding, and the day to day things all these are what i call the hygiene factor. The very fundamental or building block of shrimp breeding and does not equate to progress. We can change water whole day every day but at the end, if we do not progress in selective breeding than it’s just going with the flow.
Progress on the other hand is about taking risk and doing something different than what you are doing currently. It also involves failing but people are afraid of failure and fear of looking like a failure. I think failure should be an option. Without failing you are not even trying, to get something you never had, you have to do something you never did. Trying to see results with 1 tank is going to be difficult because if we would to discuss about selective breeding we should need about 2-3 tanks per type. So by taking risk to expand your setup, investing in good sourced shrimp are some examples of sowing the seeds to progress forward.
Believing when there are no results
This is a really difficult one because people need to see a cause and effect to believe. Hence the term Seeing is Believing. However, in shrimp breeding if you’re unable to see the results in the first cross back are you going to give up? How about selective breeding project not taking root? It’s easy to get discourage in shrimp breeding and not continue on the process of selective breeding. Going back to the drawing board to see where can be improve in the selective breeding process.
Keep working on it and failing and trying again. Getting more tanks, trying and keep trying. So while everyone knows selective breeding is the “Be All End All”, but it takes generation to get there and if you see the goal in front of you and keep trying and improve, i believe you’ll get there one day.
The successful breeders are not the ones that didn’t fail, they are the ones that fail the most, but they believe and keep believing and they are the ones that stood up every time they fall. That separates those that achieve their goals and those who don’t. It’s common to hear this “I don’t have this, i don’t have that, i can’t have this, it’s too difficult, it’s too much for me, it’s impossible, i don’t have the resources, i’m afraid,” Put all these away if you would like to progress because we are what we speak.
We can learn to believe like Shrimp does, they can’t see their egg develop unlike human where we can see our babies grow bigger in the mother’s tummy. However, shrimps believe that if she keeps fanning her egg, shrimplets will come and although she can’t physically see her clutch, nature made it in such a way that she knows even without seeing she will hatch the babies.
It’s hard
Well, there is a saying “if you do the difficult thing in life, life will be easy”. One example would be the honey bee story where they were part of a space experiment being sent up to space to see how 0 gravity affect their flight. When they reach outer space, the bees started to float. They must be thinking, life should be like this, easy floating around effortlessly. I don’t even need to flap my wings, i can float around in life, how wonderful that is. I just drift around and i’ll get to where i want to. Flapping my wings all these while has been tiring!
Eventually, the honey bee die. The bees were not born to float around, they get confuse, orientation got distorted. In other words, doing the difficult thing in life may be difficult but also rewarding.
So we can choose to take the easy route and float around (nothing against that) but do not complain that you don’t see progress on your shrimps. Taking the difficult route and persist on will get you there.
Hope this post would cheer you on to get to where you want to be and as such, it is those things you don’t see that brings you forward. Keep believing.
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There are a few reasons that resetting of tank is important and that can be first understood that what i’m referring here is on active soil. Active soil such as ADA/Tropica/platinum/aka/etc are soil that releases ammonia to the water column and also have the ability to lower the pH to an acidic level.
Buffering conditions wear off over time and the ideal state is no longer ideal over a certain period of time. This is one of the major factor influencing why a reset is necessary. The ability to buffer the water parameters like how it should has slow down drastically and visually it can be seen that the shrimps are no longer breeding as much/fast as they should.
A newly laid level of soil also have the strongest buffering condition which helps the eco-system in your tank to be in a much better state where microorganism and biofilm grows quicker than when the soil is near exhausting. Hence, it is important to know the reasons why it is necessary to reset your tanks over time.
When to reset
When buffering conditions become slow, water parameter changes and shrimp do not breed as frequently, shrimplets too don’t grow as quickly as they once would as everything in the tank is related to one another. This lead to the need to change the soil. These are visual appearance that you can probably see and observe.
I have used UGF with a lot of soil and also with tanks with just 1cm of soil, the buffering duration doesn’t appear to be exponentially different. Hence, while there are many methods of shrimp breeding, the one i use and follow is thin layer of soil but to reset more frequently.
Hence there is no hard and fast rule when to change your soil out however what i do is that i use two criteria and if one of them is met, i’ll reset. The first criteria is if the shrimps are no longer breeding as quickly as they should and the tank condition doesn’t appear to be favourable to shrimp breeding, i’ll reset.
Another criteria is when the tank is about 8-10 months old i’ll reset, considering that with a cycling time of 40 days hence it would mean i’ll reset once a year including a 40 days cycling time.
How i reset
A hard reset:
This means all soil plants etc are totally remove including changing out the filter medias everything to be brand new like setting a new tank.
A soft reset:
This is what i do most of the time.
Remove the shrimps to another tank.
Remove soil and water
fill up with new soil and add water
wash all filter media and change 10% of filter media.
cycle
A very simple process to reset the tank, without the UGF i could now reset much quicker and not be put off with the time needed to reset the tank.
i have much more success usually after resetting the tank when the water becomes rich again.
Factors delaying resetting of tanks
One of the biggest concern of resetting is where do i house my shrimps when i reset?
There are a few ways to do so, one is to house them in a big breeder box in another tank for some time and if a soft reset is used, the filter media which still have beneficial bacteria will certainly help speed up the cycling process.
Breeder box are not meant to house and breed shrimps long term but are like temporary housing until the shrimps are able to go back to their home.
I have heard and tried it before is to remove the soil partially during water change and adding new soil until 100% of the soil is being totally change out. For example 50% of the soil is vacuum out on the first month, then on the second month another 50% of the soil is removed. However, there are risk to this is because while active soil releases ammonia, it is important to note small shrimplets within 7 days may not be able to take the sudden ammonia spike when it’s release. However, because there are beneficial bacteria in the tank constantly, the spike doesn’t appear to affect the adults.
For me i’ll prefer to use a safer method whenever possible is to transfer the shrimp to another tank and so the shrimps location will shift over time as i kinda play musical chairs with all the tanks however usually only resetting one tank at a time depending on availability of tanks.
Summary
There are numerous benefit of tank reset and shouldn’t be put off to a “Later Time”. Instead of procrastinating about tank reset, i think it’s better to consider stream-lining the process of tank setup so that tank reset doesn’t become a burden to you. In the past i tried many ways including UGF and box UGF thinking that reset would be much easier, however, at the moment nothing appears to beat the thin layer of soil in terms of speed and ease of resetting because long term it all adds up.
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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.
Setting up the infrastructure
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 :
water source
drainage
Sink
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.
Drainage and Inflow
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.
Thin layer of soil but more frequent reset
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.
Increasing grazing material
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.
Enjoying Shrimp Breeding
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.
Why are some breeders more successful?
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
You can or you can’t, you are right
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.
https://i0.wp.com/shrimpsanctuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/PSX_20210809_001310-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=119202560benetayhttps://shrimpsanctuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/shrimp2-1-300x300.pngbenetay2021-08-11 14:53:342021-08-11 14:53:46How you do anything is how you do everything
If you like to try selective breeding using the cross back method this post is for you. There has been a lot on-going on my side but things will start settling down and i’ll be able to resume providing new blog post.
To recap what cross back is and does.
Cross back happens when the F1 female is use to cross back with the F0 Male. This way when the first shrimplet that comes out would be the Crossback 1 or CB1. Usually i will use the Female as the F1 cross with the F0 Male instead of the other way around. The reason for this so we have 1 fix variable to selectively breed.
As you continue to use CB1 female to cross back with F0 male again will result in CB2.
What it does with cross back in such a way is to increase the genetic similarity towards the male that was use to breed in this case F0.
This was the F0 male
After 2 back crosses this is the female that i have chosen to use for continuing the line. There is still a long way to go to improve the shell, the colors and such. The size is good at 2.5cm very big.
When we are in this stage, the F0 Male x BC1 Female will result in a higher % of trait similarity genetically to the F0 male.
F1
50
50
BC1
75
25
BC2
87.5
12.5
BC3
93.75
6.25
BC4
96.875
3.125
To prevent deform shrimps and also to keep a good line of shrimp require diligence in ensuring the shrimp do not over in breed. When you do see any of the above effects, the shrimp had already reached a very late stage of inbreeding. You can use that as a gauge if not you can consider injecting new blood/genetics whenever you can and the method of doing so is call outcrossing.
Outcrossing: The idea for outcrossing on the other hand is to inject new genome to the current shrimp which has been line bred for some time. The reason this need to be done is because when line breeding get too excessive, deform start showing, shrimps stop breeding, growth stagnant, etc hence it is important for the health of the line to occasionally introduce new blood. There is no hard and fast rule when to introduce the new genetic into the pool because different people get the shrimp at different generation. If the shrimp i have gotten is already line bred for 5-6 generations it will reach the deform point faster if the shrimp has been already outcross before. A reputable breeder will be able to provide high quality new generation of shrimps when they have a large number of tanks to prevent too frequent inbreeding.
Not all selective breeding projects are successful sometimes after a couple of years (Yes it takes this long), so having a few project running at the same time is recommended. In other words, you’ll need to have a few more tanks to select and try to see if it works.
I hope this post provided you some insights into breeding high quality shrimp.
https://i0.wp.com/shrimpsanctuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/9bcc6a76-ef47-4609-bfc5-09be7d93318b.jpg?fit=1060%2C707&ssl=17071060benetayhttps://shrimpsanctuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/shrimp2-1-300x300.pngbenetay2021-08-04 11:48:142021-08-04 11:48:27Tips on Selective breeding: What is required?
There must be sufficient grazing material for the shrimp to consume when you are away. Shrimps graze 24/7 and if you have a small tank without much surface area for biofilm to grow fast enough, it is risky. In addition if you have a lot of shrimp they can strip the biofilm in your tank in a day or 2. When shrimps start to go without sufficient biofilm it triggers cannibalisms, which means they will start preying on each other. This is detrimental if you are doing a selection process as your stock shrimp will be at risk. Hence, having a good source of grazing material not only is critical for a small tank, it enhances the probability of breeding as well.
How to use it?
Directions before using:
Soak the ball 3-6 days in RO Water and change the water daily
Pour the water used for soaking away, do not pour the soaking water back into the tank
place it in the tank, preferably in a feeding dish
use 1 ball per tank
General rule:
30L and above can use Lubao
30L and below can use Kallax ball
30L and below with a lot of shrimps i.e more than 20, can use lubao too (Soak 5-6 days)
If you have a big tank with less than 20 shrimps, there is really no need to use, but if you would like to use, the Kallax ball is more appropriate
if you have a heavily planted tank, there is actually no requirement of using the ball
if you are traveling on vacation, lubao or kallax ball is used to help provide additional grazing material on top of other grazing material such as leaves, moss etc. The ball do not replace food, when you come back from vacation/work, you’ll need to resume feeding regime.
Directions during using:
If you have a lot of shrimps, you will not see massive biofilm growth as shrimp has eaten them, means it’s good.
if you have lesser shrimp, you will see a lot of biofilm. If there is too much biofilm growth, you should consider using the Kallax ball than the lubao.
Directions during exchanging:
During replacement, use a net to take the ball out and quickly bag, seal and throw away the ball. When the ball is outside of the water, it will smell so quickly seal it and throw.
put in a new ball that has been soaked for 3-6 days.
Signs on removing:
When you experience cloudy water, remove the ball
Let the tank undergo a mini cycle as there isn’t sufficient beneficial bacteria
During the fermenting process to create biofilm, ammonia is release, hence a good cycled tank with beneficial bacteria will be able to convert the ammonia into nitrite and nitrate. Hence, if cloudy water is experience, remove the ball. A bacteria bloom is happening as there is now more food for the beneficial bacteria to feed and multiply. once clear, soak another new ball and put it in. this time it will be ok or use the kallax ball if you’re using the lubao initially.
Support
In doubt, always ask. I can be contacted via facebook messenger benetay or email which can be found in the contact section.
I believe in this “Each one, Teach one” so don’t be shy and contact me on how to use it.
https://i0.wp.com/shrimpsanctuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/img_7409.jpg?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=17681024benetayhttps://shrimpsanctuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/shrimp2-1-300x300.pngbenetay2021-07-28 10:13:402021-07-28 10:13:51Step by Step: Lubao and Kallax ball