Posts about Shrimp Breeding
Shrimp Contest 2023 North America
Judging
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.
First Place Black Ninja
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.
- 4 band to Black Ninja one stripe choose the best you can to select next
- Black ninja one stripe to less white choose the best
- Black ninja less spot to full black choose the best
- In breed black and black and select the best.
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.
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.
What are the differences between them?
Main & Secondary Line Shrimps
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.
Does it matter?
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
Price perspective
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?
- Cost of main line shrimp: $10
- Retail of main line shrimp: $25
- Cost of secondary line shrimp: $1
- Retail of secondary line shrimp $20
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:
- Who is the breeder
- is this a main or secondary line shrimp
- selective or mass
- how long has the main line being bred
- What is the grading criteria
Some telltale sign that you’ll need to watch for:
- Quality does not have quantity
- if it’s too cheap to be true, it is
- unable to answer or tries to smoke through
- unable to share lineage openly
- shifty in answering
- History of mixing and having multiple lines
- History misuse of other lineage to sell
- Has no backstory of how the shrimp are bred
I hope this post have shed some light on it, i have created a video on this as well.
Thanks for reading!
Ammonia is the energy source for Beneficial Bacteria
Which is which?
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.
Porosity
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.
Why does it matter
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
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.
- Natto bacteria for probiotic health
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
Isn’t Soil Porous too?
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.
Shrimp Breeding Element 2: Breed
Breeding shrimp (Food/Biofilm)
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
- Basically shrimps are not that fussy eater, most of the staple food sold in aquarium shops today are basically ok to feed your shrimp. I personally prefer keeping things simple and to feed only 1 type of staple food but a variety of grazing material is very crucial.
- I’m using Hwa Version 1 Shrimp food pad, this food is formulated with carefully selected ingredients to provide shrimp with all their requirements.
- if you are using some shrimp food which you think they’re good for your shrimp, good! There is really no need to change.
- Occasionally i feed blanched spinach, they’re fairly good especially blanched spinach. if i’m feeling rich, i’ll order a pack of organic spinach and take out one serving for the shrimp while i consume the rest as a salad.
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
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:
- 2M 8F
- 3M 7F
- i personally like to use 1-2M to 15-20F
Sticking with it
Making it work
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.
biofilm and selective breeding
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.
Continue to push forward
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!
Inbreeding and Line breeding
What works?
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.
Where should i start?
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.
When should it end?
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 “Be All End All”
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 🙂
Lighting and it’s importance
Using Light to your advantage
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.
Type of lights
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.
how much light is sufficient
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!
Water Parameters Hard Value
I split water parameters into two different large category namely the Hard and Soft parameters.
This post is a follow up of the previous one where i touch on water parameters. This will help to provide a clearly picture of what it meant to have both hard and soft water parameters and the importance of it.
Hard water parameters are those that most of us use test kit to measure, this is where the hard values are tested and indicate a value corresponding to either acidic, dissolved solids etc.