Tips for Shrimp Keeping

Shrimp Breeding and The 4 Guiding Principles

The 4 Guiding Principles

Why the need for Guiding Principles?


We can understand from the guiding principle as the pillar of support that rest above the building blocks of basic fundamentals. The basic fundamentals such as the water parameters, filtration, plants, etc are the building blocks that allows the shrimp to be able to survive, breed, select and split.

In this post we talk about the guiding principle to share the importance of not rushing for results as any of the blocks can come crushing down the entire support structure which will put you further away from getting the results.





Alive, Breed, Select, Split


Alive:

This is the first step and the most important of all. Without mastering this step there is actually not much of a progress and while most shrimp breeders are able to keep their shrimps alive but when task with a very high grade shrimp that has been inbred for excellence/pedigree, they also stumble. Reason is simple, in-bred for pedigree show grade shrimps are often so in-bred where the genetic similarities are very close.

Keep the shrimp alive is actually the result of good water parameters (soft and hard values). A breeder keeps the water in tip top condition and the water will keep the shrimps alive.

Breed:

When we are able to keep the shrimp alive, then we will be able to start discussing about breeding. While breeding is fairly straight forward once you are able to get good water parameters, this part of it requires food/biofilm to be present to encourage breeding. Breeding shrimps is very fun and to see the next generation is very rewarding.

When in general you are getting the hang of breeding shrimps and they are growing and breeding again and again, we can move on to the next step which is select.

Select:

Selective breeding process is slightly different than just breeding the shrimps. Here there are a lot more technical details and book keeping to ensure the selection process are well documented.

To be able to discern between male and female is the fundamental for this step to begin because it involves removing males from the colony, using good males for breeding with females. In addition, multiple tanks are required for this step and a really good line can take more than 3 tanks to ensure genetic difference. Here, it is also important to know selection process while is the Be all End All does not mean it will guarantee there are results you expect. It may not work out and often adjustments are made and this can only be seen and know much further down the line when the shrimplets are big and when the colors/patterns are fix.

Split:

This is where you have improved the shrimp and colony to a large enough size to split into 2 tanks where you can then continue to selective breed them by crossing cousins. This helps dilute the genetic similarities comparing to inbreeding (Father x Daughter or Father x Grand Daughter). While cousins are still classified as inbreeding but they’re classified as distance so it will still help with the genetic stability.

Summary:

While the individual elements of the guiding principle in itself is a whole chapter by itself, the above shares the high level of what the guiding principles to get to results.




Taken Together


While we chase for results, we must also keep in mind that to allow ourselves to have time in the process to also enjoy it. Do not be frustrated or disappointed if you don’t get there the first time, so long as one is open minded and willing to keep trying and improve, eventually you will get there.

Not all projects will succeed and this is a given, so there is no need to feel bad about it. I have fail project time and time again just to try to get something out but after 1 year, nothing happens.

Hence, i have tried to categorize the journey i went through and share this with you so as to get more clarity on the topic of shrimp keeping.

Thanks for reading and below you can watch the video too!



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Difference between male and female shrimp: Complete Guide to Identification

Why do we need to differentiate



Selective breeding


One of the most critical aspect in learning how to differentiate male and female shrimp is one of the key to successful selective breeding. This post is really for the avid breeders who want to ensure and breed a line of beautiful shrimps.

When we are able to select male and female at a very young age, we will be able to control the selective breeding process which is important. Reason for that is because if a sneaker male who isn’t very nice breeds with all the female, the next generation of shrimplet will not be your ideal direction. Test your breeder the next time you get shrimps from them.

I get this question quite a bit and i would like to take this opportunity to share with you what i was taught in Taiwan on how to differentiate male and female shrimps.




The Taiwan way


There are basically a few ways to tell between a male and female shrimp when they are of certain size, however at 0.8cm onwards we know some of the male start to fly and mate. Hence it is important to either remove the shrimplet to their grow up tank or get the males out. However, to avoid any possibilities of shrimplet mating with the parents unintentionally, we will remove the shrimplet to another tank.

There when the shrimplet grows up, it will then be again split between male and female.

Differentiating Male and Female:

  1. Antennae
  2. Saddle
  3. Rounded bottom (female)

Antennae

This is the most accurate at 0.8cm onwards to identify between a male and female. I rank this as the top most reliable source to differentiate between male and female. However, this requires a steep learning curve as it is not as straight forward. I learn that in Taiwan apprenticeship to learning shrimp is to get the gender right. They do this day in and out to learn and differentiate and over years of learning they become master of it. I am very impress so far by how the Taiwanese have identify the male and female shrimp even at 0.8cm.

It is very difficult for this to be shown on a picture but the long and short of this “With the same body length, the male have longer antenna while female shorter”

This is by far the most use in Taiwan breeders to differentiate shrimplet between male and female. There are however still risk of Miss ID.

  • Males go into fight and the antennae breaks off making them look like female
  • Stunted growth making the shrimp look smaller than actual

Saddle and Curve Belly

This usually happens when the female shrimp is already of a certain breeding size where the saddle can be seen and Curve belly.

Trying to see saddle in Caridina can be quite challenging however given time you will be able to peek into the gap between the body and head.

The curve belly as one can see is a tell tale sign that it is a female, however if we reach this size to ID male and female, it is way too late from a selection process perspective, it has to be done way before that. This small yet crucial step can make or break the next generation of shrimplet.

This is also one of the reasons why all the shrimplets are house in a grow up tank to avoid unintentional breeding happening.

Other factors:

Such as curve 2nd carapace cannot be use as an ID of male and female because some males of high quality do have similar size carapace as female.

size is also not use when ID-ing the gender.

Pictures are not good at determining size of shrimp and hence do not send pictures of shrimplets and asking if they are male or female. Keep in mind that the antennae is in relation to body size. Hence, it is important that instead of providing the fish to you, teaching you how to fish is important.



So now what after sexing them?


Identification of male and female is the fundamental basis for shrimp breeding and it can be daunting at first, however over time and lots of shrimp practice you will soon graduate from the school of shrimp academy.

With the ability to differentiate male and female you will now be able to start splitting the males out from the grow out tank as we would usually only use a few males of good quality during selective breeding.

While sexing male and female is important, it is part of the entire process of breeding good shrimps including cycling of tanks and setting them up for success.

I’m sure you have benefitted from this post and a special shoutout to those who have requested for this article.

Cheers! and Peace out.




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Shrimp molt : How to manage this

Molting



Why of Molting


Molting as you already know is a process where the shrimp grows out of their old shell and then grow bigger. It is how it is like with snakes and spider as a means to grow.

Without molting, shrimps are unable to grow bigger and it is during this very fragile week or so which the shrimp become more vulnerable. During this time it is important that measures are taken to ensure water parameters, male to female ratio and hiding space are well established.

Molting is also a sign of new life where females molt so they can berry and have their next generation all in this entire lifecycle.




What Happens During the Molting Cycle


The long and short of the molting cycle begins when the shrimp reduce feeding to eventually stop feeding a day to hours before molting begin. During the process a new shell is being developed under the old shell which takes time to fully develop.

During the molt, the outer shell breaks usually along the top area where the head and back meets.

After molting, the shell are left in the tank for the shrimp to consume as a source of food. Now that the shrimp has fully molted out of the shell, the new shell is very soft and it requires 24-48 hours before it gets hard again. The faster the shrimp is able to harden the shell the better chances of it surviving.

During this period they are also very vulnerable.



Molting issues explained


Molt fail: 

During the entire cycle, the shrimp wasn’t able to molt cleanly as sometimes when we see a break between the head and back but the molt fail to come out despite several attempts to get it out.

The new shell hardens before the old shell is able to come out fully, and this is generally caused by a few factors.

  1. Water Parameters
  2. Source

Water Parameters:

When we discuss about water parameters against fail molt, it is important to discern between an occasional molt fail vs a consistent molt fail. When you have been keeping the shrimps for 3-4 months and there are generally no issue and out of the blue 1 shrimp had a molt fail, this can be classified as part and parcel of the normal lifecycle. If your shrimps are constantly weekly having molting issues it is generally due to water parameters.

There has been a lot of debate between what kind of water parameters will help reduce molt fail, but there isn’t one way of resolving it. Adding calcium will not encourage success molt because it is not the lack of calcium that prevent the old shell from coming out.

but is calcium important? Yes. Actually Calcium and Magnesium is required for a good successful molt but where do we get calcium and magnesium from? A good reminerizer have sufficient proportion of this and a constant daily feed with natural food like biofilm will ensure that the shrimp get all the necessary foundation for a good clean molt.

GH:

Over the last few months i have been talking to European breeders on how their levels of GH is which hovers around 5-6 GH whereas in Asia we normally do 3-4 GH. Is there any risk of concerns with the differing GH because Calcium and Magnesium are present in reminerizer? i believe that shrimps are hardy and being at the range of 3-6 GH is absolutely fine.

Types of Salt:

There are many brands of reminerizer and also the concentration of them are fairly different. For example while we tried different brands of salt some takes up to 120 TDS to arrive at GH of 3 whereas the ones we use from Hwa is GH 3 at TDS 90. This means the concentration level differs. If you have experience molting issues you might want to test you GH against your TDS level to test the salt.

Does Fixing GH fix everything?

It doesn’t, still you will experience fail molt because shrimp keeping isn’t 1+1. It does not have an absolute cause and effect. So there are other factors that need to be address fundamentally.

Fundamental: Water parameters

Over here it is important to discuss this as it is not a natural occurrence molt fail happen frequently. Usually it starts with the very beginning when the tank is setup and it is far more difficult to adjust the water parameters after it has been setup and running. I have discussed this in depth on water parameters here. Setting it up right the first time is much a better approach than to use band aid and further adjust later on because adding/removing later on is going to be a tricky affair.

I’m currently guiding a few local breeders and i can be very strict when coming to cycling of the tank to ensure strong healthy shrimp later on. i always believe in doing it first time right. anyway it’s easy to reset a tank so might as well do it right.

When they see my tanks they know the shrimps are really happy in there because the females breeds right after they release their clutch. The level of comfort for the shrimp is ideal and i’m referring to more difficult to breed shrimps.

Source:

Shrimp source is also critical in this as having a good shrimp source will also determine if the livestock are healthy, poor looking shrimp and unhealthy husbandry is a sure fire way of experiencing more of these issues. Choose your source wisely and ensure they have a good process and able to explain everything in much detail why they do what they do.



Other factors causing shrimp to die after/before molting


Male to Female Ratio:

There are simply too many males in the tank causing a higher probability of females being harass and eventually succumbing to death. This is because too many males will try to mount onto the female shrimp which during the process might injure it as the shell is very soft after molting. It does not really happen to males because when male shrimp molt they do not emit the pheromones like female do. So chances are the male will be left alone for the shell to harden after molting.

Hiding Space:

A dense coverage of natural vegetation will be the best cover for females and shrimplet to molt in peace because the natural cover act like a barrier against other shrimp. While we add coverage please note that females release pheromones so it doesn’t matter where, the males will keep flying around until they find the female. However, what it means is the female has the ability to play ‘tag’ so she can go round in some maze and lose the male. Do not provide coverage that has one entrance. Keeping things simple, using moss and plants are the best natural coverage you can offer.

As you can see a nice boa right after molting was hiding away from the rest, a good natural coverage.

Food:

I generally stick to the food with strong draw factor like Hwa v1 food. From this i know the shrimps are consuming the food which have high nutrients for them to grow and breeding profusely.

In addition, it is also important to provide biofilm which not only is the natural food for shrimps to get their nutrients, it helps water parameters as well. Kallax ball/lubao encourage the multiplication of microorgansim which indirectly helps a tank water reach a better level.



Closing


I hope this post shed some light on what it meant to get to a point where molting shouldn’t be an issue. The entire eco-system is fairly fragile and hence important to ensure at every check point it is well setup.

If you like this post, remember to share and subscribe so you get updates every time there is a new release.

Cheers!


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The hidden impact of poor cycling – Expose!

Tank Cycling



Background for cycling and super charging it


The background of cycling the tank is to ensure that the beneficial bacteria has now in good number and ability to convert ammonia from nitrite and then eventually to Nitrate.

The long and short of this is that there are sufficient beneficial bacteria to convert ammonia to a less poisonous state. The tank will continuously produce ammonia as there are shrimp waste, food, rotting plants and that is the food source of beneficial bacteria, by ‘eating’ the ammonia and converting them to Nitrite and Nitrate.

As you can see there is a time line against the nitrogen in the tank, so when the ammonia and nitrite levels hit 0 it takes about 40 days.

Now we are aware of the reasons behind why we need to cultivate beneficial bacteria, is there ways to speed it up by 50%?

Certainly there are ways to speed up the cycling process however if you are a new breeder, you might want to find someone who is reputable to help you out.

Tank seeding, this means to seed the filter in another established tank for a week or two so that the beneficial bacteria can colonize the filter and then bring it back to your tank. This is much easier if you have already an established setup. If not then you can still continue with the 40 day cycle. Alternatively if you have other established tank and are 100% healthy no pest etc, you can consider exchanging one of the old sponge into the tank. This will help kick start the process as well. How fast does it help to cycle? It will certainly help to reduce the cycling time.

Bacteria products: There are many nitrifying bacteria products on the market, it helps introduce the beneficial bacteria in hope to colonize filters quickly and establish the colony. However, there are no dates as to when the batches are made and some do not see any results by using it.

Elements affecting speed of cycling:

low pH doesn’t do bacteria growth any good, so it slows down the bacteria colonization process hence it is a good idea to ensure there are oxygen in the tank, and a good filter media such as sponge filter/hang on back/cannister.

That is also the reason why cycling may take longer than usual for low pH tanks. There is no rush in cycling the tank because once you get it right the shrimps will keep breeding.

Add more tanks: If you can’t wait for the next tank to be fully cycled, than keep adding tanks until you are able to. That is what i normally say jokingly.





Weight loss fads a staggering $71 billion!


The weight loss industry in 2021 is worth $71 billion. What am i trying to relate here? There is a lot of financial incentive to introduce fads and connotation about speeding up cycling. The faster someone is able to cycle the tank, the faster they can purchase livestock and i think while we can super charge our tanks to cycle faster, we can’t magically turn a blind eye on science.

The stronger less delicate fishes and shrimp may be able to handle a 7 days cycle or a shorter cycle time without much effects.

I was also made known on many occasion that to get around it is to use old buffering soil which have lesser capacity to buffer which would in a short period of time send your ammonia test kit reading 0. Technically this can easily fool many new breeders but to an experience breeder we all know all too well because the tank will continue to remain sterile, microorganism can’t thrive and reproduce which on my other post on how to see if the tank has mature.

Water parameters the hard and soft value are equally important so if you are serious about shrimp breeding in the long haul, it is critical that cycling and maturing the tank before the shrimps are being place into it. Like i’ve mentioned the hardier ones would probably get through, but along the way people will look you up as a mentor to guide them. It is never wrong to do the right thing.




Impact of a poorly cycled tank


I have got many pictures from hobbyist where their tank look almost sterile with no life to it. Despite it being ‘fully cycled’, the tank just couldn’t get to a point where shrimps are happily breeding constantly.

Here are some impacts to a poorly cycled tank:

  • Shrimp doesn’t breed
  • shrimp look lethargic
  • female shrimp do not want to saddle
  • shrimps do not consume daily feed eagerly
  • hiding most of the time
  • constantly 1-2 dead shrimp on a daily to weekly basis
  • no microorganism visible
  • sterile looking tank, no algae, too clean

These observation can deduce a few things

  • insufficient beneficial bacteria
  • insufficient biofilm
  • insufficient microorgasim
  • insufficient balance to the tank

There is really no shortcut to maturing a tank, like wine, the wait is where the goodness is. Can’t rush it, because how you do anything is how you do everything.



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The Why’s of Shrimp Sanctuary

Sharing and Supporting



Sharing and Supporting


This is a less in-depth shrimp post and taking this time to share some of the background of the Why’s of Shrimp Sanctuary and why it exist.

As the title says sharing and supporting has created Shrimp Sanctuary with the sole purpose of educating the hobby. This to me is one of the cornerstone of why it exists. In my home page, i did share the high level reasons for the existence of Shrimp Sanctuary and would take this opportunity to share more.

I get the opportunity to communicate to a lot of shrimp breeders all over the world and have forge strong friendship from it. From Russia to Malta to Poland to most of Europe countries and to Africa, Brazil, USA and not forgetting Asia. This has given me a very broad perspective of what is happening in each of these countries.

While we all have different languages, the common language we talk about is shrimp. However, what i also observed is that the politics we have in common in this hobby is fairly similar across the countries and the many sub groups within groups.

In Singapore there is no difference, however i believe that this can be change a person at a time with the notion of Sharing and Supporting. Sharing information that allow breeders or even beginners to kick start their hobby. In this day and age, information is widely available however we need to discern between accurate data and not so accurate data.





Why Share?


Like all new hobby, there is a learning curve and many prefer talking to someone to get up to speed as quickly as possible. So usually platform like YouTube and Facebook are great ways to obtain information if they couldn’t find someone to guide them. However, one must also be weary on what information is beneficial. A litmus test is to see if they are truly a shrimp breeder who have high quality shrimps. This will differentiate between noise and voice because great ideas cut through all the noise.

Why do i take hours and hours every week just to share something which i feel passionate about.

One of it is to debunk the fallacies in the hobby is we are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. A lack of knowledge creates fear, seeking knowledge creates courage. So when one is able to gain knowledge and put it to use, it dispel fear.

The secret to having good shrimp breeding is actually knowledge. The knowledge of breeding, knowledge of food, knowledge of setting it up. when we have all these have success, share them because knowledge gain is wisdom, sharing knowledge is humanity.



Why Shrimp Sanctuary


As the name denotes, a sanctuary for breeders and new hobbyist to come and learn more about the shrimp hobby. Information is free and can be use for learning but putting these information together and then trying it will give you knowledge over time. Experience does it.

At Shrimp Sanctuary we value free sharing of information which would otherwise have been kept a secret as i understand that good information is really lacking and hence learn from Taiwan and share it here. This journey continues as i continue to provide more information about shrimp breeding and sharing what works for us here in Singapore.

Wouldn’t we offend sellers by revealing all these information? I have been asked about this why invest time in things without benefit? At the end of the day we need to stand up for something we believe. Yes there will certainly be people for and against us.

Everyone have a finite time on this earth, time can either be invested or wasted, so i choose to stick to investing my time and energy to the top two quadrant, which accounts for 50% of the breeders. A special shout out to those who continue to read my blog following closely every week and encouraging me to continue writing. Thanks for that and for those who have sent me a token for “Virtual Coffee” greatly appreciate it.

For those in the last square, i simply do not invest any time to even try, and i’m sure many of you have them in your life. They will tell you what you can, what you cannot. Just Ignore the naysayers, because they may temporarily bring you down, but they will not be able to write your story. It is your story and it is your life, they don’t run it.

Hence, i continue to forge on creating blog entries to share as much as i can, which i learn from Taiwan. Do let me know what would you like to see in the next blog entry and i can write them for you while sharing with the rest.



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It’s a slow process, quitting won’t make it faster

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!


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Breeding shrimps with a winning mindset


Have a goal


One of the most important steps in breeding shrimp is to have a goal in mind and a direction where you would want the shrimp to develop into. This will help lift you up when the going get tough. I have breeders tell me that after 1 generation of breeding they can’t get any nice shrimps from their brood. Do not breed shrimps with a defeated mindset.

With the goal in mind, even with 1 pair of shrimp, one can still succeed as long as the process of breeding them are kept the same like your other proven methods. High grade shrimps can be costly hence it’ may not be financially viable to get a big colony to start with. Even if one starts with 1M 2F it is still possible to be great.

The 1M 2F trio should then be bred to masses first and from there keep using the female shrimplet from the F1 to breed more and get to masses as soon as possible.





Racing against time


Shrimp have a very short lifespan, hence it is a racing against time to quickly get them to breed as fast as possible. Female shrimps when they reach about 1.2cm start to breed but their brood size is small but with higher frequency.

As they start to mature their brood size becomes larger but with lesser frequency. When the female start to get old, their breeding slows down to once in 2-3 months. Hence the ‘breeding’ duration is really short.

Why am i saying this? The reason is because the conditions have to be optimum during the breeding period and to ensure maximum clutch size everytime. Not forgetting newly minted female often need to gain experience in the first few brood before successfully deliver shrimplets.

Water conditions often measured by parameters are just one side of the equation. The other part of the equation is if there are sufficient biofilm, microorganism, hiding space, breeding ratio.





Second part of the equation


A large part of the 2nd equation consist of biofilm/microorganism/hiding space/male to female ratio etc. This is where it is often overlooked and equally important to water parameters. I like to categorize it as the last piece to obtain an optimal ecosystem.

As hobbyist we can’t measure biofilm or amount of hiding space, it however has a very strong contribution to the success of breeding. We can setup a tank with soil, filtration, plants and get the right water parameters but that does not mean your breeding tank is well established or optimal for breeding.

Getting to that optimal point is where considerations such as if there are sufficient biofilm in the tank (can be lubao/kallax ball/moss/leaves etc). Is there microorganism in the tank that is feeding on the biofilm as well. Hiding space while important also has to be visible so shrimps don’t hide and die in there without knowing. How about the male to female breeding ratio of 4:20? All these are measurable elements that are often missed out but contributes a lot to the success towards breeding.

While the hard numbers measuring for pH/KH/GH/TDS/Nitrite/Nitrates are important, a successful breeder goes beyond just the above measurements to ensure breeding success.

There is a research paper on biofilm, here is the link i would like to share with you. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229113535_Importance_of_biofilm_as_food_source_for_shrimp_Farfantepenaeus_paulensis_evaluated_by_stable_isotopes_d13C_and_d15N

Hence, it is important not to have a defeated mindset when breeding shrimps. Look beyond measurable water parameters, these are just the foundation of shrimp breeding. Once your ecosystem is well established, breeding shrimps would then be rewarding and gratifying. Till then, never be discourage, never give up, give it all you have and remember one day when you succeed, reach out to those who need help. Each one teach one.

Hope you had a good read!




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Grazing material and successful breeding


How does grazing material impact the breeding process


It is becoming difficult to ignore the fact that grazing material is one of the key elements for successful shrimp breeding process. It can be understood from the abundance of available grazing material to ensure continual breeding to happen. Shrimps like in the ‘Animal Kingdom’ breed when the conditions and environment are ideal. They thrive and procreate their next generation. In their natural habitat, shrimps feed consistently all the time. While their ‘hands’ are constantly feeding they’re trying to pick up the biofilm and consume them. Biofilm is an important source of nutrients to shrimps as they consist of nutrients that can be absorb naturally by the body. In this day and age, high quality feed is made to create as much beneficial nutrients to the shrimp. However, according to some research (Importance of biofilm as food source for shrimp), the feed they use although ingested were not properly incorporated by the shrimp tissue. In other words, it appears to suggest that while we may feed our daily feed, there are still some nutrients that must be compensated through biofilm consumption.

The term grazing material really encompass a large area but what i would like to share in this article is while most grazing material are used, it is the biofilm they produce that have a direct impact to shrimp overall health and breeding. Biofilm grows almost anywhere, and it is not simply the biofilm that is the important intake, it is also the microorganism that the shrimp consume. With an abundance of microorganism and biofilm, that is where the ‘invisible’ nutrients are playing a major role of the breeding process.





Growing biofilm


There are many ways to cultivate biofilm such as leaves, cholla wood, media, plants, mosses and microorganism ball aka Kallax ball or lubao.

Leaves such as Indian almond are good source of biofilm generation, the leaves soak in water will start developing thin layer of biofilm for the shrimps to consume, however the leaves will not be able to consistently produce biofilm as the leaf tissue are consumed together with the biofilm by the shrimp.

A wide variety of biofilm producer is ideal, and personally i’m using plants, mosses and definitely the lubao or kallax ball.

While one cannot directly see the impact of shrimps consuming biofilm, however there are research paper that is done scientifically that natural food for shrimps are biofilm and is the key that allow shrimps to continue their existence.




Biofilm, female shrimps and shrimplets


If one have put leaves in the tank or have use Kallax ball or lubao, it can be observed that during the conditioning phase of breeding (saddle), they can mostly be found near biofilm source. When female shrimp berried, it is often seen that they are on the biofilm generation such as lubao in this case when i use them. While shrimp feed are fed daily, the female shrimp continue to graze on the lubao very frequently more so when they’re not berried. This observation is seen across many tanks when female shrimps berried.

Another observation and reported by many who have used lubao is shrimplets find their way to the biofilm source and graze for the first few weeks of their live and then move on to other food source. The constant biofilm allows females and shrimplets in my opinion benefitting the most out of it.

With the above, it in turn help to encourage females to saddle more readily and directly improve shrimplet survival by providing first food.



Long term impact


The long term impact for having a consistent biofilm source in the tank outweigh the risk of deformity and degrading, and hence important to have different sources of biofilm readily available in your tank. Like i’ve mentioned, every surface area in the tank is able to harbour some biofilm but the more direct source it is, the more you’ll be able to control.

While we may not be able to see any impact immediately, biofilm is still an important source of grazing material/nutrients for the shrimps and if you’ve not considered them before, i hope this article would allow you to wade deeper into the water and learn more about the intricacies of why biofilm is an important source of nutrients to shrimps.

Thanks for reading and keep believing!



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Tips on when to reset your tank


Why do you need to reset your tank


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.

Hope this post have been beneficial to you.

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The “Why” of Optimizing Shrimp Setup

Meeting your needs


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 :

  1. water source
  2. drainage
  3. 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.


One of the racks

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