For those who are in this hobby for many years regardless fish or shrimp, they have undergone and seen the entire process and those who stay and remain in the hobby are those who are truly passionate about it.

This post is to share the alternate community that we have created separate from the norm with good reasons. The alternate community is simply to get like-minded individual who love the hobby without the pain of politics.

Why no group chat?

Yes i do not join or create group chat and because of that, i do not get ‘publicize’ as much as some people think i should. The main reason for not joining any chat group is because i cannot and wouldn’t be able to allocate time to write, deliver YouTube Content, Run, water change, feed shrimps, innovate, work and family. I did try to be in chat group, generally i don’t read any of these because at the end of the day there be thousands of messages, and if i spend time looking through all these will simply devoid the time need to bring the hobby forward.

Those i have interact with, personalize information can be provided as i have avoided the need for mass information in group chat.

Sharing through Personalize information?

Why is this important is simply because nobody keep the same exact setup as anybody else. Even setting up 20 tanks all at once will not deliver the same cycling time and level of maturity. Hence, personalize information is critical to a point that it only tailored for that individual breeder. For example, every Child learning abilities, like and character is special and unique, no two will be the same. It has the same methodology as shrimp breeding, a blanket approach may work for generic and general keeping but when you want to dive at the deep end, get the scuba gears ready.

Challenges?

There be a lot of challenges along the way, and like the title says, you have to be crazy enough to be marinating in all these and keep pressing forward. People have looked at the setup and tell me “Ben you’re absolutely crazy”, “This is too much, it wouldn’t be good for you.” These days i take all these as compliments as i’m not crazy, ‘i’m just not you’. If i would to follow the general standards, i should stop progressing a long time ago.

I also surround myself with like-minded individuals who want to better themselves in terms of life, shrimps and family where we connect greatly. As i continue to work on myself, it is important to have the correct folks around, if not they be sucking the life right out of you and making sure you go no-where. Some are threatened by your growth hence they inhabit your potential and at times, when you know where you would like to go which means you need to shake off all old belief and concepts because that will no longer serve you and the process which you have outgrown.

Inspiring the shrimp hobby

To share what is possible to those who have yet to believe. This is something we would like to inspire breeders globally that you can still keep great looking shrimp, breed them and have multiple tanks without allocating too much time in the hobby. Time is a finite resource, it can be invested or wasted, and nobody can game the end game, use it wisely.

This journey is on-going and the videos i have posted on YouTube captures the bits and pieces of progression. To be in it and marinate myself in the challenges and innovate different processes that is beneficial for the shrimp hobby as a whole is satisfying and rewarding.

If someone tells me they’re interested in shrimps and want to be a successful breeder, i’ll be the one that give you all the information, helps you with organizing, planning, designing and signing you up for things you wouldn’t believe you will do. Most people cannot handle that level of intensity, but that is the type of passion we need and is exactly what it takes to fulfill lofty ambitions and more importantly, find out what you are truly capable of.

In the next section, this will help you position yourself in growth through the breeder certification process

In 2024, we will be certifying breeders through the breeder certification process, it is a journey everyone can embark together including ourselves.

I have split the world into 4 different regions:

Region 1	Region 2	Region 3	Region 4
Asia and Australia	Europe inclusive of Africa	South America	North America and Canada

This will help better understand the criteria. There are 5 levels:

1. Keeper
2. Junior Breeder
3. Senior Breeder
4. Master Breeder (Certification)
5. GrandMaster Breeder (Certification)

Criteria:

Keeper	Junior Breeder
Level 1	Level 2
Do not fully understand the concepts of water parameters. unable to articulate the different type of filters pros and cons	Understand the concepts of Water Parameters and to be able to articulate the relationships amongst the water parameters. Able to relate the relationship between Nitrate, water change, utilization of different filtrations
Starting out keeping any type of shrimps with less than 1 year of experience	To have at least successfully Breed Caridina shrimps for 1 year and selectively breed 1 type of shrimp successfully (with traceable source)
unable to grade shrimps	Basic infrastructure
	unable to differentiate male and female at 0.8cm to 1cm unable to accurately grade shrimps

Senior Breeder	Master Breeder	Grand Master
Level 3	Level 4	Level 5
Ability to diagnose most breeding issues and able to share experience with others with some solutions based on own experience	Able to confidently understand and diagnose water parameter issues and highlight possible solutions	Able to confidently diagnose water parameter issues and highlight possible solutions. Also ability to provide possible challenges in future and provide solutions, for example being able to share different examples of how to diagnose water parameters
To have successfully selectively breed 2 different type of shrimp for at least 3 years (With traceable source)	To have successfully selectively breed 3 different type of shrimp for at least 5 years (With traceable source)	To have successfully selectively breed 5 different type of shrimp for at least 8 years (With Traceable source)
Progressively improve infrastructure with a dedicated space for the setup (number of tanks at this stage is not critical)	Dedicated area for shrimps with added technology is a plus and at least 20 tanks or 1600L	To showcase shrimp room with process of sustainability with at least 100 tanks or 8000L
Able to differentiate male and female with many errors at 0.8cm to 1cm Able to Grade shrimps based on set standards	Able to differentiate male and female confidently with some errors at 0.8cm to 1cm Able to confidently grade shrimps based on set standards	Able to differentiate male and female with minimum errors at 0.8cm to 1cm Ability to influence and set new grading level at a global agreed level
Participate in at least 1 international shrimp competition outside of own region	Participated in at least 3 different International Shrimp Competition outside of own region and/OR be part of the Jury in at least 2 different Region outside of own region. OR visit shrimp sanctuary and participated in 1 international shrimp competition outside of own region	Participated and or be Jury for All Region

Through the certification process, please contact us for a review of your standards and once that is done, we will be providing you with the certification and the certificate is valid for a year. It will then be re-certified every year to ensure standards are uphold.

The reason for doing so is we certify breeders instead of awarding the shrimp like shrimp competition as it will weed out possibilities of breeders buying shrimps for competition.

This certification criteria may be lofty, but that is exactly what is needed to bring up the best of every breeder!