Tips on improving shrimp development

Shrimp grading should not only be used during competition or sales. I think it is a good tool for hobbyist used wisely and appropriately can help improve shrimp quality.

In general the shrimp grading would consist of a few broad spectrum and they are :

• Size
• Color
• Pattern
• uniformity

In these grading list we will need to look into a few areas like for example color, the overall color of the shrimp, how does it look. What about the legs are they colored as well.

If we based everything upon 100% you can actually develop your own grading ranking chart to improve your shrimp quality.

Size and colour is critical because if the shrimp is able to maintain the colors when they are of big size 2cm,2.5cm the scoring increases. The reason behind this is because as the shrimp grow large, their colors fade so if the shrimp is able to attain to the max size and maintain the color it will be scored highly.

As you can compare the size on the left and right, the right Boa have a much large size, max size with full colouration. This would have scored very highly.

The color is also uniform with little to no transparent in the body nor legs. Also the colors of gold/blue and black are all colored well.

Next as we come to pattern, it is critical to score highly here too, while color comes first followed by pattern, it does not mean it is not important. Pattern as you can see from the size of the shrimp vs pattern.

The patterns are well shown on the body with respect to body size.

Now with that in mind, we understand this is how the grading chart works. So if i take this as a benchmark, i’ll work my shrimps towards this grade. I benchmark the boa grading with Skyfish as i have his shrimp also authenticity to understand and learn what entails Grade 1, 2, 3 and Championship grade.

Selective breeding helps to improve the shrimp grading eventually if done properly. However, that is the external features of the shrimp which is done through selection. There is another critical point the internal factor of the shrimp health being attributed by how well the food, water parameters, grazing material and overall tank condition.

These 2 factor, internal and external need to be done hand in hand for better results. One focuses on the exterior beauty of the shrimp, the other focuses on the interior health of the shrimp.

While we can grade external features of the shrimp such as colors etc we cannot grade the health of the shrimp and i think both internal and external features are important.

Usually if the internal health of the shrimp is fundamentally sound, the process of selective breeding will breed very successful shrimps.

What does that mean? For example, a healthy shrimp may not be within the grading chart, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good shrimp. The environment it was bred in is ideal, there is good food, grazing material and regular water change. In short, the husbandry is taken care well. The health of the shrimp is in good shape regardless of the grading of the shrimp. This is what i call the internal health of the shrimp.

Now with good husbandry associating with good selection we can start proceeding with selection process which is now the external features of the shrimp.

Only when 2 of these internal and external concepts forge together will deliver the outstanding results you are looking for. One cannot work independently and this has been proven and seen from time and time again.

We have breeders who get the same shrimp from the same source and it was hand selected at the place 20 pieces. It was then brought back home and pass to 2 breeders, each of the breeder get 10 shrimp randomly, but one of the breeders faces issue with the coloration of the shrimp for most of the shrimp he keeps whereas the other does not have any issues with it. Persist on and remained like that.

Once is probably a coincidence but it happened more than once and i’m sure you have experience this too. Even the same shrimp kept at different breeders place will result in different colouration. So this exemplifies that both internal and external factors for shrimp breeding is critical.

Improving internal health can be understood as the external environment such as water parameters, inhabitants, hiding area, food, grazing material. All these sums up to achieve the Gold standard of the external environment.

Water parameters :

• GH 3-4
• KH 0
• pH 5.8
• TDS 85-90
• Water change weekly weakly (5-10%)
• Filtration : Totto hangon

Hiding areas:

• Mosses/plants

Food:

• Hwa Version 1 daily pad

Grazing material:

• Moss
• Lubao

A simple list that i use and used by many renowned breeders in Taiwan.