# isolating shrimp to breed



## APCRandall (Feb 2, 2007)

How do most people isolate 2 shrimps to breed together? I was thinkin a 2.5 gallon tank maby?


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

Dicey. That's a very smal body of water and can foul easily. Shrimp are less tolerant to, um, imperfect water than anything you'll ever stick in a fishtank. 

A 10, or better, 20 gallon tank with some moss and a sponge filter or two and a bunch of shrimp is a much better way to do this.


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## APCRandall (Feb 2, 2007)

How do you improve the genetics? I just want to breed 2 shrimp together.


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

What do you mean by "improve the genetics" ?


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## APCRandall (Feb 2, 2007)

Improve the grade of shrimp ofcourse!


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## APCRandall (Feb 2, 2007)

im talkin crystal red shrimp grades here.


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## NatalieT (Mar 20, 2007)

I don't have any shrimp yet, so this suggestion may not work, but what about putting the shrimp you want to breed into one of those net-breeder things, inside the bigger tank? Something like this: http://www.aquariumguys.com/netbreeder.html

I think that would keep the shrimp apart from anything else in the tank, but let the water from the tank flow through, so they get the water-quality benefits of the bigger tank. I imagine you'd want to put some moss or other plants in with them, to be sure they had something to hide in and munch on.


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

The problem with sticking two shrimp anywhere is you're "bottlenecking" the genes of the babies. What would make more sense is to have a heap of them in a 20, then after they've increased the population, pull the best 12 out and set them up in a 20.

The fancier CRS are inbred enough. What you want to do will make them worse.

If you want to out-breed them you need about 4 pair to start with, but it will make them more rigorous. Here's the recipe:

http://www.killi.net/breeding/improve/


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## oblongshrimp (Aug 8, 2006)

I don't think inbreeding is a big of a deal in shrimp....the higher level the organism the more inbreed tends to effect them. He is right that typically the best way to breed them seems to be putting a bunch together in a tank and let nature take its course. Even if you do want to seperate them i don't see why you wouldn't take your best male and then 3-5 of your best females and put them together.


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

oblongshrimp said:


> the higher level the organism the more inbreed tends to effect them.


This isn't true at all. There are numerous factors that determine the effects of inbreeding depression. Inbreeding can have wildly different effects on two otherwise seemingly simliar creatures. It seems to depend more on their evolutionary history and whether they have repeatedly inbred naturally over time or been an out-crossing population.


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## oblongshrimp (Aug 8, 2006)

Looks like you are right....i should have researched it a bit more before saying anything. Although when I did look some stuff up on this is looks like inbreeding would effect any population as long as they have recessive alleles that are detrimental to their health.

Either way if he wants to breed two shrimp together its really not going to effect anything unless he starts taking all their offspring and breeding them and so on down the line. Even if he did he wouldn't get as many health offspring but he should still get some that don't have the detrimental recessive alleles, right?


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

oblongshrimp said:


> Looks like you are right....i should have researched it a bit more before saying anything. Although when I did look some stuff up on this is looks like inbreeding would effect any population as long as they have recessive alleles that are detrimental to their health.
> 
> Either way if he wants to breed two shrimp together its really not going to effect anything unless he starts taking all their offspring and breeding them and so on down the line. Even if he did he wouldn't get as many health offspring but he should still get some that don't have the detrimental recessive alleles, right?


Didn't mean it to sound quite as negative as my post might have seemed. Sorry if you got that impression!

A species like a shrimp without a pelagic stage like these, may possibly have a fairly inbred nature anyway as the shrimp won't move far from birth to breeding.

I agree, inbreeding will cause problems at some point in any population IMO, but the degree of effect will be widely different. Some, expecially other killi keepers are fairly adamant that it doesn't effect some killi populations, and the length of time some of these annuals are kept in very inbred populations would seem to back that up.

The best way to mitigate against these would probably be a comprehensive line-breeding program with a number of strains to outcross at regular intervals. Randomly selecting individual offspring from a larger population could possibly be as deleterious, in a lack of genetic variation sense, as simply selecting a pair to breed from. 20 shrimp with all the same genes will be more 'inbred' than an unrelated of shrimp. If you pick a number of shrimp, preferably from a number of sources, and then breed from them and select the 'best' shrimp in each generation. Then you can cross those strains to try and get the end product you're after. Basically it's the same process as guppy and goldfish breeders, among other, employ and I'm sure there are others on here who know way more about the mechanics of undertaking this than me.

As far as isolating a pair of shrimp to improve the offspring produced I can't see why you wouldn't give this a go. If the offspring aren't very good, then put the pair back in the group. If they are better then go for two or three generations and at the first sign of any deterioration in the stock (small size, slow growth deformities) then outcross. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!


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## APCRandall (Feb 2, 2007)

wow thanks for all the info


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## phreeflow (Aug 4, 2007)

You know, I'm not going to claim that I understand a 100% of what was said on this post. However, I can say that I do breed CRS that I've gotten from different sources. The goal is to always get a better end product. Sometimes I'll put a nice pair or a small group in a plastic, floating breeder tank (mine has a place to attach an airhose for water flow) and let them go at it. I'll have a few of these going and I'll select the best shrimplets from each of these holding tanks, then throw them into my original breeding colony to mass propagate.

The problem with CRS is that they have a very small gene pool to work from. ALL of them came from the same original colony from the Japanese sushi chef that created these lil guys. Therefore, CRS are sensitive to work with and hard to breed really nice ones. Hence the price. It's pretty tough to find a bloodline that's totally unrelated. Therefore, I throw in a few Crystal Black Shrimp to each of my colonies. Sure they interbreed and produce neither fully black or fully red shrimp...the shrimplets are in fact not appealing for a CRS or CBS keeper. However, the black gets bred out over the generations...and down the line, I get left with more beautiful, healthier, redder, whiter, and shinier looking CRS...I guess this is considered an outcross?? The CBS help to improve genetic diversity and lend themselves nicely to building up the CRS. It takes time and patience.



ed seeley said:


> Didn't mean it to sound quite as negative as my post might have seemed. Sorry if you got that impression!
> 
> A species like a shrimp without a pelagic stage like these, may possibly have a fairly inbred nature anyway as the shrimp won't move far from birth to breeding.
> 
> ...


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## Chuppy (Aug 5, 2007)

Well in my opinion.. i got a whole load or shrimp in my 20 gallon tank.. they all seem to be fine and breeding rapidly.. yes if you're talking about the quality or the crystal shrimps(either black or red.. its the same) use Shirakura Products... very useful.. they have a powder which helps you shrimp get into the 'mood' and i don't know where i got this from but there is a type of 'rock'.. it melts away very slowly in your tank.. that helps to improve your CRS/CBS quality.. makes the white even more solid.. so does the Shirakura food.. Use them all and you will get the best of CRS.. GradeSS+ would be the best..but using those.. it is possible to make your grade A into a grade S.. trust me.. and well i must agree on the earlier post.. to breed CRS/CBS you must have at least 15 in 20gal. this will increase the chances.. And Provide moss.. Any type of Moss would be good(in my case.. java or fire) Shrimps are very sensitive to water quality..(reminds me of my reef tank) and this formula my LFS thought me.. never change more than 20% of water from your tank to maintain your Shrimp's health..

have fun~! Pm me if you got any questions about CRS


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