Selectively breeding cherry shrimp

[Mcgolg76]

Currently rearranging some tanks and decided to make my 10g. My first thought was to get an expensive morph of neos for the ten. But thought it would be fun to see if I can upgrade the cherrys in my 20 communitiy. Have about 40/50 cherrys. Some are def more red then others. Figure I would pick out the best colored red females and red males and move them to my 10. Babies would survive better since no fish. I have no illusions that I will get prefect fire red coloring shrimps. Know you need many tanks and patience for that.

What I am wondering is with picking out the best colored for the shrimp only tank actually work? Would I in few years notice a diff and maybe a slight upgrade in my shrimp coloring?

 

[andresdeo]

Often thought about it, but have never tried it! I'm pretty sure you would see results in a few generations, but that is just a guess. Other thing to consider is inbreeding, remember that renewing the gene pool is important every so often, again I'm no expert, hopefully some one can correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Mcgolg76]

Should be interesting. Gonna be kind of hard because i won't really be culling out that bad. Don't want to kill them or use as food

 

[Jev12]

When you cull just put them in your other tank there is no need to kill them or use them as food when I cull my blue velvets I just put them in my red cherry shrimp tank

 

[Mcgolg76]

Now the culls of the blue velvet, are they lighter shades of blue. Or the red cherry color?

 

[ScotJudd]

I too have RCS in my community tank. My strain is good and all surviving young are well bright. However, every once in a while,if I spot a really good shrimp I buy it ( don't need it for upping the numbers) but to improve the gene pool. Females are easy to select, males are trickier not being so brightly coloured but look hard enough at them and you can spot their potential.
Happy breeding.

 

[Jev12]

They are red rilis actually or they are blue with red on them