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I have a few questions.

I have chocolate shrimp from 2 sources. I chose to add them together for genetic diversity. The first group was breeding true, but the color seems to slowly be getting lighter- more tan than chocolate. So I surmised they were reverting to wild color. Culling in a 125g is not a feasible option, therefore my adding new shrimp line.

Now, the new line is throwing more than chocolate. It has a deep blue that appears black. Also a few that are yellow turn up. The red ones I expected and keep in the tank.

So, my questions for the folks who have been breeding these for a while:

1) Is my decision to add new shrimp likely to work, in a long term situation?

*pulling the occasional shrimp from the big tank is feasible, but doing a great deal of culling is not. It's too well planted and lots of wood piles/caves for the breeding Plecos I keep.

2) If I pull the occasional blue/black will they breed true or would I be able to add them to another tank of blue and be able to darken their color? Or will chocolate color be all I get? My blue tank is a 10g so culling is easy.

3) the few yellow I get, Can they be added to my yellow tank or will that revert to chocolate too? This color I suspect would revert, as I theorize that chocolate is just a deeper shade of yellow, but I figure you folks would probably know better. And should yellow be culled or does it actually deeper the chocolate in some way?

4) Has anyone done real research on neo colors? I've been having to work on obtaining colors by buying on phenotype, and then playing with what shows up in genetype.

5) Can you help by sending links of journals/papers etc...a true in depth genetic discussion will be understood, I work on it in another area, not aquatic related. Thanks

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Hi Briggadane. :)

 

My hobby for several years now has been to selectively breed neos.  I'm no scientist and not highly educated with schooled genetics.  The only things I have learned are through years of hard knocks and reading from books/internet and friends.

 

Having said that, let me answer your questions to the bestof my ability.  My answers will be in green.

 

1) Is my decision to add new shrimp likely to work, in a long term situation?

 

It will certainly work short term.  Adding a higher quality to a lower quaity will result in a medium to higher grade.  Very similer to adding PFR to cherry stock.  As to long term, it depends on how the genetics combine.  It is my personal belief that color resides on more than one location.  So what may be Chocolate in one shrimp, may reside on a different locus in another.  I have no paper to back this up, just my yellow/red experiement from years ago.

2) If I pull the occasional blue/black will they breed true or would I be able to add them to another tank of blue and be able to darken their color? Or will chocolate color be all I get? My blue tank is a 10g so culling is easy.

 

I personally would not add them to another tank of blues, unless you are willing to cull.  Even if the blue chocolates breed true (which I imagine they would still have throwbacks in the F1 generation especially), the blue chocolate is not a pure breeding strain yet.  What this means is that your tank of blues which breed true, if mixed with the blue chocolate, will have a muddied genetics.  You will have to cull to have these new shrimp breed close to true blue again.  Even if the blue chocolates were finally selected to breed true, by mixing them with your tank of blues- again they do not have the same genetics in their backgrounds.

 

Just some fyi- Some people think the blue chocolates are actually where blue carbons came from to begin with.

 

If you would like to learn through experimentation, that's the only way we ever learn anything. :)

3) the few yellow I get, Can they be added to my yellow tank or will that revert to chocolate too? This color I suspect would revert, as I theorize that chocolate is just a deeper shade of yellow, but I figure you folks would probably know better. And should yellow be culled or does it actually deeper the chocolate in some way?

 

I would respectfully disagree with the theory that chocolate is a deeper shade of yellow.  :)

 

Chocolate in my experience is a seperate "color."  (My theory is it is an expression of many pigments to create brown.)  Yellow is expressed in yellow pigments, but also yellow tissue.

 

Occasionally wilds can be thrown, and contrary to many people- I valued the wild chocolates.  I kept these in a tank with other culls and found some of my favorite projects came from offspring of these wilds.

 

However, to minimize wilds in the future, any wilds should removed from your main tank when you see them.

4) Has anyone done real research on neo colors? I've been having to work on obtaining colors by buying on phenotype, and then playing with what shows up in genetype.

 

Unfortunately, not much genetic research as far as color has been done on ANY shrimp.  This has been much of my frustration coming from breeding animals with color gentics being known.  Rats/mice/geckos/snakes, etc.

 

All colors in neos that I am aware of has been painfully selectively bred from a var that happens to pop up.  That is why (in general) when mixing two different vars, the offspring are often wilds.  The modifiers just don't line up.

5) Can you help by sending links of journals/papers etc...a true in depth genetic discussion will be understood, I work on it in another area, not aquatic related. Thanks

 

The answer to number 5, unfortunately, is spread throughout 1-4.

 

Hope this help a little.

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Thanks. It does help. It tells me I'll be the one playing mad scientist and figuring out dominant and recessive as well as masking and such. Good thing these guys reproduce quickly. Think I'm gonna be filling a lot of my tanks with shrimp. I'll be finding out soon what wild does with neon yellow. I've only go one left, so that will be the first project I work on.I've got a berried wild now, will put pull her and a couple others when she drops.

What about the red one that stayed red? I added 2 over a month ago to the RCS tank I got from a club member. Not very dark to begin with, so no big deal if it needs culled. I'm doing that already.

Is there a place for posting updates as I see results? I'm sure others will want to know.

Also, if anyone has pulled a mixed colored female and raised the shrimplets, I'd love to know the results of the colors obtained at adulthood. If you went in a particular color direction, what did you get and what was the percentage of off colors in each succeeding generation. I think the bee tiger keepers might be of help in this, especially if you lose orange eye as you go.

And thanks soothing for the help.

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Here is how the Neos are farmed, at least what I am told. I will pay a visit to some of these farms in November when I go to Taiwan. Wait for a few interviews with these farms and some breeders in Taiwan.

 

Almost all Neos exported from Taiwan (and I would assume the same in other places too), are farmed in outdoor (covered or not) ponds. They net the shrimps from the pond and then sort them. For different grades of cherry shrimps, they are from the same ponds, just sorted to different grades. This way the breeding/raising cost is really low, even comparing to the low price they ask for wholesale, because otherwise if they farm food shrimps, those will be sold by weight. Imaging even the cheapest cherry you can find, it's probably hundreds of dollars per pound. Most of the actual cost for these farms is actually the sorting part, they need to hire people to sit there to go through tens of  thousands of shrimps to sort them.

 

For chocolate, it's the same. So even though you see a tank of high grade chocolate in store, it doesn't mean their gene is stable. At least the farm I know of, chocolate, blue diamond, bloody mary, black sakura, are all from the same ponds then sorted by colours and grades.

 

Years ago, when there wasn't any other Neos other than cherry and maybe yellow, the first batch of Fire Red were sold at $USD 6,000 per 20 shrimps. And you had to be in a long lineup  to get those. The other shrimp farms bought them and then the rest is history.

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Fuuuudge.

All are raised together, regardless of color? Can anyone substantiate the 'throw them all together and sort' method Randy will be confirming? I'd rather not wait 4 months before starting. That's more than a generation of research.

It means I'll need to change direction on how I sort and move colors. I'm gonna need more tanks....wonder if hubby will mind

Can anyone give me an idea of color by time?

I'm guessing it was red color first. Since blue supposedly came from red x yellow cross, was yellow the next color, or orange? I'm going to use primary and secondary colors only for now. Black is still in the making? Chocolate seems to throw every thing, so I am figuring it is the latest color that is more or less established.

I'm thinking since I have a great tank of chocolates going, 3 red tanks, a yellow/wild and a blue tank, I'm going to breed for 3 full generations(about 6 months) per color. I'll note any colors that deviate as they are pulled, and when pulled.

The yellow/wild may be longer. I have no baseline for them. The red have no deviant color being thrown. Soothing would know if the BV do?

First move is putting the blue diamond from the chocolates into the bv(you ok with this Soothing)?

Next will be putting more chocolate bred reds into the true breeding reds. That may be awhile, as I have to wait and make sure they aren't another color just growing out.

It's gonna be fun speculating what will occur and comparing to what actually does occur. That's what makes it fun for me. Now where to start this journal?

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Hmmmmmmmmm...Who wants to buy my Nessies for $6,000 per 20 shrimp?  Raise your hands!

You have Lock Ness monster babies for sale! Me!!

Hey, wait....my pool is only 27'. Think the creek in the back yard or the water reservoir beyond it would work? Drat. Maybe no Nessies.

I don't think I have enough self sustaining food for them....

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Fuuuudge.

All are raised together, regardless of color? Can anyone substantiate the 'throw them all together and sort' method Randy will be confirming? I'd rather not wait 4 months before starting. That's more than a generation of research.

It means I'll need to change direction on how I sort and move colors. I'm gonna need more tanks....wonder if hubby will mind

Can anyone give me an idea of color by time?

I'm guessing it was red color first. Since blue supposedly came from red x yellow cross, was yellow the next color, or orange? I'm going to use primary and secondary colors only for now. Black is still in the making? Chocolate seems to throw every thing, so I am figuring it is the latest color that is more or less established.

I'm thinking since I have a great tank of chocolates going, 3 red tanks, a yellow/wild and a blue tank, I'm going to breed for 3 full generations(about 6 months) per color. I'll note any colors that deviate as they are pulled, and when pulled.

The yellow/wild may be longer. I have no baseline for them. The red have no deviant color being thrown. Soothing would know if the BV do?

First move is putting the blue diamond from the chocolates into the bv(you ok with this Soothing)?

Next will be putting more chocolate bred reds into the true breeding reds. That may be awhile, as I have to wait and make sure they aren't another color just growing out.

It's gonna be fun speculating what will occur and comparing to what actually does occur. That's what makes it fun for me. Now where to start this journal?

From what I've seen they are in ponds by color. They can't risk a wild throwing off thousands of lines. A lot have tried to mix and just bred back to wilds.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

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Fuuuudge.

All are raised together, regardless of color? Can anyone substantiate the 'throw them all together and sort' method Randy will be confirming? I'd rather not wait 4 months before starting. That's more than a generation of research.

 

Hi Briggadane, I didn't say all colours are thrown together. Only certain colours are bred together in those farms.

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Would be pretty cool to have a pond full of cherry shrimp lol would save a lot on tanks. I've found a few people who wholesale they only want .10 a shrimp. Only about .30 for yellows and other strains. Crazy you would have to sell tons at that price. Granted its probably a $1 in their currency

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

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Much better, thanks for clarifying. If all goes well, I should start to get an idea of what color shrimp carry for other colors.

Then I think I'll work on finding any sex linked factors.

It's kind of cool to work on something where multiple generations can be seem in such a short time period. ⌚️

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So, adding blue diamond to blue velvet will not necessarily produce a different shade of blue?

Putting chocolate bred red with CRS would not produce more red?

I'm not concerned with depth of color. Just what a specimen carries and throws.

I expect to get other colors. I want to see which, if any, don't carry specific colors, or if one color bred to another gives certain ratios of a color(s). And I am aware color and other variables are not necessarily at the same locus. This is why depth of color can't matter yet. After I figure out color factors, I can work on the rest.

This is what I wish to determine. If even 50% of a batch gets any shade of blue! I would find the project worth going through with.

Just a note. I've already found a red tiger in my Chocolate tank. It's young adult/older juvie, or a small male. I suspect small male. I'm watching to see what it does before removing it. Since there is a wild with tiger markings, they will likely go in the same cull tank, but time will tell.

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So, adding blue diamond to blue velvet will not necessarily produce a different shade of blue?

Putting chocolate bred red with CRS would not produce more red?

I'm not concerned with depth of color. Just what a specimen carries and throws.

I expect to get other colors. I want to see which, if any, don't carry specific colors, or if one color bred to another gives certain ratios of a color(s). And I am aware color and other variables are not necessarily at the same locus. This is why depth of color can't matter yet. After I figure out color factors, I can work on the rest.

This is what I wish to determine. If even 50% of a batch gets any shade of blue! I would find the project worth going through with.

Just a note. I've already found a red tiger in my Chocolate tank. It's young adult/older juvie, or a small male. I suspect small male. I'm watching to see what it does before removing it. Since there is a wild with tiger markings, they will likely go in the same cull tank, but time will tell.

 

Most people think that you don't get X color by breeding Y x Z.  it's true but not entirely true. If you cross red and yellow (especially bloody mary x golden back yellow), you will get some green even in F1, but 95+% will be wild colour (broken brownish). Then you will take the green ones and breed them, maybe after 10 - 20 generations you will have a stable line of green neo, maybe even longer. You might have seen what's called a "green xxxx" or similar in the market, the ones in the pictures look fantastic, but why haven't them invaded our tanks? The line is just not stable yet. Some importers got them in and got disappointed.

 

Some of the colours are just not stable yet, even without mixing them, if you breed blue diamond x blue diamond, you may already get all different colours. This particular example may not be true, but for at least over 5 shipments from certain source, it is.

 

It just takes time. If you get the ones from the market, it will take many many generations. And whatever colour you are thinking, there's probably someone somewhere already got a head start with a few ponds of them. It will be an achievement though, and a great goal to set for the hobbyists.

 

One thing about Neos and why I don't have many of them, is that it is a lot of work. I had one 20G Long PFR tank that I tried to make them better and better, after a year, that tank required more time than I'd otherwise spend on 10 crystal/TB tanks. Constant culling is a MUST, otherwise if you miss one bad male in the tank, you'd be culling a hundred in a moth. Eventually I gave up, let the tank do whatever it would, and in less then 3 months, I got a tank of low grade fire red ;-(

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've already come to a few conclusions regarding the chocolates: only cull sexually active adults. The babies and juvies do not show what adult color will be.

I put a bright red juvie in the CRS tank.. 3 weeks later and it's a beautiful blue/green turquoise, berried female. I put her back in the chocolate tank, she hatched about 30 shrimplets. It was cool to watch too.

I have no desire to make my own color or such. The chocolates are best for me, as I like the variety of colors they throw.

The reason for color division is to come up with guides for others to use. Wouldn't it be nice to know that color A can't throw color B, and color D bred to color A creates color C? I love math. And I love working with color genetics. I feel a hobby should be fun. This experiment just makes it more so for me.

On a side note- does anyone know what to add to rain water to help molting? The shrimp in the fish room are having issues.

The shrimp in the house tanks are doing great with RO from the whole house A/C that I add RO salts to. Do I need to use it in both types of water?

Strangely, the rain water tests(pH, kH,gH, etc) are almost the same as my tap water...

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On a side note- does anyone know what to add to rain water to help molting? The shrimp in the fish room are having issues.

The shrimp in the house tanks are doing great with RO from the whole house A/C that I add RO salts to. Do I need to use it in both types of water?

Strangely, the rain water tests(pH, kH,gH, etc) are almost the same as my tap water...

 

Check out the Water Chemistry section for lots of talk on water and remineralization. (Doc4PC2 even did a thread testing his Rocky Mountain rain water. :)) But, basically, if your rain water tests like something you would otherwise add salts to, I'd do that. The shrimp probably don't care where the water came from originally, just what it looks like when it gets to them (ie minerals, TDS, pH, etc.)

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  • 2 months later...

After waiting it out and seeing what I was getting, here are my findings: none of my shrimp stayed red. The red shrimp all turned pastel blue or Aqua/turquoise colors. It has taken me 5 weeks of heavy culling in a very well planted 125g tank to finally start seeing non-Pastel colors.

I did discover that the female red turned turquoise bred to the regular colored cherry shrimp throws healthy and vigorous blue pearls. These in turn bred true to blue pearls, at least for the generations I've had so far. I've collected over 500 blue pearls so far(anybody want my to post them to the Classifieds?).

The blue diamond were bred with chocolate. They are producing blue pearls, and chocolates that range from light brown to a dark almost black brown. None of these have any blue tint to them. A few have a vivid back stipe from head to tail.

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Thanks for sharing your findings, Briggadane. :)

 

Blue Pearls are actually a different shrimp (Neo Palmata) than cherries (Neo Davidi).  So you by breeding it back to a cherry, you probably have blue rilis.  Or call it your own strain name since it wasn't thrown from a RR, and there's no way to tell if it is a blue rili unless breeding it to another blue rili to see if it throws wilds.  (Even then the blue may be a simple recessive or dominant or co-dominant color, but I digress.)

 

Also, blue diamonds come from a selected strain of chocolates anyway.  The actual blues that are thrown are a small % of those chocolates.  So what you did was take a throw from a chocolate strain and breed it back to a chocolate strain. ;)

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Actually, the blues I'm getting are strange in pattern. They have a transparent body with what looks like tiger shrimp blue lines. It's very pretty. There are not many adults yet. They are still too young to tell.

I did remove 4 of the darkest and largest berried blue females to put back in the original population. I'd like to focus on a blue tiger striped strain.

My thinking is that those in tank 2 with breed f1 to f1. Those put back in the main tank will breed both f1 to f1 and f1 to f0. Then I will cull again to a 3rd tank.

I'm also looking for a few shrimp of other colors to experiment with. Totally separate from chocolates. I'm looking for just a few blue Dream, blue diamond and Sakura or deep red RCS. Can buy or trade. Shrimp or plants.

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Plants, left side. Sorry if pic is upside down, it's my iPad.

Look closely if your into plants. There are a few less common ones in there.

post-155-0-90781900-1414987971_thumb.jpg

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