The "how do I find my own strain idea?" thread

[Soothing Shrimp]

With more and more people slowly entering the shrimp hobby, there's more and more demand for new strains of shrimp.  Some will sell for less than $5 each, some for much more.

 

This thread may be helpful to those people who wonder how to come up with first ideas for getting their feet wet with breeding new strains.

 

New ideas and strains need not be complicated, nor does one have to wait for new mutations to magically pop up.  If every new strain was created by a sudden appearance from something previously unknown, shrimping would be much slower indeed.

 

Instead, one only has to look at things that occasionally are seen and decide on whether or not it would be interesting to create a whole variety of shrimp to have that trait.

 

For example, in neocaridina other countries consider strains with stripes as another variation, just as strains without stripes are.  So far this is a missed opportunity in America.  The genes are already out there, so no need to wait for mutations.

 

Yes, there are some people who don't like stripes on shrimp, however as new people enter the shrimping hobby, there will be others who consider them very attractive.  Different strokes for different folks.  The more variety we have, the more to choose from.

 

For example, here's a person here who has worked on the striped version of red cherries.   His goal was to create a strain of red shrimp with a nice solid white stripe.

 

 

Lots of other colors have this pop up every once in a while. And some stripes are even different colors.

 

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So you have a trait that occasionally pops up in cards or neos, now what?  Well, if you only have one, you can go through the loooong process of isolating your shrimp, trying to breed it at just the right time and hoping that some babies in the F1 exhibit this trait.  Then breed back to P1 if they don't...

 

...OR...

 

The nice thing is that we have so many shrimpers here on this forum, one could just go to the sales section and post a wanted ad to buy what trait you are wanting to breed for in order to get started on your strain.

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How about a strain consisting of eye color?  Sound far fetched?  OEBT is one example of shrimp that has been bred for this.

 

The opportunities are many, and the game of selective breeding is fun and a way to give back to the shrimp community.

 

This is where the members of the forum are so helpful with knowledge.  What are some traits that pop up occasionally that could be bred into a strain?  I'd love for our members to share ideas.

[r45t4m4n]

Should call that cherry the red robster neo, looks like a cooked lobster tail.

[Soothing Shrimp]

That's another nice thing about creating your own strain.  You can call it your own name.

[Merth]

solid red cherry maybe pfr grade with a solid white tail would be too cool

[Soothing Shrimp]

Have you had those pop up before, Merth?