The reason why suplyers are telling you not to cross neo shrimp

[Vinman]

I like to know how many of you here have done a cross and sat on the project for 6 months to a year to see if anything came out of it

[Ron]

My belief is they want to corner the shrimp market . They don't want people making new morphs because it will take money out of their pockets. The bottom line is they want a monopoly on the shrimp game

 

You don't have the time or resources to break the shrimp industry. 

 

So let's say you produce something new, now what?  Unless you get a pair, it's not much use.  If you do get a pair, you'll need to prove out and stabalize the variant.  Once you do that, you'll want to make sure you have an abundant supply before you sell any.  By that time comes around, someone else has done it.

 

Big breeders have all sorts of projects that are secret mostly because they want to make sure it's realiably reproducible.

 

If you want to cross shrimp for fun, giv'er.  I only have so much time for tank maintenance, I'll stick to the pretty ones others have put the hard work into. 

[Vinman]

You don't have the time or resources to break the shrimp industry. 

 

So let's say you produce something new, now what?  Unless you get a pair, it's not much use.  If you do get a pair, you'll need to prove out and stabalize the variant.  Once you do that, you'll want to make sure you have an abundant supply before you sell any.  By that time comes around, someone else has done it.

 

Big breeders have all sorts of projects that are secret mostly because they want to make sure it's realiably reproducible.

 

If you want to cross shrimp for fun, giv'er.  I only have so much time for tank maintenance, I'll stick to the pretty ones others have put the hard work into.

I'm sorry but I disagree . With that attitude humans would still be using stone tools. You only fail when you fail to try. The fact you say what you say shows no ambition in the hobby. The fact is you have no idea if you come up with something new that someone else will beat you to the punch line. Now another thing your missing . You don't need 2 M&F to breed a new strain, all you need is one and do some back breeding. You may or may not be able to reproduce but if you don't try you will never know. I love to play with genetics as I been breeding all sorts of animals for most of my life. I took my cherry shrimps from many different lines to produce a very deep colored shrimp. I never got opaque animals as the PFR have.

[Vinman]

Just to let a lot of you know is you don't need tons of tanks to set a strain. 1 and 2 gallon glass jars do wonders and are very easy to maintain. No air needed just plants and water

[Ron]

You don't need to be sorry you disagree, I have no problem disagreeing with you.   

 

I'm a realist and treat this as a hobby.  I make plenty of money in my day job that I don't need try and make it big with shrimp.  You're right, I don't have an ambition to become the next big thing in freshwater shrimp. 

 

The fact is you have no idea what is brewing in the hundreds of tanks in a breeders facility.  They could be doing crosses and if they are they are doing it in multiple tanks not just one.  They have full-time staff to pick out weird ones and find the next variant.   

 

So if you get one new variant from a tank of mixed shrimp, what are you gonna breed it back to?  So you have to raise it to maturity and if you were lucky, it's a male.  If not, and you got a female, which male from your mixed tank do you choose to breed to the new variant.  You obviously have more time than I do, I'd rather refine my PRL. 

[Ron]

Just to let a lot of you know is you don't need tons of tanks to set a strain. 1 and 2 gallon glass jars do wonders and are very easy to maintain. No air needed just plants and water

 

How long have you been breeding shrimp?

[RyeGuy411]

Just to interject about the 1 and 2 gallon containers.  I have been keeping my fire reds in a 1.75g bowl up unitl recently with just an air stone.  It is pretty heavily planted for such a small container but it is extremely sensitive to any swings in waste production.  With no air added (how it was set up for the first 4 weeks) and no water movement I have personally found it completely impractical.  There isnt sufficient material for amonia and nitrifying bacteria to colonize just the surfaces of plants and substrate.  I added a sponge filter a week ago and what a difference.  I would never set up any tank without air every again or a sponge filter at minimum (they are dirt cheap anyway).  I do agree that small containers can be very practical but with a sponge filter and kept at a room temperature that Neo's will breed at.  In my case 70 degrees.

[Ch3fb0yrdee]

I actually really like the shrimping hobby because it offers me a way to not stress over other RL matters. Some folks enter a hobby for the relaxing benefits it offers, some enters the hobby as a way to make money, and some do both. Myself, selling a few shrimps here and there along with some shrimp products is fun. Making small bits of money is exciting, but it's more fun to have new folks interested in entering the hobby come over to buy and learn. Will I ever make enough money to break even? - Not even close. Shrimping is not something id quit my day job over. With the hobby growing daily, you can be sure that prices will drop as more and more folks add to the existing knowledge pool. BS'ers won't be able to get away forever.

You'll get a feel for whose in something for the profits and whose really in the hobby to learn and do because it's fun.

Lying about something isn't a new practice. People do it all the time as a means to cheap honest folks out of money. I've said it before, mixing genetics (shrimp wise) was super tabooed many years ago. The thought of mixing Tigers x CRS was insanity. It was all about line purity and staying away from doing something crazy like mixing. Guess what? Perspectives changes and new ideologies get adopted and the hobby grows.

Selective breeding and genetically mixing different shrimps to get a new variant isn't new either. Why has it been so negative? - The lack of carrying through. I don't recall any Neos since PFR were introduced as having a stabilized gene poop and breeding true. Red Rili, Blue Rili, Blue Velets... It's all the same. Someone just bred a splotchy neo, called it a Rili. Then they tried to squeeze more money when a blue tint came about and etc... Reefers been doing his for years. Renaming corals and slapping on a fancy mancy name for big bucks is the name of the game (this occurs in plants too!!). As demand for something grows, you'll see more and more things enter the hobby way before to ready. Bloody Marry is a good example. Genetically, they're a mess! I'd take a PFR over a Bloody Mary any day! Folks still flock to it because some people are irrational, no fuss to me or negativity towards them.

There's many ways to achieve something. Like you said, breeding neos inside a small container is doable, but probably not ideal. Again, I'm a hobbyist and I find it sort of cruel to house them in such a small space and expect then to do well and breed. Different perspective so thus different approach.

I don't think anyone stateside is going to "corner" the market. Cost of growing, breeding, and maintaining is too high. Most won't be able to compete with overseas. Take Neos for example. Taiwanese farmers mass product them in ponds now because they're so sturdy.

There's a lot upside and downside to what we do and how we do it, but as long as you enjoy what you're doing, I feel like, that's all that matters. Just don't forget the passion for the dollar signs.

[mlsthuy1]

Create a new coloration is hard. Look at the market right now; there are a lot bloody mary, blue diamond, ect.. that wont breed true; It pain me because i love those guys., but I hate doing culling

[Ch3fb0yrdee]

Create a new coloration is hard. Look at the market right now; there are a lot bloody mary, blue diamond, ect.. that wont breed true; It pain me because i love those guys., but I hate doing culling

DING DING DING!! As long as demand exists, breeders will continue to "develop" new variants, entice us with wonderful pictures, take our money, and run!

Ps: creating new colors isn't hard, stabilizing it. It's just so much easier to mix something together to get something new and sell it quick than to devote time and effort to perfecting something.

[Ron]

I first heard of purple neos 2 years ago, must be a hard one to stabilize.

[RyeGuy411]

I first heard of purple neos 2 years ago, must be a hard one to stabilize.

 

Im glad they arent really on the market yet because hopefully that means they are actually working on truly stabilizing them.

[Ron]

Im glad they arent really on the market yet because hopefully that means they are actually working on truly stabilizing them.

Even when they're released, it'll depend on the breeder. When Bloody Mary shrimp came out I bought some from Ebiken. Mine produced 90% Bloody Mary shrimp while others were complaining about 50% or less. Mine never threw other colours just red ones I didn't considered BMs. Find a breeder you trust and stick with them, I know Ebiken would never sell me anything that wasn't ready....even if I begged and I have .

[mlsthuy1]

Here some of the pictures of my rili + blue velvet. The pictures are not that great since I don't own a good camera. blue velvet mixs well with rili for me. However, I failed so many projects that I cant count; I'm pretty many others go through that road before, and end up stick with just true breed.

[mlsthuy1]

Even when they're released, it'll depend on the breeder. When Bloody Mary shrimp came out I bought some from Ebiken. Mine produced 90% Bloody Mary shrimp while others were complaining about 50% or less. Mine never threw other colours just red ones I didn't considered BMs. Find a breeder you trust and stick with them, I know Ebiken would never sell me anything that wasn't ready....even if I begged and I have .

 

Ron, you made my blood boils. It temps me want to buy some from them, but I don't have anymore space or finance (oh dear Christmas)............. 

[slycat929]

I would completely agree with what has been said by shrimpfan. I have had a number of neos, but not as many as some here. I sell some culls and others I keep in a cull tank. I mix them all together in the cull tank if I decide they aren't even worth selling. When I first started keeping shrimp, it was all neos and I even scrapped entire colonies because their coloration was not what I had hoped and I am too busy/lazy to selectively breed them to look they way I want them to. Some Interesting colors will pop up in the cull tank now and then, but it is not worth the time and effort to me to try to find the right shrimp to mate it to and then try to STABILIZE the line. I just let them do their thing and I have a skittles cull tank. Instead, I would rather develop the coloration of the shrimp I have that already have the colors I desire. It is all about personal preference. I would point out that there is no shortage of images of neo breeding farms which produce thousands of shrimp and then they look for new mutations out of those thousands. On a smaller scale, Randy has photos of smaller breeding operations in Asia, but they still have 100+ tanks. That, in my opinion, is the only way they are able to come up with stable lines.

On another note, I have also kept neos in small 2 gallon tanks/containers for short term and they live, but they don't thrive without some kind of filtration. Even just a small sponge or air stone does wonders. Even when selectively breeding, many people use the marina breeder boxes, but they need flow otherwise the shrimp don't do well. That doesn't mean they can't be kept in them and that you won't find people that say they have done it, but I just don't see the same kind of foraging and activity without some kind of aeration.

The great things about forums is that there are people with varying degrees of experience and differing opinions. I most definitely do not claim to be an expert, but I do know what works for me and what I have found doing my own research into shrimping. You can never go wrong by doing your own research and I fully encourage you to use this forum as a source of information. There are people participating in this forum who are definitely in the forefront of NA shrimping. There are always things to learn even if you consider yourself an expert in any particular field.

[Vinman]

How long have you been breeding shrimp?

I don't know when I started I have to check AB feed back to se when I got my first shrimp

[Vinman]

Ok let me make this clear you can make some cash with breeding shrimps . I don't expect to pay all my bills creating a new morph of shrimps. Now it would be nice to have the bragging rites so hey I created that morph.

[Vinman]

Now I have kept small numbers of cherry shrimp in 1 gallon containers for months at a time with just plants. I guess most of you are just assuming how they are kept in jars or don't know what to do. Let me fill you in. You need to do water changes in the jars at every once and a while and more frequent as the shrimps grow

#1 When I get a hot looking female. I put her in a jar with no male until she drops a clutch. Now I know all the babies are from her in that jar. I grow that clutch in the jar till the are about 3/8 of a inch and pick out the best colored shrimp. The rest get added into the GP.

#2 When I want to make sure a male with the trait's I want breeds with that female with the traits I want. I keep in a jar . After the first clutch has dropped I put the pair into a clean jar. I know the second clutch is sired from that male. The rest of the clutch gets put into GP. Now I will have offspring growing up in that jar to sort out when they get 3/8 of a inch.

All the keepers will go into another tank. When I get enough hold backs That will become the new GP tank. The old GP tank is where I would sell from. When they are all gone then that tanks becomes the new hold back tank . So with 2 tanks and a few jars you can set a line you just got to know what your doing and keep track who is who

[Vinman]

Here is the line I developed for sale back I 2012. I line bred these beauties using many strains bred together. This is what I accomplished this with a 30 gallon a 5 gallon and about 6 one gallon jars. I was checking fed back to se when was the first time I bought and found no feed back. I also did not find any feed back in past years when I sold my shrimp on AB

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/closed.cgi?view_archive_item&fwinverts1328663076

[wicca32]

I just seen this on FB it is a rili cross a few generations latter. The guy that posted it said it was his friend's shrimp

that pic has been around for a few years. if was old when i started keeping rili about 3 years ago. that is not a friends pic. and yes you can get those random popups in red rili. it is just a red/blue rili not a cross. i got blue rili from my reds as well as a greenish tinted and purpleish ones i am about to head out for the day but i will post pics if people want to see later

[Vinman]

Please post some pic's