Getting female shrimp from vendors

[colorfan]

Was talking with an importer of shrimp this weekend about some nice shrimp. He informed me there would probably be no females if I were to order because the breeders like to keep them. That sucks Why even bother

[mayphly]

KNowing that your receiving both males and females is important when spending big bucks on shrimp. Especially if you plan on breeding them. I sent you a pm.

[colorfan]

Is it wrong to ask? 

[High5's]

If some one told me that, I would not buy shrimp from them. I could see if it was a single shrimp but multiple shrimp well that's not going to fly.

[colorfan]

I was inquiring about 6-8 shrimp that were $50 each.

[colorfan]

but to be fair they never replied back as to if they were juvi or sub adults but I suspect that they can sex the juvi overseas pretty well. 

[Ron]

Is $50 way below their retail value?

 

If so, it's probably why they're $50. 

[High5's]

I was inquiring about 6-8 shrimp that were $50 each.

 Yes you could get unlucky and get all males on 6 to 8 shrimp, but you should see at least one female buying 6 to 8 shrimp.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Not that it's the same, but in Neos newly imported shrimp are usually fems since they display better color.

[slycat929]

I would think it would be pretty difficult to sex juvies with certainty, but I am not a breeder. I would think they would mostly import juvies.

[Soothing Shrimp]

A lot of breeders exporting from overseas make sure the shrimp are old enough to sex first.

[slycat929]

Well, I will have to keep that in mind now that I am getting into fancier shrimp!

[OblongShrimp]

If they aren't including both sexes then I agree there isn't much of a point.  I have seen males listed for quite a bit less then mixed sexes.  For tawians that could be a cheap way to start a colony with several males and then using female CRS to create michilings.

[randy]

Male/Female ratio is always a problem when selling high end shrimps.

 

Some facts I'm aware of:

 

- When I visited Elegant Lady in Taiwan, Mr. Song told me he would be more than happy to sell all female shrimps if customers wish to do so. His PRL starts at US$5,300 for 10 for your reference. The reason behind this is that for high end PRL CRS, good males are harder to get than female, so he would be glad to keep the good males. And for that price, most ppl go to his place and pick whichever they like.

 

- Most exporters I deal with list prices with size and sex. For regular CRS, you can get lower prices for male-only order. In fact, lots of Japanese importers ask for male-only orders even for the same price.

 

- Because of the controversy, the exporter I deal with sell Caridina at 0.8-1.0 cm when it's still hard to sex.

 

- For regular/cheap Neos, it's actually harder to get male than female. I would say most importers get 99% female for regular orders. I actually have to pay more to ask for smaller size and mixed sex for regular Neo order.

[Shrimplet]

If i may ask whats the name of the shrimp

[colorfan]

looks like i need to talk to you Randy.

[Greenteam]

I'm also curious what type of shrimp was it that you inquired about?

[Shrimpy Daddy]

If you are importing from Asia, Germany or Japan, any shrimp that classified as 15mm to 20mm (this is the exact terminology used) are able to differentiate the sex.

 

If you are getting from Japan, they always love to sell them as pair (one male and one female). If you get it from Germany, if the stock is plenty, they don't mind you choose. Otherwise, they will just send in random batch (mixture). However, if you are getting Taiwan, they can be quite a prick sometime. They don't like to sell female. If you want female, you will have to pay 50 to 100% more. Alternatively, they prefer to sell you less than 15mm shrimp. In this way, it will be depending on your luck on the quality and sex of the shrimp. 

[Ch3fb0yrdee]

Adding to this conversation and sharing my personal experiences of buying shrimps from overseas.

I found that when I was in Hong Kong the environment isn’t conducive to anything positive. A majority of the shops I visited on my trip (on all 3 trips) were that the store owners were more or less just trying to squeeze the most money out of the buyer (if you’re a foreigner expect to pay white man’s tax). Basically, for each tank marked with prices, there’s a deeper subdivisions of prices for their shrimps. What I mean to say is.. if there’s a particularly nice female/male they somehow missed and marked in the wrong tank, they’ll say “no no its not for sale” or “it cost more because …” (fill the blank). This is especially true for females and even more true if the female is berried. Most of the time they will flat out refuse to sell their berried females to you.

In Japan, I found that the buying experience was very pleasant and the staff were super helpful. I They don’t nickel and dime their buyers. Most of my Japanese Black Bees were handpicked by the store owner. I asked the owner why he isolated a few shrimps inside smaller floating boxes and his response was “these are the exceptional and best of this tank”. When I asked staff to help me sex my shrimps they were more than willing to help. I actually recall the troubles a staff went through to help me sex my Spotted-Head Pintos, which at the time were too small to really sex. I think he stood there for a good 15mins JUST sexing the females/males. He apologize when he couldn’t sex the shrimps and explained they were too small. He even recommended that I should not buy them (of which goes against typical ideas of running a business) because his fear of my overall dissatisfaction had I bought it and not gotten what I wanted. Regarding berried females, the staff and store owner, would walk up me and advise me that this or that female is berried and that I should get them (knowing that I was a traveler and that buying a berried female would give my colony the highest chances of survival).

He even tossed in a few packets of foods and gave me a discount when I paid at the register. LOL!! I think overall my best buying experience was in Japan.

Back to your topic.

Wholesalers will usually sell female Neos because females are the ones with the best colors. I think Tom Barr discuss over at TPT a while back that because of the estrogen in the female shrimp (main components of their colors) they will always out shine the males and as such they’re the ones sold the most. They cater to what we want, and what we want is colors, right?

For Caridinas, I think a lot of folks would want females because females is the driving factor to increase population size, and sellers know that. Neos breed so readily that such factor doesn’t matter much. This is why it’s hard to ask for females when it comes to PRL, BlackBees, Pintos, TB, etc.