Pure Taiwan Bees

[DETAquarium]

Hey ShrimpSpot!

 

I wanted to start this thread to see if anyone else has seen the same results I have been in the past couple months.

 

Background:

 

I purchased 10 Taiwan Bees in September of 2014 from Speedie Aquatics: x3 BKKs, x3 Pandas, x2 Shadow Pandas, and x2 High Grade BB. Within the last 6 months I also purchased 6 Extreme BKKs, but outside of that nothing added.

 

I now have the following Taiwan Bee tanks: Blue Bolt, Wine Red/Ruby Red, Shadow Pandas/Pandas/BKK/Extreme BKK. I separated them from one tank, as I wanted to give them more space and wanted to try an experiment.

 

My Blue Bolt tank, has had at least 5 batches of shrimplets, all are Blue Bolt. My Wine Red/Ruby Red tank has had at least 2 batches of shrimplets, all are Wine Red/Ruby Red. The other Taiwan bee tank has 3-4 berried females currently I am waiting to see the outcome. 

 

Question:

 

For those of you that have your Taiwan bees separated similar to me, what are your results? Are your Taiwan Bees breeding "True" meaning they aren't throwing any other Taiwan Bee? The reason this came up is I was planning to combine two of these tanks, but I want to see how long these breeding results last. If I can see 3-4 generations breeding all true, I may continue down this path for a couple years to see if I can create a Pure Taiwan bee line.

 

Thanks for your input!

DETAquarium

 

 

[DETAquarium]

Not the best picture but gives you an idea. Blue Bolt Tank

 

[Jadenlea]

cool question!!!!  Interested to hear the results

[Shrimpmaster]

My Black and Red line are breeding true. Always have. What else should pop up you mean? A Blue Bolt in the black line for example? Or red ones in the Black group?

[Greenteam]

 Sounds like normal results when you split colors up. Are you aiming for a goal like say Shadow Mosura?

[DETAquarium]

My Black and Red line are breeding true. Always have. What else should pop up you mean? A Blue Bolt in the black line for example? Or red ones in the Black group?

 

Exactly. When I initially received my Taiwan Bees I had only the ones listed above, now I have an entire shrimp tank dedicated to Wine Red and Ruby Red TBs. So I guess, what has happened is the first generation or two may throw different lines especially since most shrimp we receive seem to of been in mixed TB tanks. Otherwise if you separate them to their own tanks you should only see that offspring. I thought there still could be a chance they could throw other Taiwan Bees since they were initially throwing different TBs in the F1 generation.

[DETAquarium]

 Sounds like normal results when you split colors up. Are you aiming for a goal like say Shadow Mosura?

 

No I am not. I was under the impression when I started breeding Taiwan Bees that you never know what you would receive when breeding them. That is the case if you keep them in the same tank, but when colors are separated it looks like they breed true past the F1 generation.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Wow.  Goes against everything I've read or heard.

[nuri]

it is all about genetics of those shrimps 

 

a blue bolt x blue bolt is only capable to pass the blue genes to the shrimplets cause it only got blue genes XD

same with red taiwan bee's they only have the red genetica (homozygote)

 

now the black colored taiwan bee's...... black taiwan bee's are a true mystery box they have all genetica from all taiwan bee's and are able to pass it on to the shrimplets as result a variantion of taiwan bee's

 

short cut

 

blue bolt x blue bolt = 100% blue bolt

red taiwan bee x red taiwan bee = 100% red taiwan bee 

black taiwan bee x black taiwan bee = 75% black taiwan bee 25% red taiwan bee or 100% black taiwan bee (f1) with red genetica that will be passed on to the second generation leading 75% black and 25% red. 

 

it is possible to get blue bolt from black taiwan bee but the granparents must have been a blue bolt and even then the chance is too small to get it but it is possible

[Shrimpmaster]

I see what you mean. It's the same story with crystal red and black, the recessive and dominant gene story.
A recessive gene can be hidden for many generations. So it is possible a red one will pop up in the black line, many generations from now. But in the red colony, no blacks will pop up once the group is all red. Ah, I see Nuri already wrote this down above me .
Looking forward to see your results. When it comes to TWB I always encourage people to do also selective breeding. Look at leg coverage, deep shell cover, clean patterns etc. Even TWB will fade away in the end when no selection is done. I saw a tank with very heavy breeding Red TWB for many generations and the white was almost transparent. No selection was done by the breeder. Yes they are TWB, but not very nice ones.

[DETAquarium]

I just want to clarify. I started out with 2 Blue Bolts, now I have quite a number, but even if 85% of the Blue Bolts I have came from other types of Taiwan Bees, the only gene that passed was Blue? or Are you saying when a BB x BB has shrimplets, that is the only gene that passes, even if the parents were offspring of other types of Taiwan Bees?

 

Another note, so in my Panda/BKK/Shadow Panda/Extreme BKK I can always find another type of TB no matter how far down the generations I go?

 

Thank you for all of your input. 

[miwu]

The most important thing when discussing something like this is to keep in mind that we are ASSUMING dominant/recessive genetic relationships determine shrimp morphs. This does seem to make sense, but not entirely.

Now, to predict offspring (such as a pure breeding line), we need a bit more background on simple genetics. I'd suggest googling it a bit as it is not too confusing and most of us have learned it at one point in high school.

A "pure" breeding line can mean two things.

1. The specimens breed true. This is how we characterize shrimp strains like fire reds, where the strait we are looking for is a polygenetic strait (a quantitative trait). Multiple genes work together to determine how red a shrimp is. When we say this strain breeds true, we say that these shrimps have enough modifier genes, which pass on to offspring, to make them red also. This is not the case for Taiwan bees.

2. Assuming dominant/recessive relationships determining Taiwan bee gene, black/red gene, a "true breeding" strain means that these specimens have all the same homozygous genes. This is, homozygous black gene for every shrimp in the strain, so that the only gene passed down from each parent is the black gene, so each offspring has again two copies of the black gene.

So, in our case, any simple dominant/recessive trait can be pure line. However, since one gene is dominant over another, it is difficult (or impossible) to differentiate between heterozygous and homozygous dominant specimens (since this is the definition of dominance). Therefore, assuming that black is dominant over red, it is more difficult to create a pure black strain, because your goal is to have all homozygous specimens in your colony.

To answer some of your questions, your black TB tank may or may not produce non-black shrimps. If they are homozygous black, they will produce only black shrimps. Many big breeders in Taiwan have created pure strains. They keep black with black, red with red. As we have discussed, a red shrimp must be homozygous recessive, so a red strain must be pure (meaning no black shrimp will be produced). However, constantly culling red shrimps produced from a black colony decreases the red allele frequency in a colony, and can eventually make a colony have no red allele, meaning all alleles are black and all shrimps have homozygous black.

As we can see, in order to understand these questions, we need to know which gene determine which trait as well as the relationship between each allele. This will be a lot of theorizing with minimal backing data simply because of how we keep shrimps (in colonies). It'll take years of dedicated work to understand shrimp genetics. We are just not there yet.

Having said that, I have first-hand experienced Taiwan bee parents producing non-Taiwan bee offspring and red shrimps producing black offspring, which threw off all previous discussion. Why? I really have no clue. Could be high chance of mutation that are converting recessive alleles back to dominant ones (and vice versa, just not observed). Could also be other special genetic relationships that we do not understand yet.

Sorry for the long response, but I've always been interested in discussing genetics. The short answer to your questions is that red, blue, black Taiwan bees should theoretically all be able to be pure. Wine reds and blue bolts should already be pure, whereas a pure black line needs to be selected with some luck. Also, a pure line, as defined above, is unrelated to "quality" and aesthetics.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Miwu, well stated, and that is what I have read/been told.

[DETAquarium]

Thanks Miwu! I understand the basic dominant/recessive relationships, but I guess the problem is what I listened to prior to doing experimentation.

[Soothing Shrimp]

I know for a fact there must be more than one black gene in crystals for instance.  More than one contact has had cbs pop up in crs strains.

 

In most shrimp, there is just not the simple dominant/recessives that there are in mammals.  There's partials and co-s and all kind of weird stuff that just doesn't play nicely with punnet squares.

[miwu]

Yes, shrimp genetics don't seem to abide by simple dominant/recessive relationships. Multiple black genes are an interesting theory. I haven't thought of that one. I've also seen TB x TB producing CRS and CBS. We need a lot more well documented data to come up with valid theories. And even then, we may never understand what is really happening.

[Wygglz]

I don't know if this will help, but perhaps it will illustrate some options. If you look at horse color genetics you see a basic two color option, black or red. There are no other options for the main horse color. But we all know we see more than that. On the main gene, they can be red or black. Then look at another gene and it can have red or not. If it has red, that makes the body color red but you can still tell the main gene color by the color of the mane and tail. So when you might've had a black horse, now you have a red horse with a black mane and tail (bay). So those two genes give you 3 colors but 1 gene combination (red on red) that is kinda hiding.

On top of those and in yet another location is dilutions. A single dilution (heterozygous) on a red horse will produce a golden color (palamino), then a double dilution (homozygous) gives you a cream colored horse (cremello). You also have these options on the black based horses with and without that secondary red gene to produce other colors. There are many more variations, but this demonstrates (I hope) how colors can be affected by different locations on the dna.

[Soothing Shrimp]

The researcher who studies the DNA of ornamental shrimp colors will become almost instantly famous amongst shrimp keepers.  NOBODY is doing this right now.  It's a wide open field.

[Soothing Shrimp]

I hear ya Wygglz.  Mice have a similar co-allele. 

 

a= albino, but depending on the matching allele it can either be albino, Himalayan or Siamese.

 

It also has a dilution gene that changes colors to more muted.  Ie. Black to blue, brown to cream, etc.

[miwu]

Yup, there are lots of non-Mendelian relationships, and it can get quite complicated when they combine. But for shrimps, we are looking at near Mendelian genetics but with occasional exceptions.

 

Wygglz, do you know of any explanation for dominant wild type offspring to be produced from homozygous recessive parents? I experience this with guppies also. Grey (dominant wild type) fry would sometimes pop up in gold (recessive) x gold crosses. 

[Lloydwang]

Yes, shrimp genetics don't seem to abide by simple dominant/recessive relationships. Multiple black genes are an interesting theory. I haven't thought of that one. I've also seen TB x TB producing CRS and CBS. We need a lot more well documented data to come up with valid theories. And even then, we may never understand what is really happening.

isn't TBs breed true? I have learn or seen that all TBxTB will produce only TB?

[miwu]

isn't TBs breed true? I have learn or seen that all TBxTB will produce only TB?

 

They should, but they don't 100%.

[Soothing Shrimp]

But for shrimps, we are looking at near Mendelian genetics but with occasional exceptions

I respectfully disagree, at least with neos of which I have tied up most of my hands on experience. ;p

If this were true you could cross any two colors and get a percentage of a specific different color everytime.

Since this is not the case, we end up working to influence the bell curve.

I know where you are coming from though. Cards seem to be differently structured.

[Wygglz]

Hi Miwu. I don't have an explanation for that unless it is something like our blue neos where the recessive gold is on different locations of those two fish so that they both end up masked in the progeny.

[shrimpsf]

I have been doing an experiment for the past 8 months.

If you have been following my other post.

Started out with 30 pieces black and 30 pieces red TWBs.

Both had there own 2ft tanks. Let then breed out.

Reds will throw out all red TBs .Black threw out a small percentage red TBs. and once in awhile a blue bolt.

Started 2 more tanks.

A 3 ft with all 90 pieces one stripe rubys and extreme rubies.

A 4 ft with 100 pieces red wines. Full coverage of white bands

I want to see if the patterns breed true.

So far the 3 ft tank are throwing out 1 stripe and extreme rubies. I notices more percentage of extremes.

The 4ft tank gals are berried at the moment. Will keep you guys updated what they throw out.

Need to start more tanks,  as the black 2 ft tank is throwing out a lot of extreme KK.