Neo shrimp culling

[CT_]

Where do you all set the line on culling?  Now that I have my first babies from "blue dream" parents (they're growing really fast!) I have some obvious culls like red and brows, but I also have a lot of babies that are too dark to color.  They just look black to me.  I'm worried about culling too aggressively because I want my colony to be decent sized first.  Should I just remove obvious off colors and leave the really dark ones alone for now?

[Cory]

Do you have another tank you can move them too? You can always move them back if they turn out to be the right color.

[CT_]

11 hours ago, Cory said:

Do you have another tank you can move them too? You can always move them back if they turn out to be the right color.

Yeah they'll hang out in a cull tank in my office for now.  my fear with over culling is more centered around having too small of a breeding group in the main tank as not many babies look blue and a lot of the adults I started with are elderly because I didn't know what to look/ask for.

 

So my thought was to keep more during my first round of culls.  But genetically which are more "blue"( will have more blue babies) I'm guessing its blue>black>brown>red?

[NeoNerd]

In my experience, darker colored neos are easier to cull & sort under bright light and light substrate such as sand or crushed coral. I second Cory in keeping the "B" team shrimp in a separate tank and seeing if they mature into the color you are looking for (or breed amongst each other and kick out the right colored shrimplets that you can consider reintroducing into the main colony).

[CT_]

Yeah they're growing shockingly fast and I'm noticing that either the ones on my floaters are all blue instead of black or the extra light up there makes it easier to see. ;)

 

Do you people use flashlights? 

[Brandy]

18 minutes ago, CT_ said:

Yeah they're growing shockingly fast and I'm noticing that either the ones on my floaters are all blue instead of black or the extra light up there makes it easier to see. 😉

 

Do you people use flashlights? 

I mean, kinda... I use really high light and a contrasting background. I have a tendancy to cull by putting everything I can catch in a dip and pour or similar container, and then putting it in bright light and sorting one by one to two other containers--keep and cull. If I see an obvious cull like a rilli pattern, or a super light shrimp, I just cull it directly to the acara tank.

You don't really have to hurry to cull until your females are big enough to have visible saddles.

[JettsPapa]

I was also culling the really dark ones from my blue tank, but when I mentioned it to the guy inspecting shrimp I'd brought in to sell at the local store he looked at me funny.  It seems "too dark" in blue shrimp isn't a thing, at least not in his opinion or in that store.

[CT_]

8 hours ago, JettsPapa said:

I was also culling the really dark ones from my blue tank, but when I mentioned it to the guy inspecting shrimp I'd brought in to sell at the local store he looked at me funny.  It seems "too dark" in blue shrimp isn't a thing, at least not in his opinion or in that store.

I've been grappling with this too.  I actually like a lighter deep blue vs full dark blue almost black, but it seems like more dark the "higher grade".  I think I'm going to cull to what I like and just sell to whoever wants them when I have too many.  and if no one buys them so be it. 

 

At this point that's the cart way before the horse though.

[JettsPapa]

21 hours ago, CT_ said:

I've been grappling with this too.  I actually like a lighter deep blue vs full dark blue almost black, but it seems like more dark the "higher grade".  I think I'm going to cull to what I like and just sell to whoever wants them when I have too many.  and if no one buys them so be it. 

 

At this point that's the cart way before the horse though.

Do you have an extra tank so you could put the dark ones, that you don't like as well, in a tank by themselves?  You shouldn't have any trouble selling them if there's a store near you that buys from individuals.

[Brandy]

22 hours ago, CT_ said:

I've been grappling with this too.  I actually like a lighter deep blue vs full dark blue almost black, but it seems like more dark the "higher grade".  I think I'm going to cull to what I like and just sell to whoever wants them when I have too many.  and if no one buys them so be it. 

 

At this point that's the cart way before the horse though.

This is largely what I do. I sell culls that are "acceptable" quality. I maintain a breeding nucleus of my very best shrimp, that I do not sell from. Then I stock my other tanks with "culls" from that tank, and sell from the "other" tanks. Over time my "other" tanks also breed. Eventually I start to get "unacceptable" shrimp in those tanks, that are just feeders. Eventually I suspect I will get quite a nice line going. Currently I have red. I plant to get blue also as soon as the baby acaras clear one of my tanks of all shrimp life.

[CT_]

8 hours ago, JettsPapa said:

Do you have an extra tank so you could put the dark ones, that you don't like as well, in a tank by themselves?  You shouldn't have any trouble selling them if there's a store near you that buys from individuals.

I've got my main tank, my quarantine tank, and I'm setting up a desktop tank.  I could put the best quality that I don't personally like in the quarantine.    Just bad I think are going to my friend's angel fish, and the pretty but not blue are going in the desktop cube.  

 

I actually don't plan on buying more fish any time soon (we'll see how that actually goes) and shrimp diseases and fish diseases aren't usually the same, so maybe the quarantine can be me "objectively" best shrimp tank, and the display tank can be what I actually like.