Cherry Shrimp Breeding for Color?

[Rory Waliser]

I bought a half dozen red cherries from my lfs a few months back and they're breeding like crazy. I can't even count the adult sized ones anymore and there is easily 50 babies I can count at any given time in various sizes. I'm wondering why some are turning out this low grade color and some turn out solid and bright more like what I bought from the store. Is it a matter of age or gender or is it just that you only get a few high grade ones from each clutch? If I separated a few bright ones in a tank is this basically how people develop better color or is the selective breeding process more complex than that?

[Griznatch]

Some of the low grade ones are male. They don't typically get as solid, or deep red as the females. Since you got them from the LFS, there's no way to know the lineage or genetics. Even a really good line of shrimp can throw lower grades. If you want to keep the quality high in your colony, the best  way is to do what you already mentioned. Cull the traits you don't want. I have a 75 gallon that gets my culls. It's like a shrimp rainbow 🙂

[JettsPapa]

As mentioned above, it's almost all genetics, though it's not uncommon for shrimp to not develop their full color until they're near maturity.  Because of that it's generally best to not cull them too young.  It seems to me like this is more prevalent in red shrimp than blue ones (my blues are often born dark blue).

[Rory Waliser]

On 7/21/2021 at 1:14 PM, JettsPapa said:

As mentioned above, it's almost all genetics, though it's not uncommon for shrimp to not develop their full color until they're near maturity.  Because of that it's generally best to not cull them too young.  It seems to me like this is more prevalent in red shrimp than blue ones (my blues are often born dark blue).

I suspected the age thing a bit because it seems like most of the large ones end up with better color.

[Rory Waliser]

On 7/21/2021 at 12:52 PM, Griznatch said:

Some of the low grade ones are male. They don't typically get as solid, or deep red as the females. Since you got them from the LFS, there's no way to know the lineage or genetics. Even a really good line of shrimp can throw lower grades. If you want to keep the quality high in your colony, the best  way is to do what you already mentioned. Cull the traits you don't want. I have a 75 gallon that gets my culls. It's like a shrimp rainbow 🙂

Lineage? I thought cherry shrimp were just named based on some agreed range of color. So even if some of these shrimp do achieve brighter reds, it's not technically correct to call them fire red shrimp or bloody mary shrimp since they don't originate from a recognized colony of fire red or bloody mary shrimp?

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@Rory Walisersome breeders have already done a lot of work getting more robust color which is what I think was being discussed above. You’ll often see in shrimp ads on Aquabid references to taking shrimps from different breeders and bringing them together for a more robust gene pool. You can create your own colony of fire reds or bloody Mary’s by line breeding groups of culled specimens to get to the breeding standard you’re wanting to attain. Buying a colony from an established breeder whose already done that work is the faster way to get there. 

[Ben P.]

Just one thing to consider with neo shrimp is that over time, some people who have had them say that they will revert back to their natural brown color if not culled.  I can't say for sure, it sounds a bit extreme but keep it in mind if you want to maintain a color!

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@Ben P.they will throw wilds and will also throw various other colors. Example- I had a skittles tank, after 6 months the original shrimps sent to me which appeared old from the start began to expire. As they did so I started to note grey, brown, yellow and red tiger striped shrimplets. These were wild types coming out of the skittles colony. Later when those wild types began to breed they threw black and red rilis, blood marys, decent fire reds and a couple of very cool green to yellow shrimps. It’s fun but very unpredictable. I like my goldenback and blue dream colonies better.