Advise on Breeding Quality Fire Red Shrimps

[skrukawa]

Hi,

I'm pretty new to posting on AQ as I've just started keeping shrimps not long ago.

I need some advise on breeding Fire red shrimps, hope seniors & expert can advise.

My Fire red shrimps has successfully given birth to a few batches of babies. Till now, the biggest size have reached abt 0.8cm.

Till now, they are more translucent orange rather than the dark red parents.

I need advise on how to condition the babies so that they grow up like their parents real dark solid red?

My current water condition & setup:
2x1.5x1.5ft tank with Gex soil
Ph: 7.2
Temp: 26 +/- 0.5 degree celcius
Other parameters not measured.

The tank should be ard 2-3mths.

Thanks in advance for sharing. Will try posting pics soon.

[hyun007]

It will depend on the gene.
Dark solid Red will start from about 2 months old, onward if yours are still translucent orange.

What color is the father of the shrimp?

A good quality adult Fire Red color is dark solid red after fresh molting.
They do not loose their color that easily.

[skrukawa]

Hi bro hyunn, thanks for the reply.

I've just measured the 1st batch of shrimps, they are 1cm size. Estimated 2mths old? Cos I transferred them from my previous 1ft setup.

In fact in my tank there's only 1pc with translucent legs. The rest are red legged. body color are all red. Will try take close up photo with my iPhone 3GS.

[900801]

If you have spare tanks what you can do is to seperate the red ones from the not so red ones. I use to do that when i was keeping them. Most likely the redder ones are female and the not so red are males. The really good males are quite red. Think at 1cm you can try sorting them out but keep the not so red ones as they could be males.

[skrukawa]

Thanks for that bro, unfortunately I don't have space for a spare tank.

Is it possible to keep them in those floating isolation tank? Will they do well in those restricted environment?

[bettafantastic]

Thanks for that bro, unfortunately I don't have space for a spare tank.
Is it possible to keep them in those floating isolation tank? Will they do well in those restricted environment?

I think for them to breed, you have to give them the natural effect, which is better to have another tank with plants and driftwood.
Cheers!

[skrukawa]

Hey bro bettafantastic, great to see you here. The fissidens i got from you earlier are all growing well.

I don't have the heart to set up another tank as i've been doing lots of aquarium things at home so not going to set up a new tank for now.

Maybe i'll let them go when they grow to adult size. Let's wait and see if the color will mature.

Thanks for all the replies.

Happy to see new born babies again! Will post pics soon. just restored my iphone. ready to go!

[Navanod]

2 words to get Quality Fire Reds bro

Aggressive Culling

[hyun007]

Hi bro hyunn, thanks for the reply.

I've just measured the 1st batch of shrimps, they are 1cm size. Estimated 2mths old? Cos I transferred them from my previous 1ft setup.

In fact in my tank there's only 1pc with translucent legs. The rest are red legged. body color are all red. Will try take close up photo with my iPhone 3GS.

If your first batch have female with saddle, then yes, they are 2 months old.

2 words to get Quality Fire Reds bro

Aggressive Culling

Could not agree more.
Although there are some cases where the young look like shit but looks great when a fully adult.

[Navanod]

If your first batch have female with saddle, then yes, they are 2 months old.



Could not agree more.
Although there are some cases where the young look like shit but looks great when a fully adult.

In my case, there were instances of pale looking young turning fire red (but still not as red as those who were red from young) in my tank but thats only for those who didn't look like shit (i.e fully covered in red with no gaps and fully colored legs).
For those with gaps and looked like sakura, they grew up bearing those gaps and at best, is only a very nicely colored sakura.

Not much can be found on the exact selection or breeding methods online...
some claims that the full red only comes out when they're fully grown and stopped moulting so often (so the shell had time to thicken and darken). While I do see slight improvements in fully grown adults, its not the sakura to fire red kinda change. More of a slight improvement in thickness of color, especially in berried females.

Some claims that GH must be very high to get super painted fire reds. I cannot be sure, but I do notice slight improvement in redness from increasing the GH from 5 to 9. However, the painted reds had always been super thick and red, even in low GH. They just get even darker and more solid at higher GH, one of them is the color of dried blood now.
Then, there's always the good food and supplements from all the fancy brands meant for CRS. This is very hard to test...but I do see growth rate improvements when I feed a wide range of food instead of just the usual algae wafers. Fire reds grow at an alarming rate compared to CRS

IMHO, it all still boils down to genetics. The above observations after the so called "improvements" are actually not real improvements but rather, just the real phenotypic colors of the shrimps showing when restrictions and deficiencies were corrected, and ideal conditions are provided.

The real challenge is to find good male breeders and to cull poorly colored males before they can mate with the breeder stock females. But even this is very hard given the fact that its hard to tell the sexes apart when they're young. In most cases, a good male looks like an average female and may be culled together with the rest of the average females by mistake.

Even with a relatively good male (not ideal as there're gaps in the color), the chances of getting a fire red is very low in my case. I'm only getting a few low grade fire reds after 6 months. Maybe the male is not good enough?

[hyun007]

Navanod, care to show us a picture of your good male?
It will be a good reference for all as well.

[Navanod]

Hi hyun007,

This is current male


There used to be a nicer one but he disappeared

[hyun007]

I think your male Fire Red are very nice.
Continue working on it and I believe you will get what you desire.

I use to have a Fire Red like Navanod's avatar.
The legs are totally red, no white on the knee.
Unfortunately it died on me when I move the tank to another house.

[skrukawa]

Hey bros!

Thanks for all the sharing!

Here's some pics of my tank n shrimps. Taken by 2mp iPhone camera.

Still abit messy as I added the new bog wood in the tank, still trying to rearrange the woods.

[hyun007]

Your first batch is 2 months old already.
Once they are at the stage of berried mama, the color will start to become better.

[Navanod]

I think your male Fire Red are very nice.
Continue working on it and I believe you will get what you desire.

I use to have a Fire Red like Navanod's avatar.
The legs are totally red, no white on the knee.
Unfortunately it died on me when I move the tank to another house.

Thanks, have to work harder on culling and finding a better male.

That shrimp in the avatar is a female...and not the best yet, hehe

[Navanod]

Did some googling and found other pictures of a male fire red

[skrukawa]

The 1st 2 photos looks really nice. Mine probably belongs to the 3rd photo.

[skrukawa]

Just to share, the 1st batch female starts having eggs. They are the size of their parents. Color slightly darker now as compared to the previous picture.