All about breeding tanks part II

Now that you know breeding one line of shrimp is all about having more tanks or a minimum of 3. So in this Part 2 of “all about breeding tanks”, I’ll be touching on what goes inside the breeding tank for selective breeding.

Selective breeding can be quite daunting for some as it requires discipline and a lot of tanks. The long and short of it is to selectively pick out the desired trait and breed it and eventually crossing back to strengthen the gene. Here is an example of selectively breeding the black fancy to make it blacker or darker:

1. Purchase a black fancy tiger male (A)and 5 black ninja female (A1)and place them in tank 2
2. After successful first brood, remove all shrimplets to tank 1 as the shrimplets will look more like black ninja then BFT. (Time line : 4-6 months)
3. Continue the process of remove shrimplets to tank 1
4. Pick out all the females from tank 1 and put it back to tank 2 for breeding (at this stage the female will have some bft gene (F1) this process is to help tank 2 breed out as many shrimplets as possible.( time line : 9 months )
5. If you have access to more tank, you can remove all the F1 female and use the black fancy male (A) to breed or get another male with same black fancy line to help speed up the process. Remember at this stage, you will only want to get your stock from reputable breeders because if the new male is from a different line, your effort is wasted. Have a plan and execute.
6. At the end of 9-12 months you should have a sizeable colony in tank 1 to pick out a new male and a few nicer females to be place into tank 3
7. By the time tank 3 breeds and become adults it will be around 1.5 years later and you should have some desirable trait to it. To perfect it requires a lot more time and line breeding.
8. Keep repeating the process as tank 2 age and die off, with tank 3 becoming the new tank 2 and so on and so forth.
9. At any stage remove all males of non-desirable trait to tank 4 and also remove females that don’t fit the desirable outcome when there is a good size colony.
10. Personally I only use 1 male and the rest are females, I also have an all male tank where I keep the back up stock in there.

Some points to note:

• Keeping another tank of black ninja as a back up in case the 5 female don’t make it (this will require another tank) along the way, you will still have black ninja stock to work with (tank 5)
• Getting a couple more bft males as back up placed in tank 4 or tank 6
• Speeding up process by getting both bft lines
• Prepare more tanks in case of emergency
• Get stock from one single reputable source (do not mix other line of shrimp)
• Line/selective breeding is an old methodology that works – don’t reinvent or adjust, you will not succeed with mixing A to Z.
• If the desired outcome is a mix of 2 selectively bred lines, it only means you will need even more tanks to ensure you have all the shrimps that is being bred to achieve the goal.
• This process works for selecting the desired trait for pattern, color and anything that is within possibilities.

Bft male x black ninja F1 shrimplet

Bft male x (black ninja Female F2) shrimplet

Bft male x bft female F1

Bft female