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The last 6 months was a total train wreaked with my work schedule however i still make it a point to have Google meet with overseas shrimp hobbyist! A shout out to those who we have met face to face on Google meet. Sharing has always been me, and has work thus far.
Diving straight into the topic on Lubao, i have got many questions from hobbyist asking why the name Lubao? What is it all about? Lubao is actually the Chinese word we say (滷包). What does it mean? if you google this, you will find that it is actually a Chinese method of combining different herbs or ingredients wrapped into a net wrap ball and boil over long period of time. The longer you boil the ‘ball’ the goodness will be absorbed by the food you are braising it with. This is how the origin of the word lubao came about. In English i think it does a better description of being a microorganism ball.
Microorganism ball like in all cooking, the secret lies in the preparation, ingredients, control of fire and many elements to cook up a delicious meal. Every lubao is hand packed myself with carefully selected ingredients which took many learning and failure before knowing how to use appropriately hence delivering exception benefits in terms of better water parameters and certainly more berried shrimp.
Lubao need to be soak 3-6 days in a small container separately and water change done on a daily basis before it is being placed into the tank. After it is being placed into the tank, the biofilm starts to form and this is where shrimp start feasting/grazing on them on top of their usual place/food that they graze on. In normal tank condition, if there are a lot of shrimp, apart from constantly feeding them it is important to have a dedicated grazing material such as lubao for them to graze upon. Other grazing material like leaves are also possible and beneficial.
biofilm occurs everywhere in the tank but grows very slowly which shrimp can strip them off very quickly (i’m sure you’ve seen how a school of shrimp strip a leaf down within hours), hence it is important to have a constant source of biofilm which has the ability to draw the shrimp to the grazing material to graze on. Another important factor is the lubao is able to remain in the tank for 1-2 months (depending on shrimp population).
When shrimp is able to know there are sufficient food available for the shrimplets to feed on, the female shrimps will start saddling with other conditions met. If you have a very busy schedule like me, lubao is God Send. It even beats having an automatic feeder which i have but eventually lubao beats the automatic feeder hands down.
Alright! i’ll keep this post short so i can get back to looking at my shrimps! Happy Easter! Enjoy the video too.
I have got some questions regarding how i do my water change and how do i reminerize. In this short post i’ll share with you how i do mine the easy and effective way. There are other ways to do water change, i just want to ensure they are the quickest possible methodology so i can enjoy my shrimps more.
The main reason for doing water change is really about remove nitrates in the water
With the filtration that i’m using a sophisticated hang on back which works very well after trying many other brands like Fluval, Ehiem, Gex, etc. http://www.totto.co.jp/en/test.php
This filter have the ability to remove nitrates from the water column as indicated by the Tokyo Institute of Technology (https://www.titech.ac.jp/english/). The correlation between lowering of pH caused by Nitrate is usually unspoken of causing lots of shrimp death unknowingly. Conventional filters don’t have the ability to remove nitrates and hence water change is required to remove it. Hence, it means if your filter don’t have the ability to remove nitrates than it is important that your water changes are done religiously to ensure the front end process such as feeding etc are still kept up because the entire process from feeding to water change are all interlinked and cannot be separated individually to be resolved when a problem arises.
During water change, what i’ll do is remove water from the tank and add in TDS 0 water directly into the tank. After it is filled, i’ll reminerize it to 85-90 TDS using Hwa Reminerizer. I normally change 5-10% of the tank water depending on the bioload and tank volume. For my denser tank with more shrimp, i’ll do up to 25-30% water change weekly. This will help reduce the amount of nitrate in the water. I have used all sorts of filter, from hang on, canister, sponge etc, even the best filter still require water change. So don’t skip that water change and make sure the water change is reminerized with a good reminerizer because there are many in the market where the GH and TDS value doesn’t hit the mark.
The reminerizer for example i’m using will get GH 2.x at TDS 85 and GH3 at TDS 90. Some reminerizer may only achieve GH 3 at TDS 120. So it’s important to know what we are adding in the tank. For my case i want to achieve at GH of 2-3 at TDS 85-90.
Happy Holidays!
A shoutout to those out there who have given me very good feedback on the post and i’ll continue to pen down my thoughts.
Ben enjoys spending time browsing through online restaurant reviews and take down notes on which restaurant he like to visit. He called up a restaurant reserving a seat for himself on Friday for one. He told himself for this Christmas day, he will treat himself for once. As the day approaches, Ben was very excited as he knew that the quality will be top notch. The Christmas decoration of the restaurant and the table setting is immaculate. As he enters the restaurant he was greeted with finest and then the waiter came over and shared the menu.
Ben loves his steak so he browse through the selections and different cuts, all were very tempting. He narrowed down to two choices either a Wagyu beef from Japan or the same cut but from another country. However, the price difference is quite substantial at the higher grade. Eventually he went ahead with the Japan Wagyu selection. When he was done with dinner, he told the waiter to book him another seat next week as he wanted to try out another steak but from another country. A few good steak wrapped up his Christmas celebration!
so what am i driving at?
There are plenty of restaurant in the world like there are plenty of shrimp breeder globally. There are some breeders who does very well for a certain type of shrimp as they created the shrimp whereas for some they take on others to create their own line. If we take an example of the Japan Wagyu, the prices could be 3-4x higher compared to other country beef but does the price difference justify the quality? if you ask me personally, it does. Anybody who have tried it will understand. However, everyone have their own budget and it is perfectly fine to work within it. What is more important is you enjoy the hobby and when you see that prize shrimp collection that feel good feeling is like a foodie having a ‘mouth-gasm’. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mouthgasm
There is really no short cut to success, even given a colony of high grade shrimps does not guarantee success. Ignorance and short cut only result in the demise of the shrimp hobby. The root cause in my opinion is the sharing of knowledge and information where truth become twisted. If every breeder and hobbyist are on the up and up with each other, i believe this great hobby will be even greater. I have personally experience hobbyist dumping poor grade shrimp to enthusiastic hobbyist who have just entered the hobby and eventually calling it quits when they found out the truth. This also stems from unethical shops where shrimps advertise were not actually from the source they claim they are from. Hence, the source (a detailed explanation in another post) of where the shrimp comes from far outweigh the benefit of low prices. The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
Boa shrimp
As i sink in deeper to further understand this the more i learn about where misconception can arise. Boa in itself is a selective bred shrimp and while anybody can ‘copy’ or create Boa from Stardust it is however important to note the selection process, starting shrimp used, culling process, tank parameters, food, etc far differs from breeder to breeder. The original shrimp to create Boa is already different and any slight deviation would result in strikingly different outcome. Hence, it is safe to say that i wouldn’t be receiving a mouth watering Japan Wagyu A5 steak if i order another country Wagyu A5, they may look the same (at least to me) but the grading, keeping, etc are all different. Even at grade A5, there are a wide band to the quality of wagyu.
While everyone has the right to deem how their grading is based on their shrimp, relying on a reputable grading system based out of a renowned lineage is my preference. Taking guidance from a reputable breeder is far better than spreading rumors of how grading should be done just because you want to sell your shrimp. For example, if i’m going to keep Boa from a reputable breeder than certainly I’ll use their grading as a benchmark to determine the different grade. Grading is tricky as it take time and experience to learn how to grade and a point system will help with it. For example a Grade 2 or Grade 3 shrimp would mean a certain criteria to be met and if it falls within the band it will be graded as is.
However, within a grade, there is a continuum which allow the breeder to grade two different shrimp that may look slightly different but having the same grade. This can either be done through descriptive or point system or both. If descriptive, it can mean that a check box of criteria once met will be assigned to the grade.
S Grade for Golden Boa. Thin facial lines, very few to no body spots, slightly transparent at certain parts. Spider legs.
SS Female Boa. Colors on this may have bluish hue to it however in this grade there is a possibility that the colors are not fully display yet. These are young female and will grow up stunning (note the body pattern) it is important that the body have some spots in this grade. Having a lot of spots on the body are usually more desirable compared to fewer spots. Facial spots and pattern are big instead of thin lines and rather numerous. Spider legs coloration. This will generalize the grading for SS especially having heavier weightage on body spots.
SS Male Boa on the other hand due to the smaller body area results in fewer of the criteria being met at a given grade. Within the same grading methodology a SS male will not look as nice as a SS female. Reason being is the lower part of the male body doesn’t have sufficient area to have a lot of spots. A nice male is very difficult to come by and people are willing to shell out top dollars to get their hands on them.
A SSS Female Boa. The blue coloration resides ontop of the base color fishbone pattern with the blue tracing around the patterns on the body and face. Body spots are more obvious with abundant sprays of spot throughout the belly area. The facial pattern on this is modest with distinctive differentiation between the base color and face pattern. Spider legs with bluish tinge, swimmerets are colored as well.
A SSS (Competition grade) Female Boa. Color on this is uncontested where the colors illuminate the pattern on the shrimp. The golden hue mix with the metallic blue accentuate the overall shrimp coloration. The numerous body spots sprays across the mid section of the shrimp with high intense coverage. The facial pattern large but not overpowering giving it a sense of contrast between the black base color and face pattern. Here the facial pattern has to balance between big patterns but not covering the entire face. The legs are fully colored in the spider leg fashion. The back black line helps trace the shrimp framing itself into a beauty of it’s own.
Here is a picture where the Boa are grazing on the Lubao (Microorganism ball). It is vital to have a grazing material to help support the breeding program (Please read microorganism ball post here).
Color changes occur throughout the life of a Boa, when they’re happy through good water parameters without excessive feeding and grazing material than they will keep breeding and continue to look nicer with each molt. Here is one example of a female Boa where the first picture on the top is when i got it a month in and the bottom picture is in the 3rd month. The colors as you can clearly see intensifies to a darker shade of blue. Yes you are right both of the time when i took the picture she is berried.
People often ask me what i do to be successful in shrimp breeding? Keep it simple. No magic powder, nothing. I’m a plain old school aquarist where i do my regular water change, keeping things simple in the tank and don’t overfeed. There isn’t really a magic formula, the less i do, the better they breed and all i really do on a daily basis is to feed once or twice a day with Hwa version 1 food pad and have the microorganism ball to aid in grazing. That’s all. simple yet very effective. I find there are too many ‘bells & whistles’ in the market today that doesn’t contribute to the success of shrimp breeding. What it does is help is certainly confusing hobbyist and pulls them further away from success.
The grading are based off the grades printed on the certificates.
Right at the onset of this post i mentioned about enjoying the hobby and to me it is all about sharing with friends about my journey of keeping and breeding shrimp. Sharing the information, knowledge and the shrimps with everyone. More importantly i always believe to be inclusive in the hobby and to share the joy with immediate family.
Hope this post have shed some light on the Boa grading topic and stay safe wherever you are and wishing all breeders a happy 2021!
This is often overlooked when it comes to shrimp breeding because if a hobbyist keep them in a large colony and “Hope” for the best results will often be disappointed. The history of Caridina you see today with multiple colors and pattern are what we call selective breeding. *Disclaimer* i’m not a know all but a very passionate hobbyist trying to share as much accurate information as possible.
Today, i’ll touch on just 1 topic about genetic breeding known as backcrossing (Line breeding) and outcrossing . The whole idea of backcrossing is to strengthen the genetics of either side of the parent shrimp. For example, if you start off with a male and female and you would like to retain and enhance the male traits than backcrossing a F1 female to F0 Male is required. For outcrossing, it inject new genetic traits into the current pool to enhance new trait and also helps prevent deformation.
Backcrossing: I did a simplified chart with a Male and Female each carrying 100% of it’s own genetic pool and the F1 in ideal state will carry both 50% of the parents gene. (Please note that this will work optimally if the pair is of certain quality. matching a good male and a transparent female will have a higher cull % at BC1 resulting in a longer process)
Now taking the desired trait F1 Female and putting it back into the F0 Male tank to further build on the Male traits.
Now the BC1 shrimplet will carry 75% of the male genetics which is much nearer to the male F0 shrimp.
When we are in this stage, the F0 Male x BC1 Female will result in a higher % of trait similarity genetically to the F0 male.
| F1 | 50 | 50 |
| BC1 | 75 | 25 |
| BC2 | 87.5 | 12.5 |
| BC3 | 93.75 | 6.25 |
| BC4 | 96.875 | 3.125 |
The journey to create that ideal trait has it’s down side as well and after speaking to renown Taiwan breeder confirms my learning on the side effects of too much inbreeding.
Here are some of the effects where it’s classified as degeneration/deform:
- When the female do not hold the eggs or keep kicking the eggs
- Young shrimplet born out and keep dying given the correct parameters
- shrimplets that never reach maturity and always remain small
- big head and head to body ratio does not fit 1:3 deform growth in large numbers
- Open skirt or some call it skirting where the carapace is too short.
- decreased lifespan
- Hunchback
To prevent deform shrimps and also to keep a good line of shrimp require diligence in ensuring the shrimp do not over in breed. When you do see any of the above effects, the shrimp had already reached a very late stage of inbreeding. You can use that as a gauge if not you can consider injecting new blood/genetics whenever you can and the method of doing so is call outcrossing.
Outcrossing: The idea for outcrossing on the other hand is to inject new genome to the current shrimp which has been line bred for some time. The reason this need to be done is because when line breeding get too excessive, deform start showing, shrimps stop breeding, growth stagnant, etc hence it is important for the health of the line to occasionally introduce new blood. There is no hard and fast rule when to introduce the new genetic into the pool because different people get the shrimp at different generation. If the shrimp i have gotten is already line bred for 5-6 generations it will reach the deform point faster if the shrimp has been already outcross before. A reputable breeder will be able to provide high quality new generation of shrimps when they have a large number of tanks to prevent too frequent inbreeding.
I hope this post provided you some insights into breeding high quality shrimp.