One of the more commonly seen and easier to keep shrimp are the Pure Red Line. There has been a lot of documentation on this shrimp with a history of how they come about. However, I will be touching on more about keeping and breeding this shrimps.

One of the things about this shrimp is that it really like good water condition to thrive with robust coloration and continuous breeding. These PRL are able to take a range of water parameters. However, my preference for water parameters is shown below.

Water parameters:

• pH 5.8
• Total dissolved solids : 85-90
• kH : 0
• GH : 4
• Nitrate, nitrite, Ammonia 0
• Temp 24-26 degrees Celsius

Building on all the content that is already posted in this blog, I wanted to mention the process of selective breeding can still be applied. Most of the processes and methodology can be applied as well. In other words, it is important to get that fundamental right.

One of the key difference in so many PRL from my perspective can be broken down into a few broad categories.

For example:

• Color
  • Red: is bright red to a brick red coloration without much fading in the front region.
    • some have pinkish hue to it – as they age some have it pink but doesn’t cover the entire shrimp

• • White: The white coloration sometimes have a yellowish tinge to it but predominately white. Yellow tinge does not mean it is of mix lineage, on the other hand if it’s all white and sparkling, it’s good you trace that lineage.
  • Legs: Are they red, white or a mix? Or are there spider legs (if you see spider legs something isn’t right and I will classify them as CRS, it does happen in PRL but what i learn is a very very rare occurrence and doesn’t breed through to the next gen.

• • Swimmerets : Are they yellow, white or red?

• Size
  • Shrimp is of good large size 2-3cm at adulthood
  • Head to body ratio: 1:3. It is important that it doesn’t look too distorted due to inbreeding. Many times the shrimp doesn’t have a good form where the head and body are 40:60 and some 20:80.
  • Legs: proportionate not stringly due to poor diet, genetics and water condition
• Shell
  • shell have few blemishes and are of certain thickness. Aggressive feeding can sometimes cause shrimp to have some “war marks” but they generally can recover after the next molt. This goes the same to the feelers of male.

• • 2nd Abdomen shell segment(of Male Shrimp) the biggest one in the middle is round and big resembling a female, which would show a much more robust characteristic
  • Thick, regularly spaced
  • Thick Carapace
  • colored Scaphocerite
  • Visible – colored rostrum

• Age
  • Age of shrimp can sometimes be determine by the hunched back of shrimp when the shrimp grows bigger
  • another telltale sign is the Antennule curving down and backwards vs forward or upwards

 

This is as simple as it get, why are my shrimp dying? What are the main causes of shrimp death?

1. Water Parameters
   • This is the first reason that your shrimps are dying by the numbers – 1-2 per day or weekly. Why is water parameters the number 1 reason for shrimp death? The old adage goes like this, if you want to keep good quality shrimp, first learn how to keep good water parameters. If your tanks have good water parameters, everything else will fall in place.
   • I have in my other post talk about water parameters and my water parameters recommendation.
2. If my water parameters are fine – (like many of us) then why are they still dying?
   • Source of shrimp
     • This means that the source of where the shrimp came from be it from source, at source or during transit might have already weaken the shrimp.
     • Ammonia poisoning, poor genetics, too much in-breeding
     • Pick your source wisely and don’t mix sources! (Please refer to the 4 main criteria of shrimp breeding – under choose your breeder)
   • Genetics of shrimp
     • The genetics of shrimp from the start is already weak
     • when a cross of two individually line bred shrimp comes together the difficulty level just increased many folds
     • for example a PRL vs a BFT – the PRL have better and more stable genetics compared to a BFT but that doesn’t mean the BFT will die easier, they just don’t breed as quickly/as easy as the PRL. (Pure line)
   • Too little or too much water change
     • i usually recommend at least 10% water change and if the tank volume is large (100L) and a few shrimp, a 5% water change will do.
     • On a very stable tank and shrimp, even changing 50% at once hasn’t proven to be an issue (Remember point 1 and point 2)
     • Stirring too much soil up during water change, creating a sudden spike and then returning back to normal
3. Itchy hand syndrome
   • There is no need to add bone meal, Cutterbone, decorative item, tons of plants, feeding excessively, adding wood, adding rock, adding any other thing other than reminerizer during WC
   • Mixing source A,B,C,D shrimp in 1 tank –  stick to your trusted source
   • Putting your hand in there every few hours to move decorative item around.
   • Feeding more than twice a day – if you have a lot of shrimp
     • Your feed should be altered to the number of shrimps and should consume all of the feed within 2-3 hours. If not, cut the feed to a smaller portion and feed. if not, consider adding more shrimp.
   • Adding new soil in large quantity inside an established tank, tried that – adult shrimps does ok, shrimplets die.
4. Shrimp like all living things die
   • All living things die – we like it or not. There is no way we can keep all 100% of our shrimp alive and this is esp. true if they’re genetically weak. For example i haven’t experience a PRL die for a long time but occasionally i still get a selectively line bred shrimp dead (it’s part and parcel of shrimp keeping)
   • With the above, please note that if you’re doing selective breeding – have backup shrimp ready – That means if you have a tank ratio of 2M and 6F please have more Males and Females ready to go because if the 2M dies off, basically you have nothing to breed with.
     • Plan your purchases carefully and if your budget permits have a good breeding ratio – 2M – 20F x 2 sets with additional 1-2 males as backup in other tanks
     • For more in depth information – please read other post on breeding tanks.

The above is with the assumption you’re using RODI water as your primary water source during water change.

If you understand and fully grasp the concept, you’ll enjoy your shrimp breeding journey a lot better!