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The articles are being categorize into various sections and you can find them in the individual sections such as Shrimp, breeding, tips and others. On mobile devices all articles will be shown. If you want to find older articles please refer to Archive Should you not be able find an article you wish to read about or learn more on, please feel free to contact me using the Contact page.
Made a video to share
[wpvideo ZdPr2x9s ]
Selectively bred outcome of this Black fancy tiger is superior in terms of Color and grading.
Recently there has been a discussion around learning and how do we determine if we have learn and progress?
To many learning is all about trying different setup, powder, food, water etc but with their current shrimp.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that but that only means you are refining your knowledge around your current shrimp.
Take for example breeder A breeds CRS or normal PRL that is fairly easy to breed. Crystal red shrimp are tolerant to a wide range of water parameters.
Breeder B on the other hand had experience with CRS and decided to take the plunge to breed BFT.
Which breeder do you think will learn more in depth about shrimp keeping?
You are right! breeder B. The reason is very simple, learning how to breed a far more difficult shrimp will allow you to breed easier shrimp with ease. The knowledge of breeding a difficult shrimp goes into very fine details about shrimp breeding that isn’t required for easier shrimp. Please keep in mind that this is an example, we do know there are very high grade Crystal shrimp that could cost on par with BFT at a few thousand dollars. These are championship shrimp.
Another point to note is that difficult shrimp is due to stringent line breeding causing the gene to be weaken but gives the desire trait pattern and or Color. The shrimp generally become more sensitive to water parameters, doesn’t saddle as frequently, doesn’t hold eggs more than 10 days, doesn’t adapt well to new environment.
Whereas on the other hand a easy shrimp is normally easy to breed and tolerate a wide range of water parameters.
So the next time you purchase your shrimp, ask the breeder if they have any difficult shrimp, because if they can’t tell you what difficult shrimp they are keeping, then you are better off purchasing from another breeder who have far more experience.
So far on the market the most difficult shrimp is from Hwa taiwan shrimp – graded Black fancy tiger. Skyfish – graded Boa. So have you got your BFT and Boa yet?
On the first part of shrimp tank setup there wasn’t a step by step on how to do the setup. With the recent expansion a fellow hobbyist suggested that I share how it was done.
Siesta UGF
UGF cut to size and add in black foam above the UGF. This is to increase surface area of bacteria growth and also prevent soil from going too far into the UGF.
RODI Water tube and air tube are being placed into the setup
Add in the chiller pipes and install the UGF front plate to form a ‘removal’ UGF system during reset. This allow me to reset much faster compared to permanent UGF however both ways are fine and i have both as well.
Water in, board cut to size to shield from glaring light
Lights on!
All is done. Remember if you need the specification of the soil/water/ etc please visit the shrimp tank setup part one!
If you haven’t heard of his name in the shrimp industry then you got to trace back his accomplishments and history. I held back this post for the longest time because I wanted to validate and be sure if he is what others claim he is. Apparently he is the real deal and that he is also the Pioneer of shrimp breeding.
He started this way back in 2003 when the CRS shrimp was selectively bred in Japan. He took the plunge to bring back some and breed. It took him many try and error to even get it right. It was painstakingly difficult in the beginning. Through that he vouch he will guide people who are really keen in shrimp breeding. He is also the first judge for the first shrimp competition and to get there during the beginning stage is really an uphill challenge. To setup the criteria for grading etc.
After a year of interaction and multiple visits to his shrimp farm i decided it is time where I share this article to others who are interested to learn and breed shrimp. The no nonsense character is what defines Hwa. Like many Bankers say, the best answer is a Yes and the second best answer is a fast No.
For him he has taught me how to breed shrimp right from the start and his setup is really neat and clean with minimum additive to the formula. He doesn’t believe in complicating the setup by adding this and that, which I think is why many shrimp breeders are unable to get from good to great.
Why did I say that? Reason being is simple, if you keep easy to breed shrimp, how would one improve their understanding of shrimp keeping? The only reason why an expensive shrimp 8 years ago remain expensive today is because it is difficult and not through marketing efforts. We know that King Kong shrimp used to be very expensive when they appear on the market which created a hype but that was short lived because it was easy to breed. The prices plummeted 10 folds. Will that happen to black fancy tiger? Maybe! But so far it hasn’t been that easy and like mentioned earlier it’s not so easy. Is this due to breeders only releasing it slowly keeping lots of stock? well, the matter of fact is that “white fancy” or the not so dark ones are massively bred and breeders are telling them they will turn darker if mix with this and that. I wanted to refute this notion because many breeders lie in this industry or they don’t tell the full truth. Of all shrimp, Hwa specifically told me that this shrimp is difficult because like all selectively bred shrimp it only get more difficult by time.
Coming back to the main topic of this post is he doesn’t advertise much or reach out to overseas customer. His main spoken language is mandarin and local dialect. I was lucky to learn a lot from him as I was able to converse in his language.
Hwa has been a judge, a mentor and a contributor to the shrimp industry for more than a decade and will continue to serve the community by guiding hobbyist on how to go from good to great. The only caveat is if you are English speaking, you can contact me and I will share what he teaches or look at my other blog post.
Hence, in this shrimp industry many want to ride on the bandwagon to keep selling shrimp but fail to provide proper guidance which is also why the shrimp scene in Singapore has slowly disappear. Those who remain are those who are really keen in breeding because of the fundamental they have learn. I had the opportunity to share what I learn to a few and I hope that this continue.
