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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.
Lighting and it’s importance
Using Light to your advantage
A shout out to a breeder down under and this post is dedicated to you. Your question regarding if lighting helps with shrimp breeding. I think the long and short of this is it will really depends. What kind of answer is this?
Sunlight is the food source of everything and it is important to the entire ecology of Mother Nature. So is lighting important to breeding, yes it does to a certain extend but does not have an immediate impact however critical.
The reason for this is because light helps plants such as moss and floating plants grow and make food which in turn provide shelter and food for microorganism. In the same line the plants also help cultivate biofilm providing food to shrimps. With this it may appear that lighting is important.
Does shining light for long hours make shrimps nicer? No it doesn’t. Light does not make a shrimp nicer by shining long hours on it. They too do not get sun tan like humans do. The only thing that is achieve certainly is a higher electricity bill.
Type of lights
There are plenty of light choices in the market now and are fairly affordable. When i first started this aquarium hobby it was only florescent light tubes and then then Pressured Lamp and moved on to T5/T8 and eventually now with LED with multiple colors for different purposes.
I have used quite a number of light sets before and for shrimps it is rather straight forward, since we are not growing high light plants, then there isn’t really a need to splurge on high end light sets. However, it is important that the lights promote growth of your plants at least and not so dim that even mosses don’t survive.
For shrimp keeping both T5 and LED are recommended, however i will now lean towards LED because it is light, doesn’t give off too much heat and have a very long lifespan.
T5 light sets are fairly heavy and i have retired my T5 light as there is a need to change the tubes annually and it is expensive to keep it running. LED on the other hand can be cable tie to the rack and or place on the tank and easily moved around since they are lightweight.
The prices for LED nowadays are as affordable as T5 if not more affordable as the massive shift towards LED. With more advance LED light set there is also dimmable feature, sunset feature, timer, wifi all inbuilt.
Currently because it is fairly affordable to get LED lights hence i’m using Chihiros normal white light LED which does the job well.
how much light is sufficient
Generally if you see plants such as mosses and floating plants growing then you have sufficient light for your tank. I’m using a 6000k Chihiros light there are 5 levels of light intensity i’m setting it to level 3 and they are doing great. When the entire ecosystem is well establish and mature, while light doesn’t appear to have immediate impact but overall it does help.
Just like lubao/kallax ball which create biofilm, while they don’t have immediate impact but overall it helps with the ecological system in your tank. This is yet another soft value that is often overlooked.
So does the amount of light helps or impact breeding, indirectly it does because a decent amount of light certainly still help with the whole eco-system hence all these small sum adds up to a successful breeding experience.
Hope you have a good read!
Water Parameters Hard Value
I split water parameters into two different large category namely the Hard and Soft parameters.
This post is a follow up of the previous one where i touch on water parameters. This will help to provide a clearly picture of what it meant to have both hard and soft water parameters and the importance of it.
Hard water parameters are those that most of us use test kit to measure, this is where the hard values are tested and indicate a value corresponding to either acidic, dissolved solids etc.
Have a goal
One of the most important steps in breeding shrimp is to have a goal in mind and a direction where you would want the shrimp to develop into. This will help lift you up when the going get tough. I have breeders tell me that after 1 generation of breeding they can’t get any nice shrimps from their brood. Do not breed shrimps with a defeated mindset.
With the goal in mind, even with 1 pair of shrimp, one can still succeed as long as the process of breeding them are kept the same like your other proven methods. High grade shrimps can be costly hence it’ may not be financially viable to get a big colony to start with. Even if one starts with 1M 2F it is still possible to be great.
The 1M 2F trio should then be bred to masses first and from there keep using the female shrimplet from the F1 to breed more and get to masses as soon as possible.
Racing against time
Shrimp have a very short lifespan, hence it is a racing against time to quickly get them to breed as fast as possible. Female shrimps when they reach about 1.2cm start to breed but their brood size is small but with higher frequency.
As they start to mature their brood size becomes larger but with lesser frequency. When the female start to get old, their breeding slows down to once in 2-3 months. Hence the ‘breeding’ duration is really short.
Why am i saying this? The reason is because the conditions have to be optimum during the breeding period and to ensure maximum clutch size everytime. Not forgetting newly minted female often need to gain experience in the first few brood before successfully deliver shrimplets.
Water conditions often measured by parameters are just one side of the equation. The other part of the equation is if there are sufficient biofilm, microorganism, hiding space, breeding ratio.
Second part of the equation
A large part of the 2nd equation consist of biofilm/microorganism/hiding space/male to female ratio etc. This is where it is often overlooked and equally important to water parameters. I like to categorize it as the last piece to obtain an optimal ecosystem.
As hobbyist we can’t measure biofilm or amount of hiding space, it however has a very strong contribution to the success of breeding. We can setup a tank with soil, filtration, plants and get the right water parameters but that does not mean your breeding tank is well established or optimal for breeding.
Getting to that optimal point is where considerations such as if there are sufficient biofilm in the tank (can be lubao/kallax ball/moss/leaves etc). Is there microorganism in the tank that is feeding on the biofilm as well. Hiding space while important also has to be visible so shrimps don’t hide and die in there without knowing. How about the male to female breeding ratio of 4:20? All these are measurable elements that are often missed out but contributes a lot to the success towards breeding.
While the hard numbers measuring for pH/KH/GH/TDS/Nitrite/Nitrates are important, a successful breeder goes beyond just the above measurements to ensure breeding success.
There is a research paper on biofilm, here is the link i would like to share with you. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229113535_Importance_of_biofilm_as_food_source_for_shrimp_Farfantepenaeus_paulensis_evaluated_by_stable_isotopes_d13C_and_d15N
Hence, it is important not to have a defeated mindset when breeding shrimps. Look beyond measurable water parameters, these are just the foundation of shrimp breeding. Once your ecosystem is well established, breeding shrimps would then be rewarding and gratifying. Till then, never be discourage, never give up, give it all you have and remember one day when you succeed, reach out to those who need help. Each one teach one.
Hope you had a good read!
How does grazing material impact the breeding process
It is becoming difficult to ignore the fact that grazing material is one of the key elements for successful shrimp breeding process. It can be understood from the abundance of available grazing material to ensure continual breeding to happen. Shrimps like in the ‘Animal Kingdom’ breed when the conditions and environment are ideal. They thrive and procreate their next generation. In their natural habitat, shrimps feed consistently all the time. While their ‘hands’ are constantly feeding they’re trying to pick up the biofilm and consume them. Biofilm is an important source of nutrients to shrimps as they consist of nutrients that can be absorb naturally by the body. In this day and age, high quality feed is made to create as much beneficial nutrients to the shrimp. However, according to some research (Importance of biofilm as food source for shrimp), the feed they use although ingested were not properly incorporated by the shrimp tissue. In other words, it appears to suggest that while we may feed our daily feed, there are still some nutrients that must be compensated through biofilm consumption.
The term grazing material really encompass a large area but what i would like to share in this article is while most grazing material are used, it is the biofilm they produce that have a direct impact to shrimp overall health and breeding. Biofilm grows almost anywhere, and it is not simply the biofilm that is the important intake, it is also the microorganism that the shrimp consume. With an abundance of microorganism and biofilm, that is where the ‘invisible’ nutrients are playing a major role of the breeding process.
Growing biofilm
There are many ways to cultivate biofilm such as leaves, cholla wood, media, plants, mosses and microorganism ball aka Kallax ball or lubao.
Leaves such as Indian almond are good source of biofilm generation, the leaves soak in water will start developing thin layer of biofilm for the shrimps to consume, however the leaves will not be able to consistently produce biofilm as the leaf tissue are consumed together with the biofilm by the shrimp.
A wide variety of biofilm producer is ideal, and personally i’m using plants, mosses and definitely the lubao or kallax ball.
While one cannot directly see the impact of shrimps consuming biofilm, however there are research paper that is done scientifically that natural food for shrimps are biofilm and is the key that allow shrimps to continue their existence.
Biofilm, female shrimps and shrimplets
If one have put leaves in the tank or have use Kallax ball or lubao, it can be observed that during the conditioning phase of breeding (saddle), they can mostly be found near biofilm source. When female shrimp berried, it is often seen that they are on the biofilm generation such as lubao in this case when i use them. While shrimp feed are fed daily, the female shrimp continue to graze on the lubao very frequently more so when they’re not berried. This observation is seen across many tanks when female shrimps berried.
Another observation and reported by many who have used lubao is shrimplets find their way to the biofilm source and graze for the first few weeks of their live and then move on to other food source. The constant biofilm allows females and shrimplets in my opinion benefitting the most out of it.
With the above, it in turn help to encourage females to saddle more readily and directly improve shrimplet survival by providing first food.
Long term impact
The long term impact for having a consistent biofilm source in the tank outweigh the risk of deformity and degrading, and hence important to have different sources of biofilm readily available in your tank. Like i’ve mentioned, every surface area in the tank is able to harbour some biofilm but the more direct source it is, the more you’ll be able to control.
While we may not be able to see any impact immediately, biofilm is still an important source of grazing material/nutrients for the shrimps and if you’ve not considered them before, i hope this article would allow you to wade deeper into the water and learn more about the intricacies of why biofilm is an important source of nutrients to shrimps.
Thanks for reading and keep believing!
