Selective breeding Malawa Sulawesi Shrimp
Moderator: Mustafa
Selective breeding Malawa Sulawesi Shrimp
Hey I have a group of 50+ Malawa Sulawesi Shrimp and was looking for some advise on how to selective breed them for color. I am looking to make the blue color on some of my shrimp more dominate. Any advise?
Re: Selective breeding Malawa Sulawesi Shrimp
No response in almost 2 months? Is there still anyone knowledgable here who might offer some advise? I have close to 30 berried females now and a booming population
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shrimpcart
- Egg
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2011 3:45 pm
Re: Selective breeding Malawa Sulawesi Shrimp
Hi There,
Selective breeding is fairly simple.
It does require space and commmitment.
Basically you just want to pick out the shrimp the have the best trait that you want to focus on, Since you are seeking more blue, You just take the shrimp with the most blue and breed them.
When the resulting offspring are big enough to distinguish who has the most/best blue.. you just do the same thing over again.
Pick the ones that have the best blue coloring and pair them up.
It may take many generations to see a change, but
be persistant and eventually your hard work will pay off 
Selective breeding is fairly simple.
It does require space and commmitment.
Basically you just want to pick out the shrimp the have the best trait that you want to focus on, Since you are seeking more blue, You just take the shrimp with the most blue and breed them.
When the resulting offspring are big enough to distinguish who has the most/best blue.. you just do the same thing over again.
Pick the ones that have the best blue coloring and pair them up.
It may take many generations to see a change, but
be persistant and eventually your hard work will pay off 
Re: Selective breeding Malawa Sulawesi Shrimp
SPECULATION:
I would speculate that a given shrimp's color is likely a composition of many different pigments. In addition to my lazy observations my understanding was that the demonstration of these various pigments were strongly influenced by a variety of environmental and physiological factors.
So say you pick blue malawa's (which may be some mixture of various pigments).
And start selecting for them heavily in a given tank with a standard substrate.
After some time you may start noticing that all of your malawas are blue...but as soon as you place them in someone elses tank with different substrate, different plants, different tank mates, and suddenly their color seemingly has reverted back to your original stock's color.
What you may have inadvertently done is not bred the shrimp to be blue, but bred them to respond to your particular tank conditions by expressing pigments that make them appear blue.
I dont mean to sound discouraging I bet it can be done, but I bet it is more complex than say selecting for hair/coat color, or skin color on most other animals. Imagine how difficult it would be to selectively breed guinea pigs if they kept changing color based on their environment or 'mood'. How would you know which color is their 'real' color when they can 'choose' when and where to show their different colors.
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End Speculation
I'm often surprised at the variety of my Malawa...I have bunches in a heavily 'cliffed' 29 gallon tank...lots of different environments and colors in the tank...
Some are as red as cherry shrimp.
Some muddy red.
Some are dark dark green.
Some are clear as glass.
Some are clear with splashes of seemingly random color.
Some are blue.
Some are blue-green.
Some seemingly dark gray.
And any of those colors of shrimp sometimes have off-white to white speckles.
I would speculate that a given shrimp's color is likely a composition of many different pigments. In addition to my lazy observations my understanding was that the demonstration of these various pigments were strongly influenced by a variety of environmental and physiological factors.
So say you pick blue malawa's (which may be some mixture of various pigments).
And start selecting for them heavily in a given tank with a standard substrate.
After some time you may start noticing that all of your malawas are blue...but as soon as you place them in someone elses tank with different substrate, different plants, different tank mates, and suddenly their color seemingly has reverted back to your original stock's color.
What you may have inadvertently done is not bred the shrimp to be blue, but bred them to respond to your particular tank conditions by expressing pigments that make them appear blue.
I dont mean to sound discouraging I bet it can be done, but I bet it is more complex than say selecting for hair/coat color, or skin color on most other animals. Imagine how difficult it would be to selectively breed guinea pigs if they kept changing color based on their environment or 'mood'. How would you know which color is their 'real' color when they can 'choose' when and where to show their different colors.
----------------------------------------------------------
End Speculation
I'm often surprised at the variety of my Malawa...I have bunches in a heavily 'cliffed' 29 gallon tank...lots of different environments and colors in the tank...
Some are as red as cherry shrimp.
Some muddy red.
Some are dark dark green.
Some are clear as glass.
Some are clear with splashes of seemingly random color.
Some are blue.
Some are blue-green.
Some seemingly dark gray.
And any of those colors of shrimp sometimes have off-white to white speckles.
Re: Selective breeding Malawa Sulawesi Shrimp
Are there any pictures available of the Above Color Variations ?