Some pictures of my Red Cherry Shrimp

[Terran]

A female....


A male....



And this is the best I could do of the very tiny babies....






Ever since I got these shrimp Ive been trying to selectively breed them to be a more opaque and denser color of red.....I have only pumped out like 3 maybe 4 generations so I cant imagine that Ive made any progress towards this goal...
but....
The more time I spend doing this though the more fustrating it feels. The female shown was one of my weaker colored ones but it recently has become a much darker color of red....

So much of their color seems related to their diet and the color of their surroundings....and mood

Is there any selection method that one could use to make more relevent decisions in trait choice....?

[pleco_breeder]

In my experience, when breeding for any color trait in an environmentally influenced species, you have to specify for individuals that are that color/shade more consistently. For example, identify individual shrimp which maintain the desired color more consistently. Those that are more apt to wash out when the tank needs, or gets, a water change or those which don't fade as readily when it's not their favorite food.

Breeding a species to match environmental issues can be a very drawn out affair since what you are breeding for is not always evident. I don't envy the task ahead of you, but it is definitely worthwhile.

With that being said, I devinitely envy your shrimp. My sole-surviving female looks more like your male. Gorgeous!!!

Larry Vires

[Newjohn]

Terran

As the RCS age they can get a better coloration.

The best way that I have found to select RCS for selective breeding is.

When you first turn on the lights in the morning pick the best colored Shrimp.

The Shrimp that will hold the color even in the dark seem to be the best for selective breeding.

I hope that this helps
John

[Suzie Q]

Terran
Beautiful shrimp! I only have 1 even close to your females color, and all of my males are a lot lighter than yours!

Good luck on breeding them...I plan on doing the same thing...just breeding the darkest females that I have in my tank.

[Terran]

Terran
Beautiful shrimp! I only have 1 even close to your females color, and all of my males are a lot lighter than yours!

Good luck on breeding them...I plan on doing the same thing...just breeding the darkest females that I have in my tank.

Yeah that female was considered one of my lighter colored ones....but now its about equal with the top group....

I have one female that is really opaque and it almost feels like it has some blue in it....
Hmm whats the best way to describe it.....

What I mean is... let us say you were Editing Colors in the Paint Application that comes with Windows XP and you had to choose values for Red Green and Blue etc etc......Its almost looks like if you had
Red: 117
Green:0
Blue: 41
Hue: 226
Sat: 240
Lum: 55

So its mostly just dark red but with this slight hue of purple....
I have not isolated this one to breed from because Im not sure if it is sick stressed out or any other sort of condition....



Im going to spend a couple hours and see if I can get a picture of this one close to the glass....and see if anyone can spot any potential probelms with this one....



NewJohn:
I like the idea with turning on the lights in the morning....Its tough though....cause usually the sudden light change has them all zooming around the tank...males especially....and the males are especially tough in noticing differences in pigment....
Ill have to try harder....

[Terran]

Okay I spent a bunch of time taking pictures....

On closer inspection the shrimp is clearly injured. Im pretty sure though this shrimp has been exhibiting this color for some time....so the injuries might be relatively recent (moved her in with a bunch of Cajuns recently)...


Do you see what I mean with the coloring though....











So ....I wonder if I should seperate this one and a really good colored male....







I dunno ...

[Newjohn]

Hi Terran

I have had a few of the RCS with the Black / Purple Markings also.

The dark color seems to fade at time.

I have put all of the them in there own tank.

Only time will tell.

And as turning on the lights for selecting color. It seems to take the clearer colored RCS awhile to color up in the morning.

I do the oppisite, and pull the lesser colored Shrimp and put them in the tank for the LPS.

Good Luck
John

[Peter]

I had a few dwarf Mexican crays with shrimp they were chopping bits off the shrimp too, so I removed the crays, the shrimp grew back the missing bits after a few molts.

[Suzie Q]

I agree with NewJohn (my shrimp have yet to breed, so this is what I am doing as a newbie to RCS). I have removed my lighter females into a 5.5g and I am leaving the darker females in my 10g breeding tank...my males are not nearly as dark as yours...my lighter females look a bit darker than your male (so jealous LOL). These also had green saddles (could be "wild" shrimp?!..now having said that, these females are saddled again with the normal orange saddle...go figure?!)...any way, only my DARKEST females will stay in the breeding tank, and if the lighter ones do darken over time (mine are not full grown yet), they will be returned to the breeding program...if not, they will go into...stay in the 5.5g (being sure not to over stock). I only like 1...2...maybe 3 of my 15? females...I got a few adult females and adult males and more juvies from the same breeder.