Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

will the be any genetic defects after generations of incest breeding for shrimps?

I personally have not observed any so far despite the fact that some of my populations came from just a few surviving imported animals. In fact, my Red Cherry Shrimp are in their gazillionth generation right now and are all healthy and fit.


Mustafa

I agree with Mustafa.

I have had a similar experience with guppies and they are still going strong after with the same bunch for 3 years + (more if you discount the 8 females that I added)

They all look really nice too.

TKD

Mustafa wrote:I personally have not observed any so far despite the fact that some of my populations came from just a few surviving imported animals. In fact, my Red Cherry Shrimp are in their gazillionth generation right now and are all healthy and fit.


Mustafa

If anything careful line breeding of your 10 to the googlepex generation will add to the increased incidence of the traits you are looking for. It's not really an issue with shrimp and crayfish as they have more redundant sequences in their DNA than we do.

Of course "Incest is best!" works if your name is Riff Raff and your sister's name is Magenta.

http://www.rockymusic.org/covers/rhps-front.jpg

^^^^ LOL


Incest isn't bad unless there are shrimps with "undesireable" traits breeding, and passing those traits on. However, nature usually takes over first, and kills off the weaker shrimp before they procreate.

"Sex" exists and drives people, shrimp and most other living things for a purpose! And that purpose is typically defeated by inbreeding. In aquarium fish, one typically sees considerable degeneration relative to wild caught in fish that have been captive bred for many generations.

However, speciation (->the process of forming new species) often begins when a small group -- sometimes possibly just one pregnant female -- is cut off from its parent population. So it is possible for a healthy population, and even a healthy species, to evolve from a very limited gene pool.

Hi all,

I somehow came across an article that states that for crystal red shrimps breed from the same parents have higher chances of degeneration of grading. And the degree of degeneration will increase as the shrimps inter breed with each other further down the line. So that's why some breeders introduce new CRS to the breeding tank to curb the degeneration of grade.

I wonder how true this is. Anyone have experiences to share? I'm still having my first batch of CRS shrimplets so I can't comment.

Colourtv

So that's why some breeders introduce new CRS to the breeding tank to curb the degeneration of grade.

i have no experience with this, but it is true that degeneration does occur with inbreeding. ever watch that episode of the x-files where genes were kept "within the family"? not very pleasant...

but back to the topic at hand, i believe breeders in Japan/Asia introduce what's called a diamond (a wild caught male bee shrimp, since all CRS are captive-bred to begin with) to maintain the purity of traits in the CRS line. that is, the diamond fertilizes eggs of the captive-bred CRS, and offspring that produce the desired traits are then selectively bred and so on and so forth. this practice minimizes the degeneration of the colors, etc.

bringing in a vibrant male once in a while makes sense. Too bad it's not that easy to find one in my area but as long as they don't have retardation or defects it's ok. Just as Chaca said," fish have been breed in the wild with limited gene." I guess incest affects human instead of water life.

Cajunspice wrote: I guess incest affects human instead of water life.

it affects all living things.