Two Questions: Cholla & Neo Interbreeding

[cjyhc4]

1 - I have read that Neos like cholla wood. I have a piece that I purchased for my hermit crabs who never took a shine to it. Would it be safe to just plop in my shrimp tank?

2 - I have ordered some Rilis from ryantube here on TPT. Would they interbreed with other Neos, if placed in the same tank? If, say, I added some PFRs or basic RCS, what would the result be?

It's been a little over 2 years since I had Neos, and a lot has changed, except care. There are new strains (hence, the Rilis I purchased), and I seem to have a lot to add to my knowledge base, especially about the new variations.

I had Neos (RCS and wild (red/brown mix)) in three separate tanks at one point, and they bred like crazy. They just LOVE the water here in the Ozarks. My city is on a well system and is treated with only chlorine before distribution, so the water is full of minerals not found in most river drawn systems.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Be sure to use a water conditioner for aquatics to take out any chemicals added. heh

Will neos interbreed? Yepper. Both rilis and other colors of cherries are selectively bred, so by mixing colors you actually undo the years of hard work. However if you just want a tank of beautiful colored adults and just want babies, it may be okay for you. Just depends on what your goal is.

And the cholla wood would be fine for any shrimp, as long as it is clean.

[cjyhc4]

Of course I use a water conditioner, lol.

Regarding interbreeding. I don't know enough about Neo genetics to know what would be produced if crossed with other variations. I'd like to know more, if someone is willing to educated me. Yes, I know the basics of Mendelian genetics, but I don't know how the shrimp genome is divided or which traits are dominant or recessive.

[Fdsh5]

When shrimp interbreed they revert back to brown. My yellow shrimp once in a while will throw a brown shrimp and I just plop it into another tank I have that now is loaded with brown shrimp. I have cholla in all my shrimp tanks. They LOVE it. It grows biofilm and give them somewhere to hide.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Originally Posted by cjyhc4

Of course I use a water conditioner, lol.

Regarding interbreeding. I don't know enough about Neo genetics to know what would be produced if crossed with other variations. I'd like to know more, if someone is willing to educated me. Yes, I know the basics of Mendelian genetics, but I don't know how the shrimp genome is divided or which traits are dominant or recessive.

Most colors do revert back to wild or brown when crossed. Yellow, orange and red are so close together you can get shades of any of them in the same tank, but other crosses seem to go wild.

Not a lot is written on shrimp genetics, which I think is a shame.

[madness]

I think that Cholla is sort of like Malaysian driftwood - it is so rough and porous that it accumulates a ton of bio-film that the shrimp seem to absolutely love.

[cjyhc4]

Thanks everyone :-)