[romster]

Hey there,
I consider myself to be still a newbie in the shrimp keeping trade. I bought a pack of 15 Neocaridina Davidi Sakura Red shrimps for my little 40L tank. They are doing great nad the population has grown to an extent when I started selling them in small batches (20 last month, 15 this month) to keepers around the city and I still have a good population of around 30. The color is still great, especially on the females, but that is nothing new. But the males tend to be now and then a bit transparent. Not completely, it's not down to red cherry or wild form, but still you can tell they are of weaker red then the rest. So I try to separate them into my "culling" daughter's tank.

My questions here are following. I came across a breeder who has basically all gardes of Sakura Red- A, S, SS.
Would it make sense for me to buy a few (say 5- 8) new shrimps of the higher grades to refresh the genepool/ colors? I am not quite sure what grade my original shrimps are, but let's say they are Sakura Red Grade A, should I go for Grade S, or even SS? Will it not in any way negatively influence the offspring? I am hoping to get brighter red offspring from this mixing. I just hope the better red will not have like patches of darker and lighter red on individual shrimps.

Thank you for any input and advice on this. Maybe some of you have had this experience.

 

[Zoidburg]

Honestly, most breeders do not grade their sakuras using the ABCS methods....


Even the highest grade male shrimp could appear quite dull and bland... so it makes it harder to cull out the lesser colored shrimp when the majority of them just might end up being males!


Getting some higher grade sakuras WOULD have the potential to make your colony better......

However, on the flip side.... it would lessen the quality of the shrimp that you already have....


It would be recommended to set up a separate tank if you want higher grades, but you could just stick them in with your sakuras and continue culling until you reach the desired level of coloration that you wish for in your colony. Entirely up to you!

 

[romster]

"Getting some higher grade sakuras WOULD have the potential to make your colony better......

However, on the flip side.... it would lessen the quality of the shrimp that you already have...."


Thanks for your insight. I would like to ask about the above. How would getting a better shrimp lessen the quality of my shrimp? I would get a better quality shrimp and add them to my tank, so on the contrary, I would lessen the quality of the few shrimps I would get in now. Right? Or how did you mean it?

 

[Zoidburg]

My apologies, I worded that wrong!

Meant to say, your shrimp would lessen the quality of the new shrimp, if the new shrimp are of a higher grade than what you have.

 

[romster]

My apologies, I worded that wrong!

Meant to say, your shrimp would lessen the quality of the new shrimp, if the new shrimp are of a higher grade than what you have.

yes, that is what I thought you meant. But I would add the higher quality in there bearing in mind they would "downgrade", but the rest of the old colony would potentially upgrade.