# Cherry selective breeding questions



## sujeev87 (Oct 17, 2010)

Hey I have a tank full of cherries and would like to start culling the shrimp that I find to have unfavourable attributes. What size should I start culling at? My selective pressure will for bright red colouring. How would I go about culling the shrimp to get optimal change in the population? I also would like the males to colour up too but the males that I have in my population are clear and have very very little colouring. Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks


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## Dman (May 1, 2012)

Get a male fire red and get rid of your clear males


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

Dman said:


> Get a male fire red and get rid of your clear males


Then get a few female fire reds and sell all your cherries


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## Egonsgirl (Feb 28, 2012)

Funny Randy,,,, but ya, I might take some of the cherries, depending on where you are on this planet.  works for me.. lol


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

You usually have to wait till they get to breeding age before they really color up. I started culling too early before and ended up pulling some of the culls back out because the females really colored up after getting saddled or even berried for the first time.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

You have to be careful with cherries, their coloration depends on a lot of factors. First is background color: even if you have a black substrate, that clear shrimp you see may be clear because it's grazing on the glass or a leaf.

Second, RCS colors up a lot more when you feed them color enhancing food. I have selected solid red shrimps and put them into a tank where they graze only on algae. The shrimps' color faded dramatically in a few days.


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## ScarletFire (Nov 4, 2012)

getochkn said:


> You usually have to wait till they get to breeding age before they really color up. I started culling too early before and ended up pulling some of the culls back out because the females really colored up after getting saddled or even berried for the first time.





solarz said:


> You have to be careful with cherries, their coloration depends on a lot of factors. First is background color: even if you have a black substrate, that clear shrimp you see may be clear because it's grazing on the glass or a leaf.
> 
> Second, RCS colors up a lot more when you feed them color enhancing food. I have selected solid red shrimps and put them into a tank where they graze only on algae. The shrimps' color faded dramatically in a few days.


Sorry for bringing up an old thread, but I have a couple of questions that go along with this.

Would putting culls into an external breeding box be okay? Should I cover the two sides with black so that if it turns out that I culled too early, I can still put them back in?

Should I even be culling since I just have roughly 30 shrimps? I want to make sure that their colours stay solid though


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

What are your 30 shrimps like? Already nice colour or mixed? I have been culling my 20G PFR tank for the last few months and I can tell you it's tedious. If you miss one bad male then you better hope it's not too horny ;-)

If your 30 shrimps are mixed grade, I say get rid of them and restart fresh from a nice group. Igor has some nice PFRs. Even with 10, you can expect to have a big group in a few months if they are happy with your water. If they are not happy with your water, then it doesn't matter if you start with 10 or 100.


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## ScarletFire (Nov 4, 2012)

They're already a nice colour, and I want to make sure that I keep them that way. I got them from Igor, and they seem to be happy with the water. I just wanted to know what to do when my shrimplets grow up  Is it the male that contributes to the colour? From these posts, it seems like that it's just the male that matters.



randy said:


> What are your 30 shrimps like? Already nice colour or mixed? I have been culling my 20G PFR tank for the last few months and I can tell you it's tedious. If you miss one bad male then you better hope it's not too horny ;-)
> 
> If your 30 shrimps are mixed grade, I say get rid of them and restart fresh from a nice group. Igor has some nice PFRs. Even with 10, you can expect to have a big group in a few months if they are happy with your water. If they are not happy with your water, then it doesn't matter if you start with 10 or 100.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

ScarletFire said:


> They're already a nice colour, and I want to make sure that I keep them that way. I got them from Igor, and they seem to be happy with the water. I just wanted to know what to do when my shrimplets grow up  Is it the male that contributes to the colour? From these posts, it seems like that it's just the male that matters.


Both matter, not just the male. It's just that a single bad male can cause you 10x more trouble than a single bad female. Since you already started with a nice crew, just get the ones that aren't as good then you should be fine. Note that not all shrimps colour up in early stage, what I do is, I'm very strict with male, and will give female enough time until first berry. I put a small floating breeding box in the tank and net the ones I don't like in there. If they repent and colour up then they can go back. My 9 years old call it the "jail" ;-)


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## ScarletFire (Nov 4, 2012)

randy said:


> Both matter, not just the male. It's just that a single bad male can cause you 10x more trouble than a single bad female. Since you already started with a nice crew, just get the ones that aren't as good then you should be fine. Note that not all shrimps colour up in early stage, what I do is, I'm very strict with male, and will give female enough time until first berry. I put a small floating breeding box in the tank and net the ones I don't like in there. If they repent and colour up then they can go back. My 9 years old call it the "jail" ;-)


I thought you can't differentiate males and females until they are juvies.

I have an external breeder box since an internal breeding net/box will take up too much space in a 10 gal. The breeding box I have is rather large. What if I move berried shrimp into the box so that shrimplets grow in a contained space? Or is it better for berried shrimp to berry in the tank, then net shrimp into the box?


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

I start calling at around 0.8-1.0 cm. You can't really tell the sex by the body shape but you should be able to tell by the colour. Male will start to be less colourful comparing to the female. But then again, if you do it too early you'll get some false alarm. If you have hundreds of shrimps in the tank you'd better be safe than sorry. The most important thing is always start with a new group, or it will take forever.


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