# Newbster Questions on CRS / RCS



## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

ok, i have the following tank;

- 10 gallon Planted with Anubias Barteri Nana, Java Fern, Sagitaria, Different Mosses (and a long Moss Wall), hyprophilia, duckweed, frogbit
- low to medium light, NO co2
- alot of RCS shrimps and babies
- MTS and Apixi Snails
- Driftwood and Branch
- Amano Shrimps
- 3 Otto and some dwarf cories (they dont eat my rcs, and the rcs keep multiplying)
- Black Sand that is good for plants (cant remember name, but it doesnt lower then pH).
- Expected pH is 7.6 - 8 (basically, should be close to tap water).
- 2 filters and sponge at the inlet of them (will be upgrading the AC20 to a Eheim 2213 and either keep using the current AC50 or upgrade it to AC70 if i can control the flow)
- Current Parameters are Amonia and Nitrite at 0, and Nitrate at 10, room temp.
- Currently feeding every day or every 2 days. Current water changes are about 10-20% (closer to 10%) every week. 
- Feeding the following: Blanched Zuccini, John's Veggi with Cacium Sticks, Spirulina Sticks, Bloodworm Sticks, homemade gels. 
I have Kent's Liquid Calcium, which i sometimes add once a week after water change.

I want to venture into CRS in this tank, but understanding the following:
- Just have 4 - 8 of them cause they are expensive
- I dont have dedicated tank, so they will go into above 10g tank.
- I dont expect babies, cause i will be using tap water and wont be reducing the pH down using special substrate. So what i get is most likely what will be, and keep replacing as deaths happens hopefully shrimps lasting more than 1 year each. If some babies are produced / survive, cool, but i am not counting on it.

This is the inital goal anyways. With this in mind, the question is:

A) Do the CRS have a chance at surviving for 1 - 2 years? At above 5$ a shrimp, it is sort of an expensive experient for me.

B) I have some Oak Leaves at home, and herd they were good for shrimps. How do I use them.

C) What is the difference between an A and an S or S+ grade CRS, they look the same to me?

D) I live in Oakville. Is there someone not extremely far in my region that sells grade A or S CRS? I know Mr Bake is in Markham, and he seems to have some good pricing.

Thanks in advance.


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

A) They may do ok in the water. A few people have had some success in keeping them in tap water and even breeding. I've take my undesired shrimp before and put them in my tap-water community tanks before and they did fine to live out there lives. Sometimes they have molting problems. Older shrimp don't molt as much but take change harder, so it's a double edge sword. Getting older shrimp, they molt less and don't need as ideal water parameters but they don't adjust to different water as easy. Smaller, juvi sized shrimp can adjust better but molt more and sometimes need more ideal water for them to live in.

B) Leaves you just put in the tank, they will sink, release tannins and things good for the shrimp and the biofilm that grows on them is great for shrimp to feed on. Make sure they are pesticide free. If you bought them from someone, they should be. If you picked them yourself, you may not know whats on them.

C) While not the definitive answer to grading, here is an idea. Basically the more the white and less red, the higher the grade.










D) You can post a WTB in the buy and sell area looking for them in your area. Some of us on here sell during the shrimp meets or in general when our populations get high.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

thanks for the reply. I had seen that picture of the grades, but couldnt tell the difference so much they are alike between grade A and grade S or S+. What do beginers usually start with?

Also, these look like a shrimp that you keep breeding within each other to have a nice color match, so just wandering what is the natural color of this shrimp, if anyone has any pics, and if they are hardier than the prettier ones, and if so, if there is somewhere i could get them?


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

The A grade can have 3 or 4 white bands and some cracks in the colors or white. The S grade shouldn't have any cracks and usually 3 white bands. The S+ grade, the big thick middle band starts to take on patterns like the V or the Tiger Tooth. SS, the middle band doesn't extend down to the body and either forms a solid red dot, small red dot, a red dot with a while circle in the middle, etc.

The wild version is the wild bee shrimp. Frank from Kim's Nature in Markham gets them in sometimes. They look like a A or B grade shrimp, a lot less white, and black instead of red.

Initially, the wild bee shrimp were taken from nature and kept in tanks to sell. In the case of holding the shrimp, they started breeding and people started breeding them. Once in a while, they would notice some with nicer whites, so they started breeding those to get some nicer white and more solid black stripes.

During all this breeding, out of probably tens or hundreds of thousands of shrimp, a red and white appeared. This was bred with other shrimp and we had a crystal red shrimp.

This was refined with other red crystals to get patterns, brighter colors, etc.

Started with this










Refined to this










Randomly got this










Now we have this


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

wow, thanks for the detailed nice explanation. So the CRS is really a special bee shrimp? Does that mean that the bee shrimp wont breed with my rcs shrimp either?

If that is the case, are the Bee Shrimp hardier than the CRS, thus i have a better chance at breeding them or keeping them alive? I guess i now have to explore the bee shrimps too!!!

However, the CRS sure look nicer...  I may still wanna try the CRS....


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## camboy012406 (Jun 11, 2010)

your wrong the first pic thats a bumble bee it is Caridina cf. breviata. CBS/CRS are Caridina cantonensis. I have that


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

camboy012406 said:


> your wrong the first pic thats a bumble bee it is Caridina cf. breviata. CBS/CRS are Caridina cantonensis. I have that


Ya, it was the closet pic I could find, but basically that's what wild bee's look like. I realize it wasn't an exact wild bee, but close enough for the purpose.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

Thanks guys, all good.

will CRS breed with the bee shrimps? 

is it ok to have Black CRS with Red CRS for breeding purpose (or is it bad just like having yellow with red chery shrimps?)


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## camboy012406 (Jun 11, 2010)

getochkn said:


> Ya, it was the closet pic I could find, but basically that's what wild bee's look like. I realize it wasn't an exact wild bee, but close enough for the purpose.


ah okey.hehehehe..


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## camboy012406 (Jun 11, 2010)

zfarsh said:


> Thanks guys, all good.
> 
> will CRS breed with the bee shrimps?
> 
> is it ok to have Black CRS with Red CRS for breeding purpose (or is it bad just like having yellow with red chery shrimps?)


if you are planning to breed shrimps in longterm say 4-5yrs and aiming for highgrades dont mix crs and cbs. but if you are like me like to mix all the shrimps in one tank hoping for a new mutation id say go for it


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

zfarsh said:


> Thanks guys, all good.
> 
> will CRS breed with the bee shrimps?
> 
> is it ok to have Black CRS with Red CRS for breeding purpose (or is it bad just like having yellow with red chery shrimps?)


Black CRS isn't CRS anymore ;-) It's called CBS (Crystal Black Shrimp).

Mixing CRS and CBS is okay, you get either CRS or CBS babies, and some CBS won't be as black, more like brownish, but it's not too bad, some people like it more than regular CBS. And once in a while you get some tri-colour (with white/black/red on the same shrimp), not rare or anything.

Only reason not to mix CRS and CBS is if you want to get a pure colony.

Mixing yellow with RCS is totally different, offspring can go back to wild type colouration (brow/blackish, and not the nice brown/blackish;-)


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

what happens when a CRS breeds with a CBS ??? Does it give mutants, or does it give CRS and/or CBS only ?

Oubs, randy just answered, nevermind, thanks for the clarification!!!!


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

zfarsh said:


> Thanks guys, all good.
> 
> will CRS breed with the bee shrimps?
> 
> is it ok to have Black CRS with Red CRS for breeding purpose (or is it bad just like having yellow with red chery shrimps?)


CRS will breed with most other Caridina shrimp like tigers, crystal red and black, probably some of the wild bee's and other variations. Once you even start breeding with tigers or other Caridina outside the cantonensis line though, you can end up with infertile shrimp or other problems. Breeding a nice CRS with a wild bee is like taking 200 steps back in generations. I believe camboy012406 has their breviata in a separate tank in an attempt to line breed them and see what get (I remember the thread a while ago when they got them, but can't remember the specifics)

As for keeping CRS and CBS together, the black is a dominant gene, so if a black shrimp (that has double dominant genes) breeds with a red shrimp, all the babies will be black, carrying a red and black gene. These breed back together, with give roughly the Mendel 25/50/25 split of 25% of the babies will be double gene black, 50% will be black and red gene carriers, and 25% will be red.

So, you can see that roughly (genetics is never 25/50/25) if you bred 1 red and 1 black shrimp together, and removed the parents and left to babies to breed, you would get roughly 75% black shrimp, 25% red shrimp, so the black can take over quickly.

With that said, so many of today's black crystals, with the exception of the Pure Black lines, have been crossed with red shrimp anyways. Many people buy a group of black and get some red babies out of it, meaning the parents with black with red recessive genes in there somewhere.

If you are going to mix them, only add a few blacks to many reds to help slow down the black color take over or remove them after a while, as adding some blacks or snow whites for a generation or two is a good way to mix up the gene pool a bit.

So, adding a few high quality CBS that are more than likely pure black gene shrimp, black will take over quicker. Adding most CBS that have some red in them already down the line, you'll get a more even mix for a while. Adding a few CBS for a couple of generations, then removing, you can cull out the black shrimp for a few more generations and get back to red fairly easily and have introduced some new genes into your shrimp.


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## camboy012406 (Jun 11, 2010)

look at these beautiful shrimps they came from mutation by mixing some certain shrimps http://gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41205


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

camboy012406 said:


> if you are planning to breed shrimps in longterm say 4-5yrs and aiming for highgrades dont mix crs and cbs. but if you are like me like to mix all the shrimps in one tank hoping for a new mutation id say go for it


Mutant tank forward!!! My tank right now. lol.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

camboy012406 said:


> look at these beautiful shrimps they came from mutation by mixing some certain shrimps http://gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41205


You don't get anything close to those by just mixing shrimps though, it will take generations of line breed to get nice stuff ... unless you're really lucky I guess. I tried not to mix tigers with bee shrimps, but I don't mind any KK/CRS/CWS/CBS/Golden mix to see what happens. But, that's just me.


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

randy said:


> You don't get anything close to those by just mixing shrimps though, it will take generations of line breed to get nice stuff ... unless you're really lucky I guess. I tried not to mix tigers with bee shrimps, but I don't mind any KK/CRS/CWS/CBS/Golden mix to see what happens. But, that's just me.


Ya, tiger's and crystals are hit and miss. Mostly ugly shrimp without lots of line breeding, then they get some nice ones but after a few generations, a lot of people have fertility problems with them. I was reading Mo's Shrimp facebook page, lots of very beautiful tiger-crystal tibee's, but then they took a huge hit infertility, and went from hundreds down to a few dozen in some of the tanks. TB/CRS/CWS/CBS/Golden are all from the same shrimp, so they don't have those problems but adding in the sub-groups like tigers, or TT's or other shrimp, they seem to have problems after a few generations. The gene's are close enough to match and breed, but as the babies breed, you get some gene drift that renders them infertile.

The problem with all these nice photos on facebook and online, is a lot of times they are a 1-off shrimp, or they breed for a bit, then the color/pattern fades or infertility strikes. I don't really look at them or consider them special until they can be bred for generations with the same color, pattern and are able to reproduce generation after generation. 1 nice looking shrimp that can't breed isn't that special, because it will never pass that on.


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## camboy012406 (Jun 11, 2010)

getochkn said:


> Ya, tiger's and crystals are hit and miss. Mostly ugly shrimp without lots of line breeding, then they get some nice ones but after a few generations, a lot of people have fertility problems with them. I was reading Mo's Shrimp facebook page, lots of very beautiful tiger-crystal tibee's, but then they took a huge hit infertility, and went from hundreds down to a few dozen in some of the tanks. TB/CRS/CWS/CBS/Golden are all from the same shrimp, so they don't have those problems but adding in the sub-groups like tigers, or TT's or other shrimp, they seem to have problems after a few generations. The gene's are close enough to match and breed, but as the babies breed, you get some gene drift that renders them infertile.
> 
> The problem with all these nice photos on facebook and online, is a lot of times they are a 1-off shrimp, or they breed for a bit, then the color/pattern fades or infertility strikes. I don't really look at them or consider them special until they can be bred for generations with the same color, pattern and are able to reproduce generation after generation. 1 nice looking shrimp that can't breed isn't that special, because it will never pass that on.


but do you know that tigers are important for breeding pintos. Mos shrimps just started in 2009/2010 for breeding f2tibees shes just new compare to other breeders in taiwans. are you sure her shrimps died because of infertile or gene drift?


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## camboy012406 (Jun 11, 2010)

I tried not to mix tigers with bee shrimps, but I don't mind any KK/CRS/CWS/CBS/Golden mix to see what happens. But, that's just me.[/QUOTE]

well, thats your opinion. every breeder has different opinions but id still stick to the one's who has experiences like this guy he mixes f2tigers/tigers/tangerine/bkk/rw etc.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

wow, these pictures are absolutely amazing, thanks for all the info and pictures everyone.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

ok well, its stored in my head, at least i got to see the goodies!!!


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## GAT (Oct 8, 2011)

why is it private? are you trying to develop a new line before others?


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

if he does, then he gonna be rich!!!!


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

just curious to know which members here have tried to keep some CRS in tap water with normal substrate (ie pH of 7.6 instead of 6).


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## camboy012406 (Jun 11, 2010)

lol. the pic is not mine and the shrimps are not mine. im afraid they gonna cut my head if I show it to public


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

zfarsh said:


> just curious to know which members here have tried to keep some CRS in tap water with normal substrate (ie pH of 7.6 instead of 6).


A few have tried, a few have succeeded. See this recent post for some of the members.

http://www.gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=40389


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

zfarsh said:


> just curious to know which members here have tried to keep some CRS in tap water with normal substrate (ie pH of 7.6 instead of 6).


Egonsgirl has said her crystals are breeding and she has babies using just Brampton tap water. How different their water is to GTA water, I'm not sure. Sometimes water from city to city is vastly different, sometimes it's the same. I think her pH is around 7.4 or so she said.

My tank is RO water with Bee gH+ minerals added back but no active substrate, so the pH is around 6.8-7, but the gh/kh/TDS are the same as using active substrate, so it's a test to see how well they do with all the other parameters the same, but the pH is higher. So far they are active, breeding, not dying in. Babies living will be the key. I have about 10 pregnant females in there from A-SSS+ grade, so if it works, I should start to see babies in a week or two and more and more a few weeks after that.


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

I have kept my CRS/CBS together for a good long while. I didn't get any of the brownies only because I started with high grade mosura's to breed each with. I think if you go with lower grades then you might get the brownies once in a while, but they all carry the genetics to create both black and red so if you just leave it alone you will eventually get more CRS/CBS.

If you want all CRS then you would need to keep them separate. A lot of breeders like the red/white shrimps and breed specifically for those to increase the red color and the more solid white...aka PRL or Pure Red Lines.

I could do the same thing with my shrimps as those people on the vidoes did, but what you end up with as we breeders that like a challenge know, is that the hybrid shrimps might not produce the required coloration/markings that we want in subsequent generations.

When you get into outcrossing types of shrimps you can't really control what comes out of the pot. Yes you can have luck (in my case with my Bengal Tiger shrimps which are producing the same coloration) but again down the road we just don't know if it will stabilize or fall apart again.

With the market for Taiwans aka BKK, WR, BB right now coming out with these Pinto TW shrimps there is no way to know if you purchase a Taiwan that is hasn't been exposed or bred from one of those outcross Taiwans. So one day your female BKK has babies and out pops some blue headed black banded baby 

Good if you can sell it (which most of us cannot as the market it in Japan for these types) bad if you can't breed it again...it could be a oneoff as Jay said.

I know Micha Nadal in Germany personally, we've talked back and forth for a couple of years about his shrimps, and I was the first person to post his pictures of his BTOEs a few years back. I was going to bring some of his shrimps in to GTA, but the transportation from Germany couldn't get worked out at that time.

He is the originators of those outcross fancy shrimps and he does not have a huge population of these. They are one offs! He may find one he likes and tries to establish it, but that takes years of trying/culling and he likes to create many different shrimps so I doubt he's got a lot for sale.

Best to stick to one type when you are first trying out Crystals, they are hard enough to keep alive for newbies, and expensive at that. Give the lower grades a try in a separately set up tank for them.

Your PH is too high at 7+ and nitrates would be a problem for them. You need to get the Netlea soil for them and use floating plants to control nitrite/nitrates first before putting them in or they will just die on you.


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