Effects of line breeding on Cherry Shrimp

[seangee]

I have recently introduced a group of red rillis into my nano, which also contains a hoard of ravenous CPD .

I'm not really planning to do anything to protect the shrimplets (or fry) but sneakily hope that both populations are self sustaining once the plants are fully established. I have never kept shrimp before but to my eye the ones I have are a much better quality than those on sale in the LFS.

Should I expect a degredation in quality / health over time if I can't find anyone to swap stock with or should I just leave them to it?

Its 2 weeks since I added them and my first new arrivals are imminent. So I am considering keeping this batch safe from the CPD

 

[Colin_T]

If you line breed any creature and don't introduce new bloodlines from time to time, you run the risk of developing a weaker strain with more health issues and defects.

I line bred Ramshorn snails for over 10years. It wasn't deliberate, I just happened to have some in a tank and never added any new ones. Over a period of time they developed some cool colours and patterns but they also developed thinner shells and produced significantly fewer eggs, and the adult snails were smaller than their ancestors. When I eventually added a couple of new unrelated Ramshorn snails to the tank, they bred with the others in the tank and a lot of the young were not as colourful as the old stock, but they had much thicker harder shells and the number of eggs from them increased significantly.

Line breeding can improve certain traits and make the traits stronger and more dominant, but any weaknesses or genetic defects are also amplified.

Variety is the spice of life and that applies to everything including food we eat, to adding new bloodlines to strengthen a species.