Cherry shrimp breeding, how to keep the red?

[rom]

I bought 4 beautiful cherry shrimp from my LFS, they are all solid red in colour. They've now bred and the first generation is reaching adulthood. None of them are red. Many are clear, some have dark patches on them. I have a passing knowledge of genetics, for example I know that recessive alleles in heterozygotes can't be seen, so traits can often skip generations. Basically, I'm wondering if I'm ever gonna get any red shrimp?

I didn't necessarily want to breed shrimp but I would like more red shrimp than I have.

 

[Colin_T]

Just keep breeding them and keep the red offspring. Buy in new bloodlines of red shrimp and mix them with your own. Eventually you should get a pure bloodline throwing all or mostly red young. Even then you still need to add new bloodlines regularly to prevent inbreeding and weak shrimp.

 

[seangee]

You may want to source your stock from a breeder or shrimp specialist where you can choose the grade. I have always been happy with pro-shrimp.co.uk, although I believe they are not shipping livestock at present.

Unfortunately the shrimps sold in many LFSs (especially reds) are what is known in the trade as feeder shrimp. In essence what you buy is what has been rejected by breeders following the method described by @Colin_T. Yes you can get back to a purer bloodline - but it will take much longer than if you start with high quality stock.

This is of course a generalisation - I have no idea where you sourced your shrimp.

 

[Steves57]

I bought 4 beautiful cherry shrimp from my LFS, they are all solid red in colour. They've now bred and the first generation is reaching adulthood. None of them are red. Many are clear, some have dark patches on them. I have a passing knowledge of genetics, for example I know that recessive alleles in heterozygotes can't be seen, so traits can often skip generations. Basically, I'm wondering if I'm ever gonna get any red shrimp?

I didn't necessarily want to breed shrimp but I would like more red shrimp than I have.

The ancestral davidii is clear or brownish and only rarely shows any other colour - it has taken lots of line breeding to get to the bright red cherry shrimp and davidii in yellows and blues.

If you have any other colour of shrimp in with your cherries you are likely to get throwbacks.

If you don't have other colours of davidii then you need to cull any off colour shrimp to maintain the red line but be aware young shrimp do not show their best colours until they start sexing out.