Taiwan bee shrimp breeding     12/26/17
hey, i have a question about breeding Taiwan bees.
<Fire away.>
i am keeping Neocaridina spp., but i have decided to upgrade to the finer shrimps.
<Not sure what you mean by "finer" here. Do you mean the more expensive, difficult to breed shrimps? Or simply the smaller shrimps?>
i don't know much on the biology of breeding Taiwan bees, but my friend gave me some of his shadow pandas and snow white bees. i know you shouldn't mix Neocaridina spp, but can you put these two in the same tank without
interbreeding?
<It is unwise to mix any species from the same genera. So mixing Caridina species is a bad idea. While some species might not hybridise, I don't think there's enough evidence to give a categorical "yes" or "no".
Experience of Neocaridina is certainly that these species frequently hybridise. Furthermore, most of the 'fancy' Caridina shrimps are simply selected (i.e., artificially bred) varieties of a single species, Caridina cantonensis. Mixing these in the same tank will definitely result in hybrids. Taiwan Bees, Crystal Reds and Royal Blues are all tank-bred forms of Caridina cantonensis. (Caridina cantonensis is, incidentally, very variable in the wild, Red Tigers and Crystal Blacks being names we've given to naturally occurring forms.>
i just want snow white bees and shadow pandas, no mixes.
<Both of these are artificial forms of Caridina cantonensis. So yes, they will cross breed happily.>
also, will shadow pandas eventually turn into something else, like a black king Kong? what about the snow white bees?
<Good quality artificial forms should "breed true", being homozygous with regard to particular colouration and patterning genes. This means that if you have, for example, a tank of Shadow Panda Shrimps, all the offspring should be Shadow Pandas. Doesn't always work this way of the quality isn't good, and some specimens are heterozygous. Anything recessive, not showing up in the original parental, or P, generation, may turn up in the F1
generation.>
will they turn into golden bees? i don't mind golden bees, but will they turn into something else? i read several breeding charts but they are telling me different things.
<Well, hope the above helps. Cheers, Neale.>
Re: Taiwan bee shrimp breeding     12/27/17
What would happen if you cross breed them? Will you get Blue Bolts?
<Off the top of my head, no idea. But I can tell you if you say "thanks" people put a lot more effort into things like replies to questions! Cheers and beers, Neale.>
Re: Taiwan bee shrimp breeding     12/27/17
sorry for my rudeness, i just had more questions that I forgot to include.
<No problem.>
I'm only an eight year old kid so... hopefully that's good enough excuse lol.
<I guess...>
Got more to learn i guess. but jokes aside, so if not blue bolts, what will they turn into if they interbreed?
<Incredibly hard to predict. Yes, new varieties are produced by cross-breeding existing varieties. But more often than not, this sort of cross-breeding causes the shrimps to return to something more similar to the wild shrimps. Why? Because artificial varieties have specific sets of alleles (i.e., versions of genes) that tend to be all jumbled up in the wild type. Think about dogs. Labradors, poodles, greyhounds all have different sub-sets of genes found in wolves. When producing greyhounds, people chose the best genes for running fast. But put all those dogs together on an island, and then come back in ten years and you'll find not Labradors, poodles and greyhounds -- but wolf-like dogs that have sort of "averaged out" all the different genes those three dog breeds originally had. Make sense? So while cross-breeding labs and poodles has created labradoodles, mostly cross-breeding dogs ends up with mutts. Do Google "Caridina cantonensis family tree" to get a lovely chart showing how the different varieties are related.>
cuz if it is something cool, then i won't mind mixing them together. i kinda don't like the look of a divider.
<An option.>
again, sorry for the rudeness, i just wasn't done asking questions, my bad.
on the other hand, thank you very much!
<Most welcome. Neale.>
Re: Taiwan bee shrimp breeding     12/27/17
ok, now i got my info, i have some final questions. so, according to the chart, low grade crystal reds will eventually turn into snow white bees after a time of selective breeding.
<Presumably, but I think that assumes you actively select shrimps that look more and more like Snow White shrimps at each generation. If you just allow "low grade" Crystal Reds (which presumably means they're not true-breeding)
to breed amongst themselves, you're simply going to end up with more low grade Crystal Reds.>
i know you said that good quality forms will keep its pattern.
<True-breeding is the phrase you're looking for. Homozygous is the technical term. If both parents ONLY have the desired genes (and remember, every animal has two copies of each gene) then whatever happens, they'll produce offspring with only those genes. True-breeding animals are expensive for this reason, and oftentimes breeders won't release one of the sexes. So if you were a Taiwanese shrimp breeder, you might only sell true-breeding males. This means anyone else would have to cross those true-breeding shrimps with some "mutt" shrimp of unknown genetics, and hope some of the offspring were what you wanted. While that'd work, the resulting offspring wouldn't be true-breeding. It'd take years to establish a true-breeding line, which costs time and money. This all helps that Taiwanese guy maximise his income from his hard work, while ensuring nobody else can "cash in" from it.>
however, for example like shadow pandas, wouldn't the blue become more dominant over time?
<Not necessarily. Very simply, suppose there are two alleles for colour, which we'll call "R" for "red", and "r" for "blue". Each shrimp gets two copies of this gene, one from its mom, one from its dad. If those parents are true-breeding blues, they'd both have "rr" as their two copies, so whatever genes they passed onto their offspring, the only possible combination would be "rr", so all the offspring would be blue. With me so far? Now suppose they're non-true breeding reds. Then the two parents could both be "Rr". Mom could pass on either an "R" or an "r", and dad could also pass on either an "R" or an "r". For any given four baby shrimps, on average, one would get the combination "RR" from the two parents, two babies would get "Rr", and one baby "rr". In other words, one would be a true-breeding red, two non-true-breeding reds, and one a true-breeding blue. This basic idea is called the Mendelian Inheritance, and in the UK at least, we teach it in high school. Often the kids think it's pretty irrelevant to day-to-day life, but as you can see, the moment you start breeding animals or plants, it becomes really important! Crucially, traits don't vanish even if they skip a generation -- those baby shrimps that were non-breeding reds might look red to us, but they could produce blue shrimps when they bred among themselves.>
to the point where you see no black?
<As explained, breeding animals isn't like mixing paint. Unless you actively select the darkest shrimps with each generation, and only breed those, then Mendelian Inheritance takes over, and you get roughly the same proportions of alleles (the different versions of genes) from one generation to the next.>
I do like the mix of black and light blue, rather than just light blue.
what about the snow whites? since they are the highest grade possible, will they just stay like that?
<Only if they are true breeding.>
thanks
<Welcome. Neale.>
Re: Taiwan bee shrimp breeding     12/27/17
ok, so im guessing that finding a pair (preferably more) of shrimp with the homozygous traits that i want, is basically a gamble then. am i right?
<Indeed. But good quality strains sold as true breeding should be homozygous for the traits you want. If they're sold as true breeding, then by definition, any offspring will be more or less identical to their parents.>
or is there a way to tell, which im guessing there isn't,
<Some traits are only seen in the homozygous state. For example, blue eyes in humans are always homozygous because the blue-eye allele is recessive:
two blue-eyed parents will normally only produce blue-eyed children. By contrast, the brown-eye allele is dominant. So brown-eye people could have two brown-eye alleles, or one brown and one blue-eye allele. As such, two brown-eye people can, and do, produce blue-eye children, potentially up to 25% of the time if both parents are heterozygous. So: you'd need to establish (perhaps reading online, or asking on pet shrimp forums) which traits (such as colours or stripes) are caused by recessive alleles, and therefore only seen in homozygous shrimps. Get those shrimps, and they should be true-breeding, right from the start!>
especially purchasing online.
<Indeed.>
btw thank you very much, i learned a lot about biology today, considering that i am very young.
<Glad to help, and good to know you're open to learning new stuff. Have fun! Neale.>