Hello friends, here we are with a new blog post on a very interesting topic. I have received numerous questions and one that frequently comes up would be “male shrimps have dominant genes” and hence buying a good male is important.

Let’s touch on this very interesting topic today and hopefully you gain some useful insights from this post.

When it comes to premium shrimps, male shrimps are indeed very important. Male shrimps are important not because they have the dominant gene and hence the ability to pass down good traits to the offspring. This is absolutely a myth and not true.

Male shrimps are important because they can help yield higher rate of offspring that are beautiful in a shorter period. You can find out more information about this in my old blog post here, mainly it’s just a mathematics game.

Dominant genes are a type of gene when present in most life forms, the gene will be express in its physical appearance. Each individual shrimp has two copies of each gene, one inherited from each parent. The combination of these genes determines the traits of the offspring. Hence, only through the offspring, you can determine whether the female or the male has the more dominant gene. Nonetheless, that would also change when the couple change partners.

When it comes to hybrid shrimps, they mostly are already expressing the recessive traits and the physical appearance of the shrimps are considered very stable. Hybrid shrimps tend to be easier to refine due to genetic reasons. Hybrid shrimps are shrimps that have crossed with Taiwanbee(BKK/WR/BB) shrimps.

However, there are multiple traits of a shrimps that can be refined for example, a Red Devil Caridina, one may like to improve the red coloration to a blood red type by refining more black pigmentation on its body. As Red Devil are hybrid shrimps, this is easily refined after two to three generations.

When it comes to non-hybrid shrimps like Pure Red Line and Pure Red Fancy Tigers, they require more time to refine just the base coloration of the shrimps. If you notice RFT that have been crossed with Taiwanbees tend to have stronger base coloration and stronger coloration on the white stripes. As they grow older, the color still remains strong. RFT that are not pure are easy to refine and hence, the price for these shrimps is lowered. For hobbyist that are not into pure lineage, these shrimps are widely accepted.

Vice versa, a pure RFT is very difficult to refine and as they grow older, the base color will become lighter, and the white stripes will have cracks. This is inevitable as even the most expensive PRL will have cracks as they grow older. Pure RFT are a lot more challenging and could take up to years to refine a perfect shrimp, but definitely a great collection for hobbyist who appreciate the hard work of refining shrimps..

Now if male genes are dominant, won’t every single human being on earth be looking like their dad? I hope this short blog post helps clarify the question and also guides you to your breeding journey. If you have further questions, feel free to drop me an email at hello@madshrimp.com.