Unique shrimp lines have always been sought after overseas, these lineages were/ are developed over several years of intense selection. Selection meaning pairing male to females with ideal traits in the hopes to produce offspring’s that showcase those traits more frequently. The shrimp selection process often requires the breeders to have multiple tanks setup per shrimp line to properly do this. The question you are probably wanting to ask is whether or not purchasing a premium line is worth it.
So, what’s the value in a lineage? This can have a few answers depending on who you ask. For me a great lineage overall produces a higher percentage of quality shrimps, the higher the percentage of higher grades being produced, the more valuable the lineage. This is not to say that you cannot improve upon a lineage, but the value comes from the time already spent on a shrimp line.
Let’s put this in a more mathematical frame, if you spend say $3-5ea on 10 orange eye blonde tiger shrimps for 1 tank, and then spend $12-25ea on 10 orange eye blue tiger. You have the skillset to produce 50 offspring’s from juvenile to adults. You put blood, sweat, gh+ salt tears into maintaining the tank for 6-8 months (most realistic timeline for majority of people, although it varies depending on the line and how good the breeder is) to get to this point. The results will be roughly 20% blue tiger, 80% blonde tigers for the OE Blonde tiger colony & about 50/50 for the OE Blue tiger colony, although this can be skewed to 70/30 depending on the line, some closer to 80-95% blue.
This was just an example of where the value lies in lineage, of course other factors are involved in a lineage other than % of highs, health of the line is quite important as well. But, overall, what you should set your mind to thinking is, I’m paying for the time it took to select the shrimp line to the point where the line is now producing 60-70% quality offspring’s. In layman’s term, you are purchasing time. Not all lines can produce 60-70% though, so be careful when you are being marketed 90% for a premium line because that’s just unrealistic and where did they pull that number from.