Inside the world of shrimp breeding

This piece is a part of our Fantastic Farms series, looking at the unique agriculture in the Sacramento region. Find out more here.

Erik Lucas moved in with his parents 15 years ago to save up to buy a house. During this time he had an aquarium, but was getting a little tired of the same kinds of fish in his tank. Lucas had been getting ready to take the aquarium down, until he decided to order some shrimp for his aquarium off Ebay.  

As soon as he got them in the tank, he fell in love.

“Right that day, I put an ad on Craigslist to give away all the fish that were in the tank,” Lucas said. “You really don’t want to keep fish with shrimp. Shrimp are bottom of the food chain.”

Lucas said in those days, certain caridina and neocaridina shrimp could be as much as $100 for a single inch-long crustacean. The breed of shrimp that kickstarted, what would become, his career were called orange-eyed blue tigers. He said he started to breed them, and soon Lucas had thousands. 

“One 55-gallon aquarium basically paid for my whole business,” Lucas said. “Over the course of a year or two, selling thousands of them at $20 a piece, it adds up.”

Lucas lives in the Marysville area, but doesn’t have a storefront open to the public. He does all of his business at his aptly named website, buypetshrimp.com.

Lucas also has entered a number of breeding contests over his 15 years in the shrimp game, adding that he’s won multiple national and international awards for the quality of his shrimp.

Black and red pinto caridina shrimp in Erik Lucas’s tank on June 4, 2026.Ruth Finch/CapRadio

At a shrimp breeding competition, Lucas explained judges look at qualities like size and color. Age also plays an important role.

“How I looked when I was 20 years old, if I looked that same when I’m 60, that’s pretty impressive, you know?” Lucas said. “The bigger the shrimp, they show more flaws.”

In recent years, he has been asked to judge shrimp competitions.

“I’ve been to Europe a couple times to judge, they usually try to bring somebody from the United States to judge,” Lucas said. “I usually get invited as the USA representative.”

His wife is a teacher in the area, and they’ve had a shrimp tank set up in her classroom for 10 years. He said her students love them.

Lucas’ wife inspired him to help other teachers bring aquatic science to their classrooms. 

“We have [teachers] just pay shipping… we give them the shrimp for free,” Lucas said. “I wanted to come up with a program that could give back to the hobby.”

Lucas said he’ll help walk teachers through what they need for a proper set up, and then he’ll ship them out.

“We’ve been doing the program for six or seven years,” Lucas said. “We’ve shipped out over 5,000 shrimp to classrooms across the country.”

You can find their Shrimp For Schools program at their website.