When I got my first shipment of blue tigers one of the small ones was so blue it looked black, I had not seen this shrimp in maybe 3 weeks. Well looks like he grew up and stayed black. I figured this rarity was worth a short video. Enjoy.
For clarification this is a blue tiger variation that happens to be a charcoal/blackish color instead of blue and not a variation of large striped tigers that have been selectively bred.
Here is a nice photo of it as well
Black Tiger Shrimp
Black Tiger Shrimp
She is hard to find as she doesn’t like to hang out much in places I can get decent photos oh her, this morning she was more accommodating and I snapped this shot.
OEBT with Eggs - Day 10
Comments are welcomed, let me know you are reading.
*BUYER BEWARE*
The Shrimp arrived quickly and professionally packaged; however this was obviously a cull of unwanted shrimp and not a random mix of shrimp and didn’t resemble the shrimp in the auction photos at all.I will say the general color grade of the shrimp was rather low, judging the shrimp after 36 hours acclimation to near perfect water parameters based on the scale provided HERE 1 is Dark Blue, 1 is Semi Dark Blue, 2 are blonde, 6 are lighter than light blue. Update the Shrimp didn’t color up more than the initial picture.
Link to the Auction: http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/closed.cgi?view_closed_item&fwinverts1329620272
Photo of the actual shrimp
New arrival OEBT shrimp
My biggest problem with this seller is that instead of admitting they sent a cull of unwanted shrimp, they insisted that it was shipping stress and then when that didn’t pan out said I needed darker substrate. While I sit there looking at my awesome shrimp from aquaticacafe that are a deep dark blue on the same substrate as the cull sent by this seller. For a reference here are two of the shrimp from AquaticaCafe and two from Wicca. I ended up taking the 2 blonde and the 4 lightest blue males and moving them to my community tank and plan on letting them “mingle” with my established Tiger colony as an experiment and the rest are in my OEBT tank(turns out was a bad idea). I didn’t notice at the time but you can see a slight cloudiness in the shrimp sent by Wicca as well, a sign of a bacterial infection (that has since infected part of my native populations in 2 tanks)
Top were from AC and the bottom from Wicca25
To add further proof to my claims of infection and coloration here are two posts made by Wicca(27) on plantedtank. This is in a thread about her own losses to what I attribute to a bacterial infection where she claims that she cannot tell because all of her shrimp are deep blue/almost black oh and they are dying.
I used screenshots to prevent future edits (click to enlarge)
*Update* I have requested that the seller refund part of my money to help pay for the cost of treating my 2 tanks and cover some of the lost shrimp and have not heard back from the seller.
*Update 2* The seller refuses to even acknowledge that she could be the source of the infection, and have refused to refund any money. Seller has not disputed the fact that she sent me a cull of low grade shrimp despite what was pictured in her auction. Seller asked me to post a link the the above mentioned thread, I have no desire to do so, it is worth noting that the seller changed her claim of an infection to a claim of a contaminated drainage/fill hose after I mentioned that the shrimp she sent me were showing signs of bacterial infection.
Final thoughts
I will not do business with this seller again and suggest you take great caution before purchasing from this person. Honestly I don’t mind being sent a cull of shrimp (even if it was deceptive), I don’t mind that they happened to have an infection, my problem with this seller is that they consistently told blatant lies to try and cover their ass instead of owning up and working to make the customer happy. The seller stated they don’t care about making money(while refusing a partial refund) and this was just a hobby so they didn’t care about negative reviews and loss of profits. This translates to me as the seller does not care about her customers and only sells things to further fund her hobby at the expense of others.
My Orange Eyed Blue Tiger tank is finally starting to look populated, even though I know there are approximately 20 OEBTs in the tank I only ever see 3-5 at any given time. I think it is part of their nature being darker colored to seek out darker areas and to hide more often.
Here are a few on top of some Mopani
Caridina gossip
How you doooin'
Orange Eyed Blue Tiger at its best
Thought he would show off apparently
Here are a couple photos of the delivery I got yesterday after almost 24 hours. The color on most is fairly normal but these two are more ash or charcoal than blue.
The first one really is just grey, there is no tints of blue of yellow, perhaps it is a mutation or just still stressed from shipping.
Oddly colored OEBT
Ash Colored tiger #2
There are my new OEBTs purchased on aquabid from seller XXXXX(review to follow in the next few days, depending on how these shrimp work out). I will say they arrived professionally packaged and in seemingly good condition. The shrimp however were very low grade or experienced a good deal of shipping stress that effected their coloration drastically. One of the shrimp was a Med-higher grade blue tiger the rest were not. While they are OEBT I think at least half will be moved directly into my normal tiger tank. I will wait until acclimation is complete and see
Here is a photo:
New arrival OEBT shrimp
I am experimenting with growing either moss carpeting or moss walls, maybe both at some point. Here are my two test growers. The one on the left is moss sandwiched between 2 plastic grates (for crocheting I think) the one on the right is framed with the grates and then I used a mesh material capture the moss. Both are held together by stainless steel wire (thanks to my wife who took a jewelry making class). (I have also used small zip ties)
I think both will work fine for the purpose of growing the moss in place, I am more interested in the speed it grows and the patterns it grows into.
For clarification it has been 7 days since I first noticed the female berried, and approximately 15 since I “think” I saw her mate. (think as it is hard to really tell since mating lasts all of 2 seconds… on a good day.
She seems to be quite healthy and active and spends most of her time on the IAL (Indian Almond Leaf), I snapped the photo when she decided to play on the moss ball because it offers more contrast.
(click the image to enlarge and see in high res)
I also did a 5% water change today, most people do 10-15% but my water is clear and the parameters are perfect I am not sure I need to do more than 5% as I don’t want to swing the chemistry in any direction and put the tank at risk. Perhaps I am being too cautious, but so long as the tests look good and the shrimp seem happy, I think I will keep it up this way.
Then again my wife required a c-section and never actually went into labor, but you get the idea. Also not sure what you call it once a shrimp starts to hatch the eggs but it has been 2 days and I really want to move her over into my Orange Eyed Blue tiger tank to get her knocked up again.
I have mentioned it before but my plan is to take all the normal tigers who get berried in my 55 gallon and put them in a breeder net until they hatch, them move them into my OEBT tank until they are berried again. Eventually getting the blue gene into my tiger population and then reintroducing any prime blues that appear in my community tank to my oebt tank.
I put a Purigen 100ml pouch into my filter 18 hours ago. The water was a rich dark brownish red tea color, Today the water is almost clear and my filtration system is actually kind of small (supplemental with a air powered sponge filter). I am realy amazed at how well this works and would recommend it for anyone trying to clear up their water.
Also my water parameters have not moved and my shrimp are just as happy as ever.
Jason Wechsler
Orange Eyed Blue Tiger Shrimp Blog (OEBT) 