Archive for February, 2012


I love this place, to me it feels like that hole in the wall restaurant you love because they make great food, sure they are hidden away and only a handful of people know about them but they do things right. They are friendly and helpful. While the tank displays are not on the same level as Aquatek the customer service is far better and far faster. I go to River City unless I am looking for specialty items or plants. If the drive is the same and you have questions or don’t want to wait for hours then go to River City Aquatics, the livestock is of similar quality, and prices are comparable without a membership fee.

Unfortunately the selection of dwarf shrimp here is also lacking/non-existent.

The display tanks at are the most obvious sign of the expertise present at the Aquatek retail store. Located in North-ish Austin it is the most complete aquarium supply store in the city. While the selection of shrimp is not stellar the rest of the store makes the trip worth it every time. The prices seem on the high side but if you purchase the annual membership it all works out in the end and you will pay the same as other stores if you make even a moderate amount of purchases. The quality of plants and fish you do get however is top grade. They are one of three local dealers who I frequent and I know if I need something less common they will always have it. Be warned that they are often very busy and they do take the time needed with each customer which means at times it is difficult to get assistance or you have to wait for 15-30min+

Some More Pictures from last night.

Orange Eyed Blue Tiger Shrimp on Mopani

4 of my Orange eyed Blue Tiger shrimp on piece of Mopani Driftwood

 Orange Eyed Blue Tiger Shrimp on Mopani  Orange Eyed Blue Tiger Shrimp on Mopani

4 of my Orange eyed Blue Tiger shrimp on piece of Mopani Driftwood Orange Eyed Blue Tiger Shrimp on Mopani

 Orange Eyed Blue Tiger Shrimp on Mopani

4 of my Orange eyed Blue Tiger shrimp on piece of Mopani Driftwood

I got an accidental shot of this last night, I have seen these before but can not find information on what it actually is. It looks like a tiny white shrimp or maybe a flea, it is so small it is hard to tell. It is just a bit smaller than a shrimp egg. It moves around kind of erratically and can swim short distances (a couple cm at best and then lands on the wood).

While these are not the Orange Eyed Blue Tigers they are tiger shrimp none the less, and it is my first successful breeding of shrimp. Yes I understand they are prolific breeders and it is not impressive I did get a decent picture of the tiny babies. This is my community tank and the lighting is better and there is not the excess of tannins as in the OEBT tank.

Baby Tiger shrimp

Tiger shrimp fry - 1 day old.

Still working out the logistics of getting proper lighting, but I have a  few new Photos for everyone.

Berried OEBT Day 5

Juvenile Orange Eyed Blue Tiger on Mopani

Any feedback is appreciated.

At the suggestion of Shrimpinista(https://oebluetigershrimp.com/2012/02/23/vendor-review-shrimpinistaaquabid-aquaticacafe-com/ ) I purchased some food from Ken’s Fish. I purchased both Ken’s Premium Vegetable Flake and Ken’s Premium Spirulina Max Flake and my shrimp love it. I used to feed them algae tablets and they would eventually find it and then I will have to remove the left overs and it was a pain. Both of these foods my shrimp come searching for. I highly recommend either of these foods for any high end shrimp tank. I also bought some golden pearls to feed to the fry when they are born/hatched, since I am still waiting on that I cannot comment on how well it works but so far I am very impressed.

Also I will say that the quantities for the price are quite generous. I also Purchased a few items from their sale section which was really cool and has some rather good deals.

Shipping pricing was average.

Overall a top notch vendor.

 

No seriously, even though it is February the weather today decided to spike  to 89 degrees (about 32 c)  and the ceiling fan  was not on in that room. It is cooling off but my tank spiked to 81 degrees, I have a sealed bag of ice floating in the tank tethered to a cord out of the tank. I don’t want the water contaminating the tank water but I need to get the temperature down asap.  Once we get down to about 76 I will let mother nature take care of the rest. If I want to keep the guys at their optimal temperature I need to get a tank cooler for this summer. Thankfully this weather calms down after today.

I have been waiting to put a co2 system into my OEBT tank as it lowers pH and my pH has been consitently creeping lower. While not uncommon in a tank of RO water with Indian Almond Leaf and Driftwood I did not want to take any risks so when I added the CO2 system I set it to very low and added just a little Sodium Bicarbonate to the filter. I plan to pay close attention to the  pH over the next week to play it safe.

The vendor of my first patch of OEBTs and extremely helpful and informative. I asked more questions than I probably should have and must of been someone annoying, but the answers kept coming and she was very polite about it. As this blog moves forward I hope to reproduce some of that information so people can find it more easily in the future. What I am getting at is that it was a great buying experience and I would recommend buying from this person if they are selling the Orange Eye Blue Tigers again in the future. (I believe it is a limited quantity operation as are most OEBT breeding programs. Oh one more thing within 5 minutes of adding these shrimp to my tank I saw them breed. (nothing spectacular and takes about 1 second in total, and now that same female is the one mentioned here : https://oebluetigershrimp.com/2012/02/21/houston-we-have-an-egg/

Keep in mind that picture is taken in very low light conditions in tea colored water so the colors do not show up as vibrantly as they actually are.

Speaking of color, the shrimp I received were almost all  blue (11blue and 2 blonde) and the two uncolored juvenile extras sent also colored up to blue.  The color was almost entirely dark blue and almost black on some of the shrimp, these were very high grade orange eye blue tiger shrimp that she had for sale.

Store –

http://www.aquaticacafe.com/

Aquabid Current Auctions –

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?disp&viewseller&Shrimpinista