Sorry for the long absence in posting, I have been very busy with work and return to the states on tuesday after spending the past 2 weeks in Europe. I can only hope my instructions were followed and my shrimp tanks are doing well.
I feel like I need luck and fear that my younger brother may not have been able to follow the simple instructions I gave him or improvised. I will update on how my tanks are doing next week.
Normally not something you would do unless you want to help a tank cycle or test a cycle or you were going with a fish less cycle.
The first thing to do is get a source of ammonia, while many different products will say pure ammonia or clear ammonia or only list ammonium hydroxide or ammonia as an ingredient most of the ones available commercially have surfactants if not other perfumes and what not. Even if you think something is just ammonia the easiest way to test this is to shake it. If it foams at all or if bubbles form and don’t disappear in seconds you have ammonia + a surfacant. () pure ammonia can be found at ace hardware, while there are probably other places you can find this, this is where I know you will get a pure ammonia.
Not to bad for a female I purchased online and had shipped several thousand miles while berried. Not like I will be giving away my excess anytime soon, so if you are looking to buy some check out my vendor reviews section of the buy link on the top right of the page.
I tried to get a picture but they are just specs.
The other berried female I got shipped is also in my satellite breeder she has about 15-20 eggs.
The OEBT tank has its first new life in quite a while. The mother is hatching more now. Very excited.
*I will be updating this post at various points throughout the day, feel free to follow along *
Today I am starting my Taiwan Bee Tank Setup. It is a 26 gallon bow front aquarium. And here she is
The obligatory before picture.
Unfortunately I had also ordered a under gravel filter (UGF) to fit the tank that I had ordered. 😦
Well that is no good but expected with the tank change.
This would reduce the effectiveness of the UGF
Granted if I had broke out my power tools I could of made the fit better but this is close enough, don't you think
I am kind of a big fan of Seachem products, and I wanted to use Seachem Matrix as part of my Under Gravel Filtration. After asking around to make sure it was shrimp safe I found I was not the first person to do this and it was completely safe for shrimp. I also found this thread (Shrimp Tank How to by Mordalphus) (also known as Liam from Aquarliam, the next part of what I did I got the idea from him. In addition to the Matrix I also wanted to add a bit of “substrate starter” if you will.
While I didn’t have time to order Liam’s proprietary blend for my substrate setup and my Mosura old sea mud didn’t arrive in time to use it I did the best that I could with what I did have available to me.
Here is what I used, Biozyme at 3x normal dosing, equal amount of Ken’s Freeze Dried Cyclops and a double dose of Ebi-ken Sose provided by Aquarliam
Africana finally arrived but it was missing 1 bag (ordered 5-3 liter bags, received 1-9liter 1-3liter) ADG was very fast to respond as they shipped all they had and offered to express ship another bag, was unneeded as the 12 liters was plenty. I will update with pictures soon-ish.
Substrate in, and some small decorations.
And the first of the water and the plants are added
Another Item from mordalphus goes into the tank, 1 package of Ebi-ken Shou. (it is only a half dose, I need to pick up another 2 packages)
Okay the tank is 1/3rd full and I have the aeration going. Also wanted to say thank you to OVT for the plants (TPT Thread)
Tank is setup and running, photos in the morning (left the camera on and the battery died)
I found Berried Female OEBT 3 and 4 today, they are younger so not as many eggs at the big old ladies but still it is nice to see I will hopefully have many babies in the next few weeks.
I also have about 6 berried malawa shrimp and 3 Berried painted fire reds. My Orange Sakuras 3 have saddles so I am hoping they get berried sooner than later.
I am still waiting on my Taiwan bee tank to arrive so I can do the setup. Don’t worry I will post picture and what I do to set that tank up.
Here is one of the two berried female Orange Eyed Blue Tiger Shrimp in my tank. She has so many eggs she looks like she is going to pop. I am once again excited for a new batch of young shrimp-lets.
The Plague took its toll, but I have had my new batch in the tank for a while now, no sign of infection and no deaths. It makes me very happy.
Typically I do!
This person go lucky because all the shrimp they said arrived in good health. They were high grade and the 2 berried females are doing very well. Typically this kind of poor packaging arrived soaking wet with dead shrimp everywhere. This was a hobbyist and not a professional seller. He also was very nice about the 2 missing shrimp and quickly refunded all my money. I am not going to formally review the person because they are not a vendor.
Here are the pics, please take some humor in them knowing that all the shrimp are happy healthy and berried (2 of them) a week later.
Professional service and high quality shrimp that have a long history (bred by APB for over 7 years) of excellence.
APB ships small OEBT but I have never seen OEBT that have such nice color when so small. Most will not be colored up but when you see solid blue at 1/4th an inch you know you have very high quality stock.
I received 13 total shrimp instead of 10 and they all survived with 2nd day shipping.
Personally I recommend getting very young shrimp as you know you are more likely to get an even mix of sexes so in a month you end up with a strong breeding population. I have noticed when buying mature and sub-adult shrimp that you are more likely to end up with a higher number of males because the berried females will always be removed before sale. I think buying younger shrimp is always in your benefit unless you are getting a favor from a friend.
5 stars, Buy OEBT http://www.alphaprobreeders.com/orange-eye-blue-tigers-sale-10/
Pictures of the shrimp – all about 1cm, most OEBT don’t show any color until twice this size.
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Update – I also got a batch of Mischling shrimp (Taiwan bee shrimp hybrid with Crystal red/crystalblack) also very small but kind of awesome.)
I ordered a batch of 8 but as you can see I got more than 8 🙂
Mischling shrimp acclimating
After 30 minutes in their tank 
I have received 3 separate shipments of OEBTs. They all look great!
I have 12 or so very small ones that arrived from Alpha Pro Breeders. (My guess on age is between 12-20 days). For such young shrimp some have very nice color.
I received 6 shrimp from someone I met on Planted Tank, most were fully adults and 2 were berried with lots of eggs.
I received another 12 from AquaticaCafe, and those were once again very high grade OEBTs, all looked to be just barely sub adult (about 20-40 days).
I am hoping my 1 survivor and this newly formed colony do better than the first attempt.
Jason Wechsler
Orange Eyed Blue Tiger Shrimp Blog (OEBT) 