Shrimp Spotlight: Orange Eyes Blue Tigers (OEBT)

I did it! I finally devoted some time to my OEBT and got pictures of them. I've been making promises and was finally able to deliver. Sorry for the poor photos and low numbers, I'm still getting accustomed to taking photos in this new lighting enviroment and the awkwardness of the tank. I never realized just how difficult it was to take photos of shrimps inside a 20G long. Darn tank is so shallow the flash either penetrates the shrimp's flesh completely or the image is too dark!

A pale male

Babies & Adults feasting!

The Orange Eyes Blue Tiger tank is growing and growing at such a rapid place. I had forgotten just how prolific OEBT can be. I just love how active they are and have aggressively they feed. Having been keeping Crystal for so long, it's a refresher to keep Tigers and seeing their quirkiness. I love these little characters!

Moment of Truth - I feel like these guys could have MUCH better colors had they been living with me at my own place rather than at my parents.  Being unable to care and monitor them on a daily basis has really left them looking poor. These guys are overly neglected and it really shows in the way they look. To address this and hopefully fix it, I have since created a schedule for my parents to follow that I feel will help them recover some of their colors and reach their maximum potential.

I'm returning to my parents tomorrow to do my weekly waterchanges for my other tanks there and will give a 2nd attempt at trying to get photos of my more heavily berried females who are keen on hiding from me. They prefer to hang out in the back near the sponge filters on most occasions and so it is very difficult to take pictures of them. I'll try to lure them out with more food.

For folks interested to know about this tank. The OEBT are kept inside a 20G Long with an insert substrate (Eco-Complete) and is fully leveraging the Shrimpy Daddy Revive Bianco Mineralizers. Being that OEBT prefer a more basic water range, I used Reive Bianco Gamma to increase the KH thus increasing the PH of this tank.  I know folks have kept OEBT in a buffering substrate (ADA AS) and in more acidic parameters with a lot of success but I'm pursuing the inert substrate because I wanted something that could basically last my forever and never require substrate swapping. So far, the method is working and the shrimps are reacting positively. 

Future plans is to cull very heavily and aggressively to keep a OEBT tank with mainly blue - dark blue colored OEBT. One of the main reasons I decided to go with OEBT over Royals is because - 

1. OEBT were more widely available. 

2. OEBT costs much less and since I haven't kept Tigers in a long time, I wanted to get my feet wet before getting the more expensive Tigers.

3. OEBT with German bloodline will become rusted as they mature. 

I really like the rusted OEBT and since they're less commonly kept now than before, it was more appealing. I do plan on getting Royals or Black Diamond Tigers in the future, but I'm very happy with my OEBT currently.  Shoot me email if you are interested to know the exact parameters the OEBT are kept in.

Until next time!

Cheers.