Suitable Substrate For Golden Eyes Blue Tiger

[bettaforbetta]

May i enquire what substrate do you guys use to keep your golden eyes blue tiger? Have anyone achieve success keeping and breeding them in ADA Amazonia II?

[RoryM]

I have a 90g and a 10g planted pretty heavily with black flourite gravel, both tanks are running with a ph of 7.2 and the shrimp are breeding like crazy. Amazonia is a very popular substrate, great for softwater shrimp as it helps to buffer the water.

[gr81]

I have them in AA2 tank, but you should use any other active soil, like Akadama, Shirakura RB, EbiGold and other.
If you have soft lightly acidic tap water you should use classic ph neutral substrate. or elaborate with RO :)
But active soil is probably easiest way to success. Only beware, AA2 releases some NH4/3- at beginning.

edit:RoryM: in fact AA2 lowers buffer capacity of water, because it lowers kh, so water is less stable to changes. I congrats you to tiger breading in ph 7.2, I was totally unsuccessful at these values.

[bettaforbetta]

thanks for your replies.

From my understanding, AA2 lowers the pH of the water till around the 5-6 region thus rendering it not too suitable for blue tigers which requires pH 6.5-7.5.

[dxiong5]

pH alone does not make a tank suitable or not for fish/shrimp, it is important to keep all parameters stable and the tank healthy/clean. I've read of folks keeping and breeding Blue Tigers successfully in tanks with pH ranging from 6-7.8.

Like gr81 said, know your tap water parameters and then select a substrate that will be easy to use with it. For me, my tap water is very hard and alkaline so I use RO water and active soils.

[imke_j]

Hi, my Tiger breed in tap water - pH 7.2-7.5. In summer, it's a great advantage I can do water changes often, when bacteria spread more. On the other hand, a pH under 7 and softer water may give you more surviving offspring.

[Plecofool]

Mine are doing fine with AA2. Not a single casualty in 6 months. *knocks on wood*

[janftica]

I have been breeding OEBT's for over a year and a half now and I keep mine in pea gravel with tank water of PH 7.6 and just moss and a piece of driftwood in the tank. I have over 100+ and new babies coming all the time. I also have another tank with only very dark blue and they are also in the same substrate and same conditions as above tank and I have at least 6 berried females in that tank also.

Tiger shrimps like higher PH and are much more hardy than people think! They are not like CRS which are very finicky, they breed like crazy and can adapt to any conditions. I have had them live in a plastic bag (not Kordon either) for 7 days in very cold water and none died!!! Very resiliant shrimps!

I keep duckweed and frogbit on the surface of my tanks to eliminate nitrates and the babies love the hang out in the roots of this plant, I keep it in all of my shrimp tanks.
I currently have the following shrimps Red Fire, Yellow Fire, OEBT, blue tiger with dark eyes, regular tigers, green, sunkist, indian blue, Black CRS, Red CRS all SS and higher, and Cardinal Sulawesi's breeding for me, all raised in PH 7.6 with weekly water changes and only water conditioner top ups!

[imke_j]

I currently have the following shrimps Red Fire, Yellow Fire, OEBT, blue tiger with dark eyes, regular tigers, green, sunkist, indian blue, Black CRS, Red CRS all SS and higher, and Cardinal Sulawesi's breeding for me, all raised in PH 7.6 with weekly water changes and only water conditioner top ups!
We get a bit offtopic when discussing the pH and listing our species - the question is on what substrate Tiger OE shrimps are kept well ;)