This section will discuss on grading Particularly the black fancy tiger but can generally use it as a methodology for grading. One of the reasons for sharing this article really is about how grading is done from a judge and seller perspective. I am honoured to have a judge and seller share with me on this.

Let us start with having the very best. Black fancy tiger grade 1.

Let’s look at where it has been circle.

Green circle denote a coloured rostrum indicating that Color is present. This is sometimes missed out by hobbyist and can easily be downgraded to grade 2

Blue circle denote spider leg or legs with Color. A black fancy with spider leg is highly sought after.

Orange circle denotes the three white spots against the black shell gives a 50:50 balance between white and black.

Grey circle denotes the black backbone area where it continue to provide a 50:50 black and white to the overall shrimp appearance.

Now that all the circles has been discussed, let’s look at the overall shrimp, it doesn’t have any transparent in the shell which makes it either a grade 1-2. However, what make this a grade 1 shrimp is due to the fact that it has all the above qualities with strong stripe marking and no transparency.

2nd grade : female

There are two kinds of 2nd grade for BFT, one of it have very nice stripes and the other have no transparency in the shell. This is the main difference between grade 1 and 2. Grade 1 have all the strong characteristic whereas grade 2 is short of one of those characteristic.

As you can see here that the stripes on this shrimp is considered full but it is lacking in fullness of colors. The black area isn’t black enough on the front part of the head and belly area make the shrimp appear a little patchy. This however is already considered a high grade shrimp where you can use this kind of female to breed out grade 1-2 shrimplets.

3rd grade: female

Reason why this is a 3rd grade female is due to lesser stripes on the last two line. It didn’t connect towards the top. However the face pattern and front portion is at least a grade 2 type. The black to white ratio is 40:60 hence it has dropped its grade from 2-3. This however is very subjective as the shrimp May become a 2nd grade in future after molting as this is still consider a young shrimp. I’m using ADA powder soil so shrimp may appear to look bigger. On the same shrimp the other side of the pattern does consist of transparent areas under the belly which is one of the most difficult areas to work on. On one side it’s grade 2 on the other side is grade 3 but to err on a safer side I will grade this as 3 instead of 2.

Gene shrimp:

These are shrimp that is use for breeding masses to increase female quantity for selective breeding. As you can see that the stripe pattern and transparency is obvious.

now that the brief understanding of grading is being laid out here is a picture of the grade 1-3 and the last one gene shrimp.

You can now clearly tell the differences between the grades.

The master has spoken

Let us dig a little deeper to understand what goes behind the scene when breeding black fancy tigers.

According to the Taiwan shrimp book, there is a short paragraph mentioning about a reputable breeder who did a test between pure black line female x red tiger male and red tiger female x pure black line male. The results were astonishing as the output of the first cross PBL female x red tiger male has high success rate of getting the black fancy tiger.

Line breeding start after the F1 shrimplet begin to show sign of success and to get few better gene F1 to cross back to the parent. After many generations the gene strengthen to develop into the renowned black fancy tiger.

Are there variations?

Certainly, in the gene pool if the breeder do not cull their shrimps many variations may occur. One such variation is the white fancy tiger.

White fancy tiger?

It really is a washed out cross between the PBL and tiger whereby the lines are disappearing and also the hino or Sabre tooth PBL marking is gone.

As you can see from the above picture, the shrimplets from this female has a very high percentage of white fancy when bred with a similar male. Is this the outcome you are trying to achieve? There are breeders “marketing” this as mosura fancy tiger. Personally I think that depending on which variant or outcome you would like, you can breed it to your liking.

For example if using a “white fancy ” cross with a “black fancy” chances are you will get a split between the both and 25% chance of a cross that will look like the black fancy. This is how it work in general:

25% of the outcome will be black fancy

25% of the outcome will be white fancy

25% of the outcome will be mix (black and white fancy)

25% of the outcome will be mix (white and black fancy)

This is in a very simple form of understanding of breeding but of cause in reality there is slight variations to it.

Coming back to variations, it is becoming difficult to ignore the fact that breeders (not commercial) who are in the know will share with you the outcome when they sell you the shrimp. If they are unable or trying to make a fast one, walk away. There are many reputable breeders who are more than willing to share.

Additionally, there are “black fancy tiger” lookalike but has pinto gene in it. The reason for doing so is to reduce the time to get the “black fancy”. However, with this the outcome of it will look like a black fancy but isn’t.

This picture is taken from a breeder and it does look like a black fancy, but the price is many times lower than black fancy because the shrimplets are more stable unlike the original. How do you even differentiate a lookalike black fancy and the original?

There will come a time where the difference could be difficult to discern but for now a few tell tale sign is that a pbl and tiger cross would have :

• Hino or pbl pattern on the top
• Black and white colors
• Pinto will give off very white kind of shrimplet and is very stable
• GT will have a vertical bar on the head
• Degree of black differs between GT, Pinto and PBL/BFT

Now you can see the difference.