Shadow Black Panda

A black shrimp with two glowing blue bands across its tail — on most Pandas those bands are plain white.

Arrives young, and the blue is unsettled at that age. It can look pale at first and deepen once they settle into your tank.

One price, no grades. How blue those bands go depends on your water and lighting, so a pale one on arrival can end up just as vivid as a bright one.

Caridina — needs soft, slightly acidic water, so a step up from a first shrimp. Numbers in the FAQ.

Black Panda is a Taiwan Bee staple recognised by two solid white bands across the lower tail against a black shell. The Shadow mutation turns those two bands into a glowing, near-neon blue — a genuine colour mutation that makes this one of the more striking Panda-pattern shrimp in the hobby.

About the photo. We ship unsexed juveniles — the blue in those two tail bands is still settling in at that age and will shift as they acclimate and mature. Treat the photo as the target, not the arrival.

The blue behaves differently to the black around it.

• Not fixed like the black: The black sections of the shell are solid and stable; the blue in the two tail bands is a dynamic trait that responds to its surroundings.
• Responds to your tank: Blue intensity moves with water parameters, substrate maturity, lighting and stress levels — it can fade toward white or deepen toward radiant blue as the shrimp settles in and moults.

We grade by the traits that genuinely vary within a batch — pattern density, colour saturation, how far colour wraps around the shell. Where those differences are visible in the tank from day one, we sort them and price each tier for what it actually is.

The blue is still actively responding to tank conditions on the day it ships, so a juvenile with pale bands on arrival can turn out just as vivid as one that arrives vivid — grading on shipping-day blue would be grading our water, not the shrimp.

So Shadow Black Pandas are one grade, one price — let your own tank bring the two bands out.