Have faith...Grade A1 tiger

[Ade]

I read in many posts that some MFKeepers's lose patience with Dats, if they hide, go dark, or lay on the side. Well, stick with it and do all the stuff, others have posted or advised in the forums, and wait it out. Trust me.
My first tiger, I had from 1 inch. Between growing 2 to 9 inches, in 4 years, he was so dark and unstable. But literally, during a 4 week period about 6 months ago, he gradually changed into this :

 

[Gr8KarmaSF]

Wow, so what factors did you change to help this beast?

 

[hiram]

nice bars and colors on yours dats. I have a bunch of dats too and cant wait to grow them out and hopefully some of them change from ugly ducklings to beautiful dats....lol

 

[Ade]

Wow, so what factors did you change to help this beast?

Every persons tank has different water chemistry, so wht might work for one, may not work for others. I'll try to list below the most significant factors (in priorty of order):
1) I moved another 10 inch bully IT to another tank, after about a year of bullying the now nice tiger.
2) Added loads more dats & filtration
3) Subdue lighting, so only 70% of tank is illumited
4) Romove decor
5) Added powerful air pump.

Good luck

Pic below is of the same tiger, but 6 months ago

 

[Johny]

wow...amazing transorfamtion! hes a beauty!

 

[sudi817]

Gorgeous dats.

 

[andres]

Holy smokes! that gives me some hope for my NTTs

 

[BRYANT]

That indo is looking good Ade.

 

[omtay606]

nice job!

 

[Datnoid101]

Thank you very much for proving that patience is key. As we can all see, it was worth the wait. Very nice bro