[zlatan2601]

Awesome news, berried shrimp was spotted today!!! I counted arouns 20 eggs. Too bad quality of the picture isn't great...

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Because I didn't go to work last week I started to put on the light and the shrimps come ouy more often. Obviously the shrimp got berried before I started using the light. Should I keep the light on now that one of them is pregnant, or better to keep it off?
Before i saw rarely a shrimp, with the light on I see them a lot, and now for the first time also the berried shrimp...

[Vorteil]

I would always have a light on unless your tank get natural lighting from somewhere else. The lights more for the algae growth. I keep my tanks on an 8 hour light cycle with timers. Mine comes on late at 8pm at night and shuts off at 4am. By doing this I avoid the peak hour higher cost for electricity. Besides I don't get home till 6pm at night anyways.

[zlatan2601]

It gets some indirect light from a window, I thought that should be enough no?

After my previous cyanobacterie because of too much light, I moved the tank a bit. Diatomes appeared a month ago but I added some snails and I haven't spotted anything since...

Maybe stupid but concerning the light I am mainly concerned about burning my house down, so I prefer to have it off when I am not at home.

For my information, you keep the lights on at night, which means they are never in the dark correct?

For now I had the plan to only put the lights on when I am at home and when they haven't seen a lot of natural light for a while (curtains closed)...

[odin]

Congratulations on the eggs! Let’s hope all works out well and you get larvae. Don’t over think the lights... pop them on when you are home and turn them off when you goto bed etc..

[Vorteil]

@zlatan2601
What water did you use when you had the cyanobacteria? Usually it's caused by phosphates & high nitrates. Years ago I would have issues if I used tap water for my salt water tanks. That's usually the main reason everyone goes to the LFS to buy salt water. Also the reason why distilled & RO water is highly suggested for Opae Ula tanks.

[zlatan2601]

Hi, I used sea water bought in Belgium at a while known supplier, and RO water. For the second try I used a few liter of the old tank with RO water mixed with red sea salt.

I assume that maybe a rock was contaminated. I rinsed them quite a lot but I didn't boil them. Before transfering to the new tank I boiled almost everything. Another problem could have been that I added a sea star skeleton and quite some shells, which potentially introduced phosphates and nitrates...? In the second tank non of that was added, only vulcanic rocks, a moss ball and crushed coral as a substrate (also boiled)

[zlatan2601]

Mommy shrimp is giving birth right now

[odin]

Awesome! Exciting times ahead :)


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[zlatan2601]

Hi all, it has been a while, but that means that everything is going well! :-)

Last spring the berried shrimp "raised" 8 baby shrimps. Now they are all adult and stuff, and my population has doubled from 8 to 16 (yeey!) opae ula.
Two weeks ago I spotted a new berried shrimp (yeey again), I hope I will get two so each summer my population doubles again ^_^.

They seem quite happy, swimming around a lot (6-12 months ago I didn't see that many shrimps, they seemed to hide more often). Now my tank is starting to have a lot of algae, all glases are turning a bit brown. Not problematic, but it's clear that there is a lot of food and they can't manage it :-).

Is it a problem if I leave the tank as it is? Knowing that it will get "worse"? Or should I buy some snails? I had neritina turrita snails and they ate quite a lot, but they all died during winter. I didn't plan on getting new ones, but if I risk the tank to collapse (too much algae and food), I better find some shrimps soon :-)

If anyone could give me some advice, thanks!

[zlatan2601]

Nevermind previous post, I bought 1 nerritina Natalensis, which seems to hide during day but eats a lot at night, and my windows are clean again (within a week!!).

FYI, last year my population went from 8 to 16 (1 birth), and 10 days ago I witnesed birth of 12 baby opae ula
Today however, I spotted another very pregnant opae ula (see pic), Hoeray²!

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