[JoeG]

I’m new to the forum and I wanted to give an intro to my experiences with the Opae.

I started cycling my tank November 2017. The tank is 5.5 gallons, I used Instant Ocean Sea Salt at 1/2 the recommended amount and this got the salinity to 1.012. The substrate is Aragonite CaribSea Crushed Coral at 1/2”. The decorations are 7 pounds of lava rock (4 large lava rocks) mounded to make some hiding spaces. After two weeks there was brown and green algae growing so I added my shrimp. I ordered 30 shrimp and received 33. They were added to the tank December 1, 2017. A couple of weeks later one of the tiniest shrimp died and that was the only one I have ever seen that died.

Fast forward to July 20, 2019 - I finally had my first berried female! It was 1 yr 7 months and 19 days since I received the shrimp. There was actually two berried shrimp. One had 2 eggs and the other had multiple eggs. August 23 the first floater was observed. Between the two berried shrimp there ended up 15 babies. The first floater was spotted on day 34 and the rest of the floaters weren’t spotted until day 44.

October 23 (2 months from seeing the first floaters) there are new floaters. There was one berried shrimp that I had been observing for the past month that was very loaded with eggs. She ended up dropping 35 babies. I knew she was holding lots of eggs but I was surprised how many she had.

Issues:
I have only done 1 partial water change and that was last month in September because I had overfed with spirulina and the shrimp weren’t acting normal. They were hiding all the time and this is not normal for them. I usually see at least 10-15 at any time. I changed about 25% of the water. The shrimp went back to their normal activity and all is well. I also have seen some of the juvenile shrimp from the August floaters so they made it through the overfeeding and water change.

A photo of the setup/latest floaters:

Thanks for reading and I look forward to sharing more experiences with you guys.
JoeG

[Algae In Space]

Ahoy

If the water parameters were OK my guess is that they hid because they were just stuffed due to the overfeeding

[JoeG]

Good to know. I have never tested the water parameters and I rarely feed them. There has always been algae in the tank and they have always been pretty active. I only feed them once every other month and it is usually one tiny shrimp pellet or a tip of a toothpick of spirulina. This time it was a shake of the spirulina that went everywhere! Since it had been a couple months since the last feed I figured it wouldn’t hurt but by the third day the shrimp were no where to be seen. That’s when I got worried and did the water change. I’m glad I did because the next day they were out and about again.

[Algae In Space]

Oh OK. Well I wouldn't feed regular shrimp pellets if you don't have a filter and don't measure the water. Nice larvae!

[odin]

Welcome to the forum and what a great introduction, how many shrimp do you think you have in total now? I really like the setup you have with the lava rocks.

So next big question... have you thought about setting up a 2nd shrimp tank yet :)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[opae ula related]

Nice tank. Where you located?

[JoeG]

Odin if everyone is still alive I would be up to 82 shrimp now. Thirty-two original shrimp plus 15 babies in August and now the 35 from October. The 2 month juveniles are very tiny and I have only seen 3 at any one time but if they are anything like the originals I only see about 10 at a time (and they are a lot easier to see ). I have gone into the room at night a couple hours after lights out and turn the room light on. At that point I have been able to count 29 adults. So I’m assuming the original 32 are still around. And yes I have been thinking about another tank but this tank is far from being overcrowded. The babies need to grow quite a bit.

Opae ula related I’m in the United States.

[opae ula related]

I thought I was general by saying I live in Northern California. What state you live in? : )