New pics of my Opae Ula / Halocaridina rubra / Hawaiian Reds

[ernopena]

Hey, thanks to everyone who emailed me questions. Here's the answers:

1. Yeah I probably should have put a sponge filter in there, but it was too cramped when i first set it up. I will have one in my new 10g setup.

2. I mix my spirulina with a shot full of cold distilled water. Most of it swirls in the water with a little floating on the surface. I stop the air pump and pour it in into 3 different spots in the tank. A few shrimp find the spirulina on the surface, but most swim into the spirulina cloud at the bottom of the tank.

3. I do a half gallon water change every month. I also use a small siphon tube/sand cleaner tube to suck up all the shrimp poop at the bottom of the tank. It's a 1/2" clear ABS tube with a cap and 3' of airpump tubing. It is amazing how much poop the shrimp produces in a month, even when feeding only 2x a week.

4. I think the biggest key to getting mine to breed is providing a house of live rock with plenty of dark interior space. Instead of just piling round rocks on the sand, I found 3 large flat, craggy rocks and laid them on end leaning against each other, with small round rocks inside to support them. Having a place to hide together made the difference for me. That difference is a 4x increase in population.

5. They don't eat any of the seaweed sheets i give them. These are the same seaweed sheets as in sushi. They didn't touch them at all.

6. Every weekend I will suck up 6-7 new shrimp molts of varying sizes. This is a very good thing, since it indicates good shrimp growth.

7. My friend in Mililani said she's seen Opae Ula sold in a few local pet stores. Unfortunately most people feed them to their fish. But there is a growing movement to appreciate and keep them on their own.

Thanks again, and I'll more pics soon...

[Neonshrimp]

Great information about these shrimp! Thanks and please keep the updates coming

[Baby_Girl]

yes, thank you for the additional info! Much appreciated on this end.

I especially found the ones re: feeding and hiding spots very useful. I had already planned on building a lava rock pile by gluing them together, because I had read in the wild that you will see most of them duck in and out of such dark places. It's great to hear it improved their breeding (probably by making them feel more secure), so I will definitely do it now!