My new Opae Ula tank

[LeShrimp]

They look like trumpet snails maybe. Andy I guarantee your Opae Ula will probably move that sand around and mix it with the black substrate because the shrimp love to sift through the sand and move things around.

[AndyH]

Thanks Rob!

And thanks Ken! They are reddening up a bit. The larva is still doing good. It looks like one momma shrimp dropped an egg and the other one still has all of hers.

LeShrimp, I would say that my snails are definitely T. granifera from Mustafa, just because that's what he says he's been sending out, and when I looked at more pictures of MTS on the internet they didn't look like my snails. The Opae are definitely moving the substrate around already! But one of the snails did the most damage today and pulled 2 pieces of eggshell to the surface. Haha. Oh well, I don't expect their environment to stay perfect now that they're in there.

I like when a snail is crawling on the wall of the tank and an Opae sits on the snail and then tries to find something to eat on the shell.

[LeShrimp]

Trust me, the more they move things around it will make their environment even more perfect. They will make changes that they feel are suitable and beneficial

[AndyH]

That's an awesome way to put it LeShrimp

The tank has so much activity right now! The snails are out in the open, the Opae are crawling around, the larva is floating around... About 4 or 5 baby snails were out on the lava rocks too.
I took a picture of one Opae that looks like he has a white/clear band right now. I guess he'll redden up completely later on but for right now he really stands out from the rest.

I also found an exoskeleton leftover from a molt. A couple of the Opae were interested and started chowing down.

And then something else that surpirsed me was the fact that a snail was hanging upside down on the surface of the water. I didn't know they'd be able to do that. Must be pretty thick since I noticed that the bubbles that have been floating to the surface aren't popping. They just sit there at the surface.

[Rob in Puyallup]

Hi Andy,

The white band will probably stay white. I have a number of them like that. There's a white banded type of Cherry shrimp. They're called "Rili".

[Rob in Puyallup]

Andy,

A lot of my snails sail under the surface of the water. The Trumpets in my Bookshelf tank join the Opae Ula sucking up the film/single celled algae from it.

[LeShrimp]

When you say you noticed baby snails... Are these snails breed in your tank? Because if so you may have a snail epidemic on your hands.

[AndyH]

Sure the snails breed in my tank, but I'm not worried about it at all. I wanted more snails. But Mustafa has said that they won't overrun a tank if you keep feeding under control. I mean they've got to have food to reproduce, and seeing as the shrimp will out compete the snails for food, the snail population will balance itself out eventually.

I'm surprised at how deep the shrimp crawl into the ball of macroalgae. I would think they'd get themselves stuck or forget how they got in. But they're fine!

Also, the shrimp sure do "excrete a lot of waste"! I haven't fed them yet, and I don't plan to until at least March 10th. But it looks like they're finding plenty of naturally occurring algae/whatever to eat.

[AndyH]

No mass moltings but I see at least one a day. I guess that's good? Most of them have really reddened up but there are still some really pale/clear looking ones. Tiny bubbles rise from the substrate at a rate of about 1 per minute or so. Maybe more often. Is this normal in all fish tanks? I'm not worried at all, just think it's interesting. The larva is still floating vertically. However, I think both of the females dropped the eggs they were carrying. I saw one that was swollen looking and she wasn't carrying eggs.

[Mustafa]

The bubbles coming out of the substrate are probably just trapped air bubbles from your initial setup. Your tank is not old enough (and your substrate not deep enough) to have anaerobic pockets that produce various kinds of gases. The "clear stripe" in the middle Supershrimp are very common both in captivity and in the wild, by the way. I'm not sure if it's hereditary at all. For all I know a shrimp with that "stripe" may not have it anymore after the next molt, and vice versa.

[AndyH]

Hey everyone! Long time; no post. I've been really busy. I stopped by these forums the other night to catch up on all the latest topics and decided that I needed to give an update on my tank! I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I want to make sure that I don't leave anything out! I hope that it can be of use. Or, at least interesting!

Let's see... I guess the last time I posted, it was only a couple of weeks after I got the shrimp?

Shortly after I made that post, I read up on the blue legged hermit crabs on this site and other sites and decided to give it a shot. I bought two of them in case one died while I was acclimating them. I set up a little tank at their preferred salinity and slowly added distilled water over the course of a week. They seemed to fight each other a lot over the week. The bully kept pulling the other one out of his shell. From observing the hermit crabs that week, I estimated that they'd need SOMETHING to eat AT LEAST once a week. Otherwise they would turn extremely inactive and motionless. Eventually, their tank was at 1.012 and they were still alive and well. I only transferred one into my 3 gallon Opae tank. The hermit crab didn't move at all the first night in the Opae tank. However, the next day and from then on, he moved around A LOT. He dug little holes and stirred up the substrate. He brought new colors and a tornado of activity to my tank. Now at that same time, the shrimp seemed to be doing well too. They had little interaction with the hermit crab. They were red, saddled, and scavenging for food as they should. However, they were only saddled; no berries or babies yet. I kept the normal feeding schedule for the Opae (one or two very very tiny fish food balls every two weeks). I admit that I probably fiddled with the tank more than I should have back then. But on all accounts, my Opae tank was doing great and very interesting to look at.

In very late April, the situation was exactly the same as above. But I had to move to a new house. I didn't know what I was going to do. The move was 2 hours on bumpy interstates, in a loud car, with water sloshing around inside of the tank. I had visions of getting a breather bag for the Opae and transporting them in it. But time ran out and I had to do what I had to do. I ended up taking out a good 2/3 of the water and putting it in gallon jugs. I took out the macro algae and put it in a zip lock with some water. I left the Opae and the hermit in the tank and covered the top of it with some tin foil and tape so that water wouldn't slosh out. When I got to the new place, I was pretty stressed, and not so eager to see how many Opae had died. All of the Opae were hidden. When they came out later that night, they had completely lost their red color. Miraculously, I saw not a single dead Opae floating around. It's crazy just how TOUGH they are. The hermit crab survived too.

I set up the tank on another desk with another desk lamp. I increased the amount of light they receive every day. Now they get 8 off and 16 on. This time, the tank isn't next to a keyboard all day and the only thing that makes loud noise near the tank is the A/C unit outside. The first week at the new place, I forgot to feed the hermit crab. He died at the end of the week. It was pretty sad since he had been doing so well the entire time.

I just want to take a second here and list a few more ideas about blue legged hermit crabs in Opae tanks. First of all, the pros are that they're very active, give a bit of variety to your tank, and they are vibrant colors. The cons are that they need food more often than the Opae. They don't seem to be able to eat the small amount of biofilm that is available in the tank. This wouldn't seem like such a big deal except for the points that Mustafa has made in the past about the balance of a tank. Too much food may pollute the water too much for babies to survive. Too much food may increase algae or macro algae growth. It may increase the population of the snails. Who knows, it may even create enough ammonia to kill the shrimp. Because of this, my hermit crab actually bothered the snails A LOT. He was always grabbing a snail and eating the algae off its shell. I'd say that this really stresses the snails. The first couple of times it happened, I thought he ate the snail since it didn't move around for a while afterwards. The other potentially big con is that the crab may be so active that it stresses the shrimp and they won't breed. I don't know this for sure, but it's just my suspicion since the Opae didn't ever berry at the old house. It may just be that they weren't ready yet and they would've whether the hermit crab was in the tank or not. My recommendation is that if you want a blue legged hermit crab in with your shrimp, make a separate tank. Don't try to stick the hermit crab in your one and only tank that you want to be a breeding tank. There was even a period of time where I wanted to try other Anchialine pool shrimp such as the M. Iohena. But I've got the same recommendation as with the hermits; just do it after you've got your breeding going in your main tank and then set up a side tank for your experiments. Instead of focusing on trying to make a variety of critters work, just focus on what Mustafa says and give them some time and a little care. You'll end up with a very rewarding tank.

Ever since that first week at the new house, the tank has been completely successful. I stopped fiddling with the tank. There was about a month where all I did was feed once every two weeks and barely even looked at the tank otherwise. What I like to do when feeding is break up the pellet into even smaller pieces so that each shrimp can eat something instead of having them all fight over one piece. I started with 50 shrimp... If there are about 25 females, a good third to half of them are berried. There are at least 20 babies floating around and a couple of them are swimming horizontally now. Today, I even found a lighter colored shrimp that looks to have a green saddle.

Well, I hope others that started around the same time as me have had similar success Thanks for reading! I look forward to any comments you may have!

EDIT: I hope to post some updated pictures soon, along with pictures from right before and right after the move.

[AndyH]

Pictures as promised!


In this picture, you can see the bully hermit crab on top of the other one. This was when they were both in the small tank slowly being acclimated to brackish water. I was able to tell them apart because the bully had a shell with a small hole in it on the pointy end. He seemed stronger. He's the one I actually put in with the Opae.



This was taken about a week after the hermit crab was put in the Opae tank. As you can see, the Opae were very red and scavenging like they should be. They weren't bothered by the hermit crab. The real issue is having to feed the hermit crab more often than the Opae. Another thing in this picture is the spare shells in the corner of the tank. I was hoping that the hermit would swap shells (out of the brown one and into a nicer looking one I provided) but he never did.



This is an extreme close up of the hermit crab at the front of my tank digging a hole. That's about as deep as he got. You can really see the bright blue and orange colors of the crab in this picture. He really was something to look at.



Here we have the hermit crab showing off his bully side again. He liked to pick up the snails and eat stuff off their shells. Like I said, the first time he did this, I thought he killed and ate the snail. In reality, 30 minutes to an hour after he dropped the snail, it peaked its head out and started doing its normal thing again.



This is after the hermit crab died and after the tank sat at the new house a while. This is during the very late states of a momma shrimp carrying around her eggs. At this point, the eggs are basically little baby shrimp just waiting to break away and start floating vertically in the water. (At least that's what I've been observing). As you can see, the macro algae in the background has gone crazy.



Finally, this picture shows one side of the tank as it was about a week ago. The light is on the other side, so more babies are on the other side. But a good amount are visible in the picture. You can once again see the crazy macro algae growth in the background and even a little patch directly behind the white rock. I hope to remove a chunk of it in the next few days, but I'm nervous about it. I've noticed through my own observation, and also a post that Mustafa made, that once the babies swim horizontally, they like to hangout in the macro algae. And they don't always like to move.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the last picture also shows the effect of the hermit crab digging around all the time. When I first started the tank, I crushed up some eggshells to put under the substrate. Nowadays most of it is sitting on top of my white substrate. I want to clean that up a bit soon too.

[Mustafa]

Welcome back, and thanks for the update! I'm glad things went well during your move, and most importantly, congrats on having offspring! It would be great if hermit crabs could get by with once every two weeks feedings, but, they are not adapted to extreme environments as the Opae ula are. The brackish water snails seem to be just about the only animal, so far, that can deal with similar conditions. Like I have said in another thread before, if one wants to experience various marine inverts living together, one could establish a fully marine tank with all the technology that goes along with it (heaters, filters, protein skimmers, water changes, possibly supplements etc.). It's interesting in its own way...and I have had a tank like that before. The charm of the Supershrimp is that their setup and care is so simple. Yet, they are active, interesting animals...and they produce offspring that grow up in the same tank (as opposed to most marine inverts, which produce larvae that need special food to survive).

In any case, keep the updates coming (keep an eye on that green saddled shrimp, too)! And no need to apologize for long posts. Even if I can't reply to every point made in a post, I, nevertheless, enjoy reading them.

[AndyH]

Thanks Mustafa!

I have a couple more pictures tonight. I've seen the green saddled shrimp a couple more times. She is one of the ones with the clear stripe. However, I haven't been able to get a good picture of her.

Here is the tank as it sits right now... Still haven't tried to clean up the bottom of the tank or any of the extra macro algae:



This is the top corner closest to the light where most of the babies hangout and float:



And this is the other corner where an Opae has recently molted while hanging on the top of the water. The exoskeleton is still hanging even though the shrimp is gone. I thought it looked pretty ghostly:

[attygirl]

Andy: great posts and photos! It is fun seeing other shrimp aquariums. How many shrimp did start with in your tank?