Varanus, I was surprised that I didn't see anyone munching on it! I had heard that molt eating was a common behavior, but sadly I had to leave for a while after seeing it, and when I got back it was gone. There's another molt in the tank right now, but not nearly as intact or in any sort of place where a picture would show it, haha.
Super Jess - thanks!
I was given an ecosphere about ten years ago. It had four shrimp at first, but that quickly became three, then after a while, two...the two survived for several years, and then it was one. About seven or eight years ago I tried to research the species for a small portion of a science project, but all the info I got said they were brine shrimp or something, nothing about halocaridina rubra or opae'ula or Hawaiian red shrimp. I wish I'd found Mustafa's site then; I might have saved I think the three of them at that point with the good information here!
But that's the past, and now I have happy shrimpies.
Nancy - Thank you! I recently broke my old old iPhone, so I upgraded to the 6. It has a pretty good camera; the only drawback is that you have to wait until the shrimp are on something or get really lucky with the focus. Some of the pictures are also from one of the relatively cheap ($90 instead of y'know, $600 or something) Canon digital cameras; I doubt they make this model anymore, it's about six years old or more. I now am desiring a camera with an option for manual focus, as both of my options focus automatically and can't really capture free-swimming shrimp at all!
I'm uploading a video of some of my crew eating a little bit of an algae wafer. In it, you can spot my bright red shrimp, my banded shrimp, and what I am hoping is a white shrimp!
They're doing well; the shrimp already look more red and the snails are wandering all over the tank. (I have cycled the tank with ammonia before ordering the shrimp and snails.)
