Fred the Ecosphere rescue...help!

[turtle]

My neighbor had one of those ecospheres and it started leaking. Only one shrimp, Fred had survived the horrid thing. I offered to save him and brought him home. I have tons of animal experience but had to act fast as he was running out of water. I cleaned out a large pickle jar, put some rocks in it I had bought for my turtles and had not used and got him out of the sphere and into the jar with his water. I followed the instructions on reef salt and bought a meter to measure his salinity from this site. He is at 10ppt. We created new water as he had very little left and we add some 10 ppt water each each with an eye dropper. My worries are this:

-my house is sunny and the algae seems to grow no matter where I put him. Can there be too much algae?

-he was brownish when I got him, turned bright red and is now brownish and translucent again...is he stressed??..I keep moving him and messing with his enclosure for fear he is dead as he is so hard to see.

-does he need snails and other shrimp?

Thanks for your help!!! I already love the little guy :}

[turtle]

A few more ???

- how much sun should he get each day?
-how much more water should I add? I was going to go to the midway

[NancyM]

I believe Mustafa suggested no sun light, but some type of artificial light for several hours per day. The small habitats can over heat very easily in direct sunlight. He may be a bit too hot.

Keep reading the forum posts and you will learn most of what you will need to know to keep him happy and healthy. Good luck to you and little Fred!!! We're all rooting for him.

[minishrimps]

I would definitely add more water to that jar. Is it a 1/2 gallon? Might as well fill it up. Fred won't be making any leaps out of the top like fish try to do. Just make sure you use Distilled or Reverse Osmosis water. The shrimp love to cruise around and climb up stuff. And, the more water the less likely you will be to experience rapid decline in water quality. You'll definitely want to keep an eye on water parameters. i.e. ammonia, nitrite and nitrAte.

Nancy is right, direct sunlight will raise temps rapidly in the tank/jar, indirect sunlight however is fine but it might be good to get a light to help with algae growth if the indirect light isn't producing enough. From my experience some lights are too bright and the shrimp tend to hide from it.

The coloration of the shrimp is indicative of shrimp health but there can be wide array of factors that influence this, stress, water quality, diet etc. I wouldn't worry about coloration too much though. Opae Ula are pretty hardy and can go through a lot. For now and going forward get a marine water test kit and keep an eye on him. If he is actively searching for food, and stopping in places to eat for a bit he's probably fine. If he seems frantic and darts around a lot without stopping in one place to chill and forage then there may not be enough food. But be careful and don't over feed as that can quickly cause water quality to drop.

The bottom line is that this shrimp is better off now than when he was in the ecosphere! Good job saving him!

Adding more shrimp to that jar wouldn't be a problem. I wouldn't add more then 10 to start. And maybe some Macro algae that Mustafa sells will be a nice addition to the jar. Hope this helps... keep us posted on how its going... and welcome to the obsession

[jonesinfershrimp]

My neighbor had one of those ecospheres and it started leaking. Only one shrimp, Fred had survived the horrid thing. I offered to save him and brought him home. I have tons of animal experience but had to act fast as he was running out of water. I cleaned out a large pickle jar, put some rocks in it I had bought for my turtles and had not used and got him out of the sphere and into the jar with his water. I followed the instructions on reef salt and bought a meter to measure his salinity from this site. He is at 10ppt. We created new water as he had very little left and we add some 10 ppt water each each with an eye dropper. My worries are this:

-my house is sunny and the algae seems to grow no matter where I put him. Can there be too much algae?

-he was brownish when I got him, turned bright red and is now brownish and translucent again...is he stressed??..I keep moving him and messing with his enclosure for fear he is dead as he is so hard to see.

-does he need snails and other shrimp?

Thanks for your help!!! I already love the little guy :}

sorry this is long,

so glad you saved him!

Keep reading the forum posts and you will learn most of what you will need to know to keep him happy and healthy. Good luck to you and little Fred!!! We're all rooting for him.

cant agree with this more. reading the posts on THIS site is where my suggestions are gona come from.

-#1Q- there can't be too much algae, unless it is hair algae. hair algae will entangle shrimps and kill them.
-#2Q- Opae's hate when their environment is messed with. The less you mess with it the better off he will be! I have one shrimp that was a cling-on mostlikely when i bought my macro algae from Mustafa. I have a small pump that does ~25gal/hr in a 40 Breeder tank and a protien skimmer that does 110gal/hr. neither run constantly. but when i see my shrimp (i have named Norman noticing he's male) when there is no pumps running, the slower, or the skimmer, he seems to fluctuate and look much more red when there is NO water movement. depending on how much you're willing to read, theres even accounts of shrimp going brownish/whitish even when topping up water because of the movement. Also, im lucky if i see Norman once every 2-3 days for about 1-2 minuets
-#3Q- I have snails in my tank as most people here do, but i'm gona say its not required. other shrimp would probably be good though. buy them from PetShrimp as they are the only advertised USA captive-bred for commercial quantities. Yes, you can find them cheaper elsewhere online. But they come from the wild and its destroying the wild populations, as all wild collection does. I do NOT suggesting buying from them (unfortunately i did and i am having nightmares about it. not only have i betrayed Mustafa but im contributing to scumbags. _)
-#4Q- the amount of sun is debateable. The shrimp themselves dont need it, its the algae growing that needs it. as NancyM said, no sun is suggested. But theres other sites that say put it in the windows so the algae can grow and then its an absolutely no cost tank other than RO top up (which is about nothing), but also as NancyM said, it can overheat with such small volumes. Personal preference on how much algae you want in the tank. I went with a 100W LED flood light in warm white i believe. something about it being better for algae growth. If i could move the tank next to the window. but i have nowhere to store 40gals of water ATM.
-#5Q- the more water the better. go as full as you can. theres a reason i have a 40B ready for my shrimp. its as any aquarium, the more water volume, the more stable the water parameters.

just do (again as NancyM suggested) as much reading as possible. tooth, KenCotigirl, Varanus, Mech, NancyM, are all posts to read. i follow all of them and their posts to learn what i can before i ACTUALLY do anything. Vicarious learning goes 1000x farther than not paying attention.

good luck with Fred! hopefully he can spread his seed like Johnny with the apples and one day you will have many many shrimps in your glass world!


it took me almost 40 minuets to write this minishrimps got to it before me. im thinking my light may be to much as hes said some may be, until i get to hanging it. right now it sits on top of the glass top.

[turtle]

Thanks all, I am moving him to an aquarium tonight...wish us luck!!!

[jonesinfershrimp]

good luck! im sure you will, but let us know how it goes.

[NancyM]

How's he doing??

[turtle]

Update on Fred:

Overall he seems to be doing okay in his new aquarium. He is still translucent so it is hard to see him. I have seem him swim a little. But mostly he just sits there. I have not seen him eat his fish flake first hand. I got him a new light that will be here tonight as the one that came with the aquarium is junk. It cycled rainbow colors So I re-named him Fred the disco shrimp...just kidding. It had a bright white light as well that I was using but it broke so I have a desk lamp coming for him with an LED light. It is a softer white light so I hope that will work. His new name is now Fred the $100 microbe

[Super Jess]

Hahaha love his new name! He is a lucky shrimp to have been rescued by someone so dedicated to his well-being. Glad to hear he's settling in. Nice going!

[turtle]

One other question....does he have to have algae if I am feeding him a fish flake and a vegetarian fish pellet every two weeks? thanks!

[Aloha919]

So glad your little guy is ok. Just an FYI I got a led lamp from Walmart cheap that I put over a $20 tank. The algae is growing and the shrimp are happy. It's a 1.5 gallon tank that came with a filter and light which I don't use because Opae don't need. The opening on the top of the tank make feeding and oxygenating easy.
Good job on the rescue from the slow death chamber.

[Mustafa]

One other question....does he have to have algae if I am feeding him a fish flake and a vegetarian fish pellet every two weeks? thanks!

Algae or "invisible" biofilm will grow on its own if you want it or not. So, I wouldn't worry about it. I have some small desktop tanks where you see no visible biofilm at all but the guts of the shrimp are always full. So there is biofilm there. As for light...indirect daylight is fine. Direct exposure to sunlight for long periods of time can cause problems in small tanks. And for anyone who wants to put his/her tank on a window sill...keep in mind that the position of the sun changes over the year. A window that is not getting much sun in the winter may get full blast sun later in the year...and vice versa.