Nanosphere 9

[Arquisto]

Marimo have only been in the tank for a month and salinity is now at 1.01. I'll be getting Mustafas Macroalgae too so if the marimo start to look like they're suffering I'll put them bk into the jar I originally kept them in. Thanks for the shrimp suggestions. I'll keep only snails and the opae ula for now so I don't discourage them from breeding.

[Ace]

When I received the Opae Ula there were shrimp carrying eggs. Those shrimp that hatched have grown really fast.

Today, I have finally seen a larvae from one of the many shrimp with eggs. This is way too late to be from one of the hoard of shrimp carrying eggs well over a month ago. Obviously, all of the first to carry eggs in the sphere dropped all of their eggs. Now, the population begins to grow.

[Ace]

May 10th I added 180 additional shrimp to the existing population of 100. The population now looks beautiful. Baby production seems really high. The clutches are enormous. They have to be miserable lugging all those eggs around.

I'm surprised that nobody has ever asked how many shrimpies I have.

[JennyPenny]

That's a lot of shrimp! It's nice when you get a good number of them, and you can see the activity in the tank from across the room, like a tiny red snow storm. So, how many shrimp do you have? Are they from Mustafa, or a local hobbyist?

[Ace]

There are now 280 and then there are the children which are from this year. There are more than 300 including them.

I got them from another breeder in the US. But I'm very interested in acquiring more from another source for genetic diversity. These shrimpies came from an initial population of 65.

And you are so right! It is wonderful to see them at a distance dancing around in there.

It brings me so much pleasure to observe them. The sphere sits right next to my bed. I look at them every day.

[JennyPenny]

I bought 15 from Mustafa around Feb 2016, then I bought around 50 from Christine Ha in the fall (she has great shrimp YouTube videos and we live about 1 hour apart). I think I have had about 80 baby shrimp, but aside from Mustafa's original 15, I just guess as to the population.

[Ace]

Nice JennyPenny!

I have found a yellow Opae Ula. No, I don't have a photo of it.

[Mustafa]

I have found a yellow Opae Ula. No, I don't have a photo of it.

Then try to take one!

[Ace]

I have not fed Nanosphere 9 for a solid six months and the hair algae is still rampant. Baby production is continuous. The Marimo balls are still emerald green.

Yellow Opae Ula

[Ace]

A better image:

[Mustafa]

Yes! That does appear to be a yellow/orange one! Also, still not feeding? Did the marimo balls grow at all? Did they produce any new fragments?