My Opae Ula Is Having Babies

[kouopaeula]

One of my Opae Ula is pregnant. I spotted the eggs on 5/26/2017. She has about 10 eggs (or more) under her belly. She should be already several weeks pregnant before I spotted the eggs. I have about 14 opae ula in a 5 gallon tank but I only fill up the water half full. I started my tank on July 2016. I am using natural sand which I got from Murtle beach. The water is brackish water with salinity about 14 (gravity 1.010). I used the 1 gallon Great Value Drinking water from Walmart which cost about $1 per gallon. I used the Instant Ocean Aquarium Salt. The water salinity is measured using the Instant Ocean Hydrometer. The macro algae is from Petshrimp. The light green algae on the glass and sand is the algae which I scrapped off from my turtle pet tank.

Below is the videos and photos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ5h3czfksA

[Arquisto]

Thanks for the video! You show the berried shrimp clearly and hopefully it'll help me identify mine when they become pregnant as well. I bought mine this past March so Im hoping it's still early. Already got a couple baby snails though. Also thanks for the detailed water conditions and sources.

[Mustafa]

They should have hatched by now...any more updates/pictures/videos?

[kouopaeula]

Thanks for the video! You show the berried shrimp clearly and hopefully it'll help me identify mine when they become pregnant as well. I bought mine this past March so Im hoping it's still early. Already got a couple baby snails though. Also thanks for the detailed water conditions and sources.

You are welcome. Good luck. I think the green algae growth is very important. When there is plenty of the algae (food) around, they have incentive to multiply (getting pregnant). Less time spent finding food, more time multiplying. As I mentioned above, I scrapped the green algae from my turtle pet tank and placed it in the shrimp tank. Since then the algae has grown all over tank.

[kouopaeula]

They should have hatched by now...any more updates/pictures/videos?

Yes. All the eggs from the 1st pregnant shrimp have already hatched. Since then, 2 more shrimps have went through their pregnancy and all the eggs have also already hatched. Right now, 4th female is pregnant. Her belly is full of eggs. The eggs are dangling below her belly which means they should hatch any time soon. The 5th is pregnant with 2 eggs.

[kouopaeula]

Below is the videos and photos taken on May 27th 2017:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmmnHauRLuA

[kouopaeula]

Below is the videos and photos taken on June 20th 2017, 25 days after I first spotted the pregnancy of the 1st Opae Ula. 1st and 2nd pregnant Opae Ula are in two of the photos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgOZ4ApDgWc

[kouopaeula]

Below is the videos and photos taken on June 20th 2017, 31 days after I first spotted the pregnancy of the 1st Opae Ula. Most of her eggs have hatched and most of the babies are still dangling on her belly. Several babies have detached from her belly. One video shows a baby floating upside down in the water and twitch when it touches the sand. They all do that most of the time. Lots of fun just watching that. One photo shows the baby really up close in the photo. Looks like a big head alien. Another photo shows the babies eyes already formed while still dangling on the belly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUtEEu2vFjI

[Mustafa]

Thanks for the updates and videos! Looks like everything is doing well and things are going great! Reproduction is always a good sign of things going right.

[Cakelake]

Amazing photos and videos!!!! Thanks for sharing!

[kouopaeula]

Thanks for the updates and videos! Looks like everything is doing well and things are going great! Reproduction is always a good sign of things going right.

So far so good. I have been feeding them with Spirulina lately. They love it. They have been multiplying like crazy. Right now the 7th and 8th shrimps are pregnant. I am using the Pure Hawaiian Spirulina 500mg 400 tablets which is for human consumption. If is good and clean enough for human, it is good enough for shrimp.

[kouopaeula]

Amazing photos and videos!!!! Thanks for sharing!

You are welcome.

[kouopaeula]

Another video taken on Oct 20th 2017. They are feeding on spirulina. Later part of the video, you can see a shrimp picking algae on the glass using their tiny fingers. Amazing tiny fingers or claws. Another shrimp eating on a transparent shrimp shell. The shrimp shell are the result of shrimp molting. Most probably the molting shell from another shrimp.

Previous videos was taken using Sony G11. This video was taken using Sony camcorder. I was surprised that this camcorder support macro (close) video. However, it does not has manual focus. It auto focus about at the center of the video. Sometimes it will go out of focus due to try to focus on the aquarium glass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSWYcilk9g4

[Noraelle]

Hello, I'm just curious; how often do you feed them the spirulina tablet and do you remove it after a certain length of time or just leave it in there because the whole thing gets consumed?

[Mustafa]

Thanks again for the video!