Finally! The Opae has come

[Arnold]

So finally after a year trying to get some Opae ulas here they are, it was pretty much impossible to find this shrimps here in The Canary Islands but I find a home breeder in Spain who have been keeping and breeding them succesfully so I didnt think about it and buy some of his shrimp, lucky for me because he not have a great numbers since have only one small tank of Halocaridinas. After a 4 days shipping they arrived the last friday 26, all the 13 shrimp were fine and I aclimate them by dripping about 2 hours to equiparate parameters. The tank its very simple: a 20l (5,3gal) tank with fine black volcanic gravel, a very cheap opcion since we are a volcanic archipielago just like Hawai, I will put some big volcanic rocks soon. For the water its maybe not the most orthodox way by mixing sea water from the Atlantic ocean and tap water around 1/1.5 proportion but I didnt find sintetic salt. I put some macroalgae also with some species that are known to handle brackish conditions like Ulva rigida, Chaetomorpha linum, Aegagropila linnei, Cladophora sp. Also some species of red algae and a brown algae like Cystoseira abies-marina that I will try to adapt to brackish water. But only small pieces of macroalgae and if I advise some dying parts I will remove them to keep the water quality. The Shrimp are doing pretty good for now and like to hang out in the algae. Sorry but the photos are not the best with my cellphone

The tank





Shrimp family


The macroalgae

[AnotherKevin]

Beautiful tank!

I would recommend that you add a seashell or piece of coral; that will help prevent the water from going acidic.
Like you, I also used real ocean water. (However, I mixed mine with distilled water, not tap water.)

[Arnold]

Thanks, I dont worry too much for now since my tap water its in the harder side and have lot of minerals. The shrimp are doing fantastic, the water remains pristine, the macroalgae its doing fine and starting to grow and also algae its starting to grow on the glass so everything its going very well. I will not feed the shrimp for now

[Arnold]

Update: After 17 days the shrimp are great, all the shrimp live and healthy, very active all day long and the red color popping out. The macroalgae species also doing good, the Sea lettuce is live not growing, the Marimo and the Cladophoropsis are the best growers for now. Brown algae its covering the glass and the shrimp love picking it





The brown algae its growing good with the long fotoperiod


The shrimp pick actively the surface biofilm also




The marimo in the back are the first added with a darker green, the bigger and brighter ones are new, all came from the same marimo splited in smaller portions


Tha magic flying algae jaja

[Arnold]

23 days after the shrimp arrival, everything good and more green

[Mustafa]

Any updates?

[Arnold]

Today first feeding almost 3 month after the shrimp arrival!!! I was waiting to feed since the tank was inmature, a single tiny pellet with spirulina, they seem to like it very much in less of 24 h it dissapeared completely. The 13 shrimp are doing fantastic growing and molting, I need to get them more cover for start the breeding

[Arnold]

New red macroalgae for the tank Pterocladiella capillacea

[Mustafa]

Do you have pictures of the tank? If the macroalgae are growing, we should be able to see it by now.

[Arnold]

New volacanic rocks for the aquarium... The good thing to live in a volcanic archipielago

[Arnold]

The aquarium slowly getting better

[romanabacovaa]

Hi!
Congrats to your nice aquarium. Do you have any recommendation where could I buy Cystoseira abies marina, please?
Thank you for any answers.
Romana

[Arnold]

Cystoseria species didnt grow very well in my tank, the brown macroalgae dont grow at all, I have better results with green macroalgae like Aegagropila linnei, cladophoropsis, ulva sp, etc

[Arnold]

(Almost) 5 months update: The shrimps are doing well all 13 alive but still not breeding, the snails as expected breeding like rabbits, the algae and Widgeon grass growing real good as well

[Mustafa]

Thanks for the update! There's lots cyanobacteria growth on one of your rocks. That's usually an indicator of too much organic matter in the tank. My "guess" is that at least parts of all the plants to stuffed in there are decaying and increasing the organic load in the tank. I would say that once you stop experimenting with plants, then your shrimp have a better chance of reproducing.