My Ecosphere Rescue Story
Moderator: Mustafa
My Ecosphere Rescue Story
I saved my opae ula from eco-sphere last year end of Sept( didn't know they suffer from lack of food in eco sphere). Eventually I found this website and ordered more more(in two batches) and algae/moss balls and bought my vocano rock from various places( large piece is from Petco) to set up a new home for them(November-Feb).
To be honest, I made too many mistakes to begin with. I had 24 shrimp to be begin and ended up with 21. The three were either dead from my wrong salinity/accident while change containers... I used to change water once a few days, change the landscape of rocks, change substrate, overfeeding and etc. This lasted about 3 months before I began to realize I should stop bothering the shrimp. So I decide to finalize my setup( three weeks ago) with two containers( 2 and 3 gallon each ), and each has about 10 ish shrimp.
I made sure my saltility is at around 1.01-1.012, and also PH at 8.2-8.4. I put it at a place with indirect sunlight with light bulb on the hood for 4-10 hours per day. I fed them with fish food flakes(after grinded to small pieces) once in a while(5-10 days ish).
And finally, after 2 weeks of no disturbance at all, I see a shrimp with enlarged belly, which I already know It's a sign of berried. On the next day I got home from work, I witnessed the whole scene of eggs coming out to her belly from her egg sac. I also recorded a video of the whole scene for about 10 mins( poor quality tho). That was that fast! It looks like she has about 20ish eggs. I hope she will be holding on to all of it. I heard that the temperature is also pretty important with regard to breeding, so I will maintain my room to be around 70-75 degrees to be safe.
I am not sure this means a success of my care or I am just lucky. These creatures are very easy to be disturbed and will be easily upset. The easy way is to provide enough hiding places, make sure they have food, good water paraters(light is necessary to maintain ph) and also little disturbance. I will be glad if someone gives me advice what to improve!
To be honest, I made too many mistakes to begin with. I had 24 shrimp to be begin and ended up with 21. The three were either dead from my wrong salinity/accident while change containers... I used to change water once a few days, change the landscape of rocks, change substrate, overfeeding and etc. This lasted about 3 months before I began to realize I should stop bothering the shrimp. So I decide to finalize my setup( three weeks ago) with two containers( 2 and 3 gallon each ), and each has about 10 ish shrimp.
I made sure my saltility is at around 1.01-1.012, and also PH at 8.2-8.4. I put it at a place with indirect sunlight with light bulb on the hood for 4-10 hours per day. I fed them with fish food flakes(after grinded to small pieces) once in a while(5-10 days ish).
And finally, after 2 weeks of no disturbance at all, I see a shrimp with enlarged belly, which I already know It's a sign of berried. On the next day I got home from work, I witnessed the whole scene of eggs coming out to her belly from her egg sac. I also recorded a video of the whole scene for about 10 mins( poor quality tho). That was that fast! It looks like she has about 20ish eggs. I hope she will be holding on to all of it. I heard that the temperature is also pretty important with regard to breeding, so I will maintain my room to be around 70-75 degrees to be safe.
I am not sure this means a success of my care or I am just lucky. These creatures are very easy to be disturbed and will be easily upset. The easy way is to provide enough hiding places, make sure they have food, good water paraters(light is necessary to maintain ph) and also little disturbance. I will be glad if someone gives me advice what to improve!
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
Wow, being able to witness that is pretty awesome! Congratulations on the berried female!
Improvement advice wise...I always go by the rule of "if there continues to be berried shrimp, do nothing"
Improvement advice wise...I always go by the rule of "if there continues to be berried shrimp, do nothing"
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
Thanks! For some reasons, my berried female is hidden 24/7. i can barely see her now. I don't know if that usual.
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- Shrimpoholic
- Posts: 363
- Joined: Thu Apr 21, 2016 2:20 pm
- Location: Southern California, USA
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
Nice going! When my shrimp have eggs they are out and about for the first week or so, then they hunker down and hide until close to when the eggs hatch. I think it's normal
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
The only advice I can give is to just leave the tank alone for the most part. Who convinced you to change the water every few days in the beginning?
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
At the beginning, the PH keeps decreasing to 7.5ish so I had to change water to keep ph stable. Later I realized it was because I didn't give sufficient light source. . Btw, in case someone knows, does Opae Ula eat the algae scrapped from the glass tank wall? The algea was greenish dust looking thingy that was growing on the glass on the tank. I decided to scrap it off because it made tank really blurry to look thru it. It seems opae ula is uninterested in eating it .
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
They will eat anything, including the algae scrapped off the tank walls. One reason they seem uninterested could be because there is sufficient food already. Imagine eating dessert after being full
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
Thanks for replying.
I also find the glass algae really annoying to deal with. I hate disturbing my shrimp while scrapping them off. Should I get water snails? Will snails do a good job to make my glass wall clean/transparent all the time?
I am a bit scared that the snails might starve the shrimp as I heard that those snails have big appetite for algae. I'm worried that they might limit my shrimp's desire to reproduce.
I also find the glass algae really annoying to deal with. I hate disturbing my shrimp while scrapping them off. Should I get water snails? Will snails do a good job to make my glass wall clean/transparent all the time?
I am a bit scared that the snails might starve the shrimp as I heard that those snails have big appetite for algae. I'm worried that they might limit my shrimp's desire to reproduce.
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- Tiny Shrimp
- Posts: 55
- Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2019 8:46 am
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
I have the same irritations concerning the algae and disturbing the shrimp when scraping tha algae off.
The problem with snails is not that they eat too much algae, the problem is (in my opinion) that
1) they reproduce too much or lay eggs everywhere
2) they leave the tank and go 'on land'
3) dying snails can pollute your water if you do not remove them in time
The problem with snails is not that they eat too much algae, the problem is (in my opinion) that
1) they reproduce too much or lay eggs everywhere
2) they leave the tank and go 'on land'
3) dying snails can pollute your water if you do not remove them in time
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
The easiest solution to the algae may be to just leave the tank alone and to not add any food. Over time as the shrimp population grows they will eat more and more and you'll notice a gradual decrease in the algae on the glass. However this may take many months or even years depending on the tank.
Mustafa's snails won't overpopulate in a supershrimp tank and they don't lay eggs on glass (they give live birth), but they also aren't the best glass cleaners (they will clean glass, but they prefer to feed in the substrate).
Mustafa's snails won't overpopulate in a supershrimp tank and they don't lay eggs on glass (they give live birth), but they also aren't the best glass cleaners (they will clean glass, but they prefer to feed in the substrate).
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
This can take years? How do you tell if you're doing damage to the tank overall by not adding food btw?
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
So long as there's algae the shrimp will never starve. Also years is worse case, i.e. if the tank has a ton of excess nutrients to feed excess algae growth for that length of time.
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
This is my personal experience with algae and snails:
Tank #1 doesn't get direct sun, not much direct fresh air, no live plants, no feeding, has 2 half-inch pipipi snails and 20-30 trumpet snails. It has barely any visible algae and steady breeding activities in both opae ula and trumpet snails. <---I do not mess with this tank as I'm very happy with it. This tank is 3 years old.
Tank #2 gets more direct sun and sits by an open window, has one and half moss balls, an one-inch pipipi snail (that's very big) and 5 trumpet snails. It had so much algae up until 1 month ago I can't see much going on inside. Then I added the pipipi and it did a nice job cleaning the tank walls. This humongous pipipi did lay a bunch of eggs, but not to a point of destruction. I saw only one batch of baby shrimp and no baby snails. I'm keeping an eye on this tank as it's not stable yet. This tank is 1 year old.
Tank #3 is still being cycled, no direct sun, fresh air sometimes, no live plants and no visible algae at all after 4 weeks. This one most likely will not have overgrowing algae problem like tank #2.
To summarize, I think it's about achieving an equilibrium (not too much algae, shrimp and snails are breeding etc). Variation of tank size, tank location, and tank's age will matter. You might just have to find the balance by trial and error if you have to. But if your #1 goal is to breed opae ula, then leaving them alone is probably the best course of action.
Tank #1 doesn't get direct sun, not much direct fresh air, no live plants, no feeding, has 2 half-inch pipipi snails and 20-30 trumpet snails. It has barely any visible algae and steady breeding activities in both opae ula and trumpet snails. <---I do not mess with this tank as I'm very happy with it. This tank is 3 years old.
Tank #2 gets more direct sun and sits by an open window, has one and half moss balls, an one-inch pipipi snail (that's very big) and 5 trumpet snails. It had so much algae up until 1 month ago I can't see much going on inside. Then I added the pipipi and it did a nice job cleaning the tank walls. This humongous pipipi did lay a bunch of eggs, but not to a point of destruction. I saw only one batch of baby shrimp and no baby snails. I'm keeping an eye on this tank as it's not stable yet. This tank is 1 year old.
Tank #3 is still being cycled, no direct sun, fresh air sometimes, no live plants and no visible algae at all after 4 weeks. This one most likely will not have overgrowing algae problem like tank #2.
To summarize, I think it's about achieving an equilibrium (not too much algae, shrimp and snails are breeding etc). Variation of tank size, tank location, and tank's age will matter. You might just have to find the balance by trial and error if you have to. But if your #1 goal is to breed opae ula, then leaving them alone is probably the best course of action.
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
Nice controlling the algae growth! I looks like I need to find the equilibrium for my tank. I totally agree that sunlight plays a huge role in growing visible algae. I will start with no direct some light(less LED light too) and less feeding. I prefer not having snails for now and I will just let the population reach its equilibrium with controlled light source. I will do a scrubbing once in a while if algae is growing too fast. Let's see how that goes.i<3Opae wrote: ↑Mon Mar 11, 2019 2:38 pm This is my personal experience with algae and snails:
Tank #1 doesn't get direct sun, not much direct fresh air, no live plants, no feeding, has 2 half-inch pipipi snails and 20-30 trumpet snails. It has barely any visible algae and steady breeding activities in both opae ula and trumpet snails. <---I do not mess with this tank as I'm very happy with it. This tank is 3 years old.
Tank #2 gets more direct sun and sits by an open window, has one and half moss balls, an one-inch pipipi snail (that's very big) and 5 trumpet snails. It had so much algae up until 1 month ago I can't see much going on inside. Then I added the pipipi and it did a nice job cleaning the tank walls. This humongous pipipi did lay a bunch of eggs, but not to a point of destruction. I saw only one batch of baby shrimp and no baby snails. I'm keeping an eye on this tank as it's not stable yet. This tank is 1 year old.
Tank #3 is still being cycled, no direct sun, fresh air sometimes, no live plants and no visible algae at all after 4 weeks. This one most likely will not have overgrowing algae problem like tank #2.
To summarize, I think it's about achieving an equilibrium (not too much algae, shrimp and snails are breeding etc). Variation of tank size, tank location, and tank's age will matter. You might just have to find the balance by trial and error if you have to. But if your #1 goal is to breed opae ula, then leaving them alone is probably the best course of action.
Re: My Ecosphere Rescue Story
On the subject of snails, I initially started with a 10 pack of them. I found that they tended to die at the rate of about 1 per week (though they did produce 2 babies).
I decided not to restock them, since I have two rimless tanks. They look best when filled to the top. But with snails in the tank, no can do - if the water is within an inch of the top, they like to crawl up and wick the water meniscus into the seam between the tank and cover, resulting in lots of salt crystallization.
I decided not to restock them, since I have two rimless tanks. They look best when filled to the top. But with snails in the tank, no can do - if the water is within an inch of the top, they like to crawl up and wick the water meniscus into the seam between the tank and cover, resulting in lots of salt crystallization.