New tank set up

[JennyPenny]

Yes, you are right NancyM. Unfortunately she dropped the last of the eggs. Hopefully soon she will be ready to try again.

[JennyPenny]

When I first got my shrimp, I shot some footage for a member who was curious. I finally edited the video and uploaded it to YouTube. I hope to do some more videos soon and a tank update. If any of you are interested, here is the link. It is basically a petshrimp.com unboxing and I add them to the tank.
https://youtu.be/lftsZ-xaCHI

[Keystone]

You did a great job with the video

[Mustafa]

Just saw the video. It's awesome!! I may actually link to it from one of the pages on this website if you don't mind. Looking forward to more videos!

[JennyPenny]

Just saw the video. It's awesome!! I may actually link to it from one of the pages on this website if you don't mind. Looking forward to more videos!

Thanks! It was fun to put together the video, but I wish I did a better job. I plan to do more videos soon and that way I will get better with the camera and the editing.
If you want to link it, that's perfectly fine with me.

[Mustafa]

Thanks! It was fun to put together the video, but I wish I did a better job.

I still think you did a great job!

[JennyPenny]

My tank is still going, but sad to say it is not going strong. I moved in 2017, then again 3 months later, and then a third time in September 2019. My poor shrimps have had a rough go of it.
The first move was uneventful and the shrimps continued releasing larvae and breeding as though nothing had happened.
The second time I moved, the temp in the tank had dropped significantly in a short amount of time due to a heater breaking in my apartment right as we were moving. The room was around 30 F and the tank water was so cold that all the shrimps were lying on the bottom, not moving. When the tank started warming up again, several adults died, most shrimplets died, and all my larvae died. I was not able to pick the larvae and many of the shrimplets out of the gravel as I couldn't find them. It has been two years now, and I think I have only had a few clutches of eggs released from berried mothers. I have lost about 4 shrimp since, with the deaths spaced out.
The third move was uneventful but I have lost one shrimp at the new house and have still not had any berried shrimps. Two weeks ago I saw a gorgeous saddled female after a molt swimming like a maniac with distended pleopods, but she never berried and I believe is still saddled. I wonder if my tank is permanently contaminated. We have done significant remodeling, here and at the last house, and while I thought the shrimp were completely protected, it is not impossible that they were exposed to something.
I am considering setting up a new tank and cycling it, and transferring them over. Any advice?

[Vorteil]

Nothing wrong with starting all over. You've been successful in the past. Follow the same strategy as before, right? On a side note my daughter accidenly unplugged the heater to one of my tanks ouside. It was off for a few days and the temps dropped to around 40 degrees. The day I caught it all the opae were at the bottom of the tank. I thought they were dead. They were all still red and didn't look like they had started decomposing. I realized they were still alive. Slowly heated the tank back up and they all recovered.

[JennyPenny]

I suppose you are right. It seems a shame to throw out everything from the old tank. I would bet that there is no safe way to clean natural decor or substrate. Boiling or scrubbing probably wouldn't do anything for contaminates.
They sure are hardy to cold temperatures, especially considering they come from Hawaii. What a relief that your shrimp recovered! Have you discussed your outside tanks on this forum? I would like to know more about that.

[JennyPenny]

Here are pics of my tank. It has been four years since I set it up.

[Vorteil]

I had the 10 gallon outside for a year. It experiened a high of 96 degrees one day due to the cover that shaded it falling off due to high winds. All the opae were doing fine and still alive. After the second scare in the winter I decided to bring the tank indoors. The extreme temperature fluctuations were'nt good for the opae. The babies didn't survive the high heat or the cold. I believe stability is the key to raising & breeding them.

[JennyPenny]

That is interesting. I also think stability is important. The sudden drop in temperature was more than my larvae and shrimplets could handle. Have you noticed any changes in the population increase since bringing it in?

[Vorteil]

Mine never bred outside. That tank hovered around 86-88 degrees which I felt was too high for the larvae. Only my tanks in my garage breed. Temps stay low & i prefer to keep them right around 72 degrees. Currently they're at 65 degrees and ther's plenty of larvae at this time.

[Mustafa]

I am considering setting up a new tank and cycling it, and transferring them over. Any advice?

How about just changing out most of the water (80-90%), getting rid of 9/10th of the macroalgae (to allow more surface algae/bacteria to get nutrients and grow) and then see how it goes? That should solve your issues if anything got into the water while remodeling.

[JennyPenny]

Hello Mustafa, my apologies for not replying to you last year. I read your message but must have got distracted, or perhaps did not respond since I was undecided about what to do.
I ended up doing nothing, and have had maybe one more shrimp die, but several clutches of eggs successfully hatched at different periods throughout the year, and the larvae grew to shrimplets. Now I wonder if my sea fan could be the problem. I recently read through some posts here and it seems the consensus is that sea fans can be problematic, just like marimos. I do not recall reading posts about that previously, so I don't know if that is new information or I just missed it.