Hawaiian Reds

A forum for discussing everything about the Supershrimp (Halocaridina rubra, Opae ula).

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LiquidBee
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Question

Post by LiquidBee »

Oh shoot...I forgot to ask the following

Does the PH matter...cuz I haven't check the PH nor do I have a test kit for it.

Saw these Rocks on auction, and they said the rock "acturally buffers pH by leaching calcium carbonate into the water"...will that affect my Shrimps ?

Just wondering.

Thanks
LiquidBee
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Not active

Post by LiquidBee »

Ahh Crap...came home today and most of the Opae shrimps are not active...just sitting around, still see them kinda forging, but don't see any free swimming around the tank.

the Temp is at 76......I'll raise it to 78-80 and see if they become more active...

Humm...hopefully they're not dying (crossing my fingers)
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Post by Mustafa »

The swimming around is actually not a good thing (most of the time anyway). These shrimp sit around most of the time anyway and just walk around ans swim short distances to forage. So don't worry. :)

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Post by chlorophyll »

I'm not one who moniters water parameters much (aside from general cleanliness, salinity, and temperature) so can't say much about that. That's not to say it's not a good thing to do, I just personally don't do it much. I wouldn't worry about aquarium rock that's advertised to buffer, with regard to harming these shrimp.

The biggest concern might be overfeeding. These shrimp can be pretty sensitive to that. If you're putting in food and you're not sure it's enough for them, it probably is :-D
Where did you buy the shrimp and food from? It is probably fine and they probably eat it, but it would be kind of nice for you to know what it is :o
If the crab is really always eating and making waste, that could be a problem, but I'm not sure. But you can also look at it this way: if he is getting enough to eat, very likely so are the opae... so you probably don't have to worry about that.

With their coloration, intuitively we think paled color is a bad sign. That isn't a bad idea. But I honestly can't say how strong an indicator it is. I've had these shrimp in seemingly favorable conditions with some individuals very deep in color and some paled (just like your group, I guess). And for the life of me, I don't know what the pale indicates in the selectively paled individuals. I would tend to think something's definitely wrong if everybody becomes pale though.
One of the things about opae ula is that if they're under duress, unless there's something dramatically wrong, they can live with that stress for a very long time so it may not be immediately known something is wrong. But, I wouldn't overthink it. If the water quality is good, they have food (but not too much), and have a calm environment, they will probably be fine. :-)
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Post by LiquidBee »

The shrimps looks all find when I returned from a 3 day get away... I didn't notice any death so far....but then again, the dead were probably eaten anyways.

I took the liberty and removed the fiddler crab so that the shrimp don't have to worry. about 1/6 of the shrimps look pale (not sure if the same number of them were that pale before).

Anyways, just got back from my trip and kinda over-fed the little guys with Spirulina....I'll skip feeding them for the next 4-5 days

Well, thanks for the help, and I'll up date the status of the shrimps in a few days.
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Status Update

Post by LiquidBee »

It's been a good 3-4 weeks since I got my Hawaiian Reds.

And it looks like all of them are doing fine...I'm assuming there are no death since I can account for 90% of them when I feed.

I have set schedule feedings every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with a little more on Mondays.

I feed them the green algea power (I think), and a little crushed up spirulina... I don't notice any algea growing in my tank even though I have the light turned on 12-14 hours a day..Need to think of a way to improve algea growth. (question: Where do I get those little branches thing-e that are seen in the ecosphere ??...what are they ?)

I have changed my set up a little bit, turned off the sponge filter, but left it in the tank. There are currently no filter of any kind.

I am kind of worried about the water since there isn't any filtration, there is no water movement, Won't the water become stale and smelly ??

I took out the fiddler crab about 2 weeks ago and just left it in the tub..hhahahaha..have to return it to Petco one of these days...only left are shrimps.

I piled both of my 2 holed lava rock on the left corner (next to the sponge filter). Under the lava rocks, I place my wet / dry media from my filter, I was worried that there wouldn't be enough bacteria when I turned off my power filter so I kepted the wet/dry media in the tank.

Besides that, my tank is basically empty.

The shrimps are doing fine right now....although I do notice a few paled shrimps.

My temperature ranges from 72 at night to 82 when it gets really hot... I have kepted the heater on during the night to get a consistent temperature, but I haven't had success.

I got lazy and stop testing the water for ammonia...but the shrimps are doing fine so I assume that the water is fine...hehe

I'm currently trying to find some small lava rock piece so I can make more dark spaces for the shrimps to hide in.....haven't had too much luck.

Here's some of my concerns:
1) Algea growth ? - how do I promote additional algea growth ?, Should I keep the light on longer ?

2) What are those little branch thing-e's they use in the Ecosphere, and where can I get some of them to decorate my tank with

3) Water movement - will the water become stale and affect the shrimp ?.. I tried turning down the air flow when I used the sponge filter, but since the air pump was dirt cheap I couldn't control it to the amount of air that I wantted, so I turned it off completely.

Please help a brother out if you can
Thanks in advance
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Re: Status Update

Post by Mustafa »

LiquidBee wrote:Here's some of my concerns:
1) Algea growth ? - how do I promote additional algea growth ?, Should I keep the light on longer ?
Don't worry about algae growth...it'll come eventually. It takes a while for algae to grow in newly established tanks.
2) What are those little branch thing-e's they use in the Ecosphere, and where can I get some of them to decorate my tank with
Those are little pieces of dead coral.

3
) Water movement - will the water become stale and affect the shrimp ?.. I tried turning down the air flow when I used the sponge filter, but since the air pump was dirt cheap I couldn't control it to the amount of air that I wantted, so I turned it off completely.
You can buy those plastic air valves cheaply from pet stores and use them to regulate the air flow if you want.
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