Minimum aquarium size for breeding Opae Ula

[PixieShrimp]

Hello

I hope this isn't a repeat topic, I did a search and couldn't find it. What is the minimum aquarium size for Opae Ula to breed? Or if there isn't a general size everyone agrees on, what size aquarium are your Opae Ula breeding in right now?

Thank you!

[KenCotigirl]

I have a tank of shrimp that holds about a gallon of water. They are breeding.

Ken

[PixieShrimp]

Thank you! That's great news. Mine are in a smaller aquarium right now because I only have about 16, but I could easily upgrade them to a 1 gallon. Do you use any kind of filtration or airiation?

[KenCotigirl]

No I do not. The only thing I add is a led puck light. They truely are the perfect desk top pet. I think a half gallon tank may also work. I may try a half gallon tank for work. We are moving offices and I was told I may not be allowed to bring my 7 gallon tank to that office. Half gallon tank should fly under the radar.

[PixieShrimp]

I wasn't sure how big my current shrimp aquarium is, so I used a website to calculate how much water is in it based on its measurements. According to that website, my group of about 16's little aquarium is 0.5 gallons. Up until recently I was extremely minimal with their care, only very occasionally changing the water when it was looking mucky. But I think healthy green algae is finally establishing now, I saw some bright green algae grow after the last water change. It wasn't the prettiest color for a long time. I haven't lost a shrimp, and they stayed active, but I never saw berries or babies. I also very very very occasionally fed them, leaving the algae in the aquarium to cover that.

But since I never got babies, I recently decided to start giving them a very tiny amount of shrimp food once a week at most, and their colors have greatly brightened, and a few molted, so I think I will continue to feed them very sparingly. I really hope I'll get babies. I have a beautiful aquarium that's about 1-2 gallons I think that I would love to fill with a big colony of these shrimp I bred myself someday. It has a nice picture frame shape, which is an aquarium I would honestly only use with these shrimp and not a normal fish because of its narrow shape.

I also moved a smaller group of 6 into a smaller aquarium, more of a jar really, and they actually seem a lot happier. I think they couldn't keep up with the algae in their last aquarium, which was maybe 0.25 gallons I'll guess. Their last aquarium always looked mucky, worse then the slowly improving 0.5 with the group of 16. I guess I worked out on my own the size of the aquarium/container has a certainly number of shrimp proportionate to it. At least it seems that way! Very backwards from the aquatics I'm used to. So far their little jar is looking great. The only reason these 6 are seperate is because they are the original first shrimp I got about 4-5 years ago. There's a bit of a legacy with them, and I'm really curious if I'll see them live to 20 as people often say!

The shrimp food I'm using is a type made for those crystal red shrimp, it's a little expensive but goes a long way because the grains are very tiny and I feed my super shrimp very sparingly. At first they weren't too exited about it, but now they LOVE it! Which is great because I haven't found spirulina or anything like that yet. A nice thing about Japan is keeping crystal red shrimp is a popular hobby, and because they are so delicate there's a lot of amazing shrimp produces available for them, and some of them I can use for my super shrimp.

[KenCotigirl]

How about a couple pictures of both your tanks. They sound interesting.

Ken

[pelletube]

Any updates on this? Yes a picture would be great too!

[Kval1015]

I have a half gallon tank with 16 shrimp.
I haven't seen any breeding yet, but I did move from New York to Michigan with them in the car about 6 months ago. They are super red and seem pretty happy, so I'm hoping I will see some breeding this year. I've attached a photo.

I'm considering adding an additional lava rock or two to give them some more places to hang out. I've read on here that may be able to help with breeding as well...

[pelletube]

I have a half gallon tank with 16 shrimp.
I haven't seen any breeding yet, but I did move from New York to Michigan with them in the car about 6 months ago. They are super red and seem pretty happy, so I'm hoping I will see some breeding this year. I've attached a photo.

I'm considering adding an additional lava rock or two to give them some more places to hang out. I've read on here that may be able to help with breeding as well...

Thanks Kval. Yours looks nice. Mine is a bit full of algae now—to my understanding , it’s supposed to be healthy, but doesn’t look clean

[Nellyville41]

I have a 1 gal at work and a 3 gal at home. The 1 gal I started with 10. So far there’s been 4 times where they berried. Of course not all survived or they were dropped but I can say that I have around 30 to 40 in that one. For the 3 gal at home I started with 21 and now it’s like around 50. You don’t need to clean your tank since that’s what they eat. As for feeding them, I wouldn’t do it so often due to the fact that if the food isn’t finished, it can mess up the water especially if it can’t handle it. My 1 gal has visible algae specs on the wall while the one at home does not. It doesn’t mean they don’t have food to eat, we just can’t see it.

[roygbiv]

I bought a cylindrical, glass tank (really just a vase) with the stated dimensions of 8" diameter and 10" height. That should have been more than enough for a gallon of water, but what arrived was a little smaller than the stated dimensions, and after adding the substrate and lava rock, it really only holds about 3/4 of a gallon.

I wasn't hopeful about any breeding, based on what I've read here, but imagine my surprise today when I realized that at least two of the 10 shrimp in the tank are berried! It must be the first week for both of them, unless they've been hanging out in the little cave area I set up with the lava rocks.

Now I'm really excited! I think I've finally figured out how to attach images (sorry the curved glass isn't conducive to clear photos).

[roygbiv]

Quick correction to my previous post. The tank is supposed to be 6" diameter by 10" high. But, that should have been more than enough for a gallon of water. I didn't take into consideration the inner diameter would be about 1/4" smaller, the imprecision in manufacturing cheap glassware, and the volume I'd be filling with rocks and substrate.

[Dch48]

Two of my females have released their young. One looked to have only 5 or 6 eggs but the other one had about a dozen. I now have about 18 floaters bobbing around in my little one gallon tank along with the same number of adult shrimp.

[roygbiv]

Two of my females have released their young. One looked to have only 5 or 6 eggs but the other one had about a dozen. I now have about 18 floaters bobbing around in my little one gallon tank along with the same number of adult shrimp.

That's exciting! I'm curious to know how it goes and if all the eggs develop into shrimp.

I'm hoping to see some floaters in the next week.

[Dch48]

Now I have another berried female that looks to be carrying 6 to 8 eggs. If everything survives, I'll have a bustling population.