New shrimp on the block

[camaronqueseduerme]

Hello, everybody

A couple of days ago I started my first opae ula tank. I have been reading a lot of posts in this forum and finally decided to share my experience so far and also make a couple of questions. Excuse me for the long post!

So I had an ecosphere I got as a low maintenance pet. It came with 4 small shrimps and initially I found it really cool. However in a couple of months 3 of them had disappeared, and there remained just one sad and forlorn little shrimp. It was depressing so I kind of forgot about it for like two years (I know, bad). A couple of weeks ago I found this site and after seeing Mustafa’s articles I decided that the right and obvious thing to do was saving the poor thing and getting him new friends.
I read all the instructions: got a one-gallon tank, filled it with brackish water and a week later put in Mustafa’s macroalgae and snails, my ecosphere prisoner and a juvenile stowaway shrimp that came hidden in the algae. My tank was getting there.

Everybody looked good, the snails were roaming around like crazy and the two shrimp settled after the first day and were pretty much hiding afterwards but seemed ok. This was the original tank:

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I am not a very patient person so even though I read that it was good to cycle the tank for a couple more weeks, I couldn’t wait and ordered 20 shrimps from Mustafa. A few days later I had them home.

At that point the tank had contained just water for a week and then algae+snails+two shrimps for another week. Hopefully the water from the ecosphere and also from Mustafa’s snail bag had created a nice bacterial soup for the newcomers.

But then before putting in the 21 shrimp I got I thought what the heck, go big or go home so I decided to give the animals more space. I opened the mail package, took out the shrimp but kept them in the bag and literally ran out to buy the new tank. The problem is that the capacity was more than double the one I had. So I went ahead and mixed the brackish water on the spot, put all the water and stuff from the small tank, added the brand new, completely un-cycled extra water and just dumped everybody in, old residents and new shrimps.

I am sure that I did like 99 out of 100 mistakes when setting up a new tank. But the truth is that 3 days later the shrimps seem to be in pretty good shape. There’s constant activity in the tank, everybody is either swimming of grazing their invisible food. I have seen no casualties, but perhaps I’ve lost some, I don’t know, because I am incapable of counting them, they move around so much. I don’t know if I got lucky, if these little guys are amazingly resilient or a combination of both, but so far so good. Here’s a couple of pics of the 2.5 gallon tank:

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So after my long intro, a few questions:

1. First and foremost, for a grand total of 23 shrimps in a 2.5 gallon tank, how much and how often should I feed them to optimize their health and also their reproductive success? Considering the way I set up a tank with very little cycling, I suspect that there are not many algae in the water. In fact it looks quite clear. No slime or film, just Mustafa’s macroalgae and some thinner algae that came from the ecosphere and are growing alone and on top of the sphere dead gorgonia I used for decoration. They are swimming or grazing all the time, no hiding or staying quiet. So again how much and how often shall I feed them?

2. I can’t wait to have the shrimps reproducing (shocking) I have read about “saddled” females. Can anyone tell me what they look like? Also if somebody has a picture of one of them it’d be awesome to see it. Berried females I’ve seen in pictures but not saddled ones.

3. Along the same lines, in order to promote ovulation I’ve read that a higher salinity is better. Should I not replenish completely the evaporated water?

4. Finally, moving on to tank aesthetics, even before getting the shrimps I bought on amazon a couple of marimo balls that were advertised as brackish plants. One is huge but the small one fits better in my tank. However I’ve read in other posts that apparently they are bad for shrimps because the die and decay and change the tank’s chemistry. Any suggestions?

Ok I truly apologize for the extra long post. I promise I’ll keep it short in the future! Thanks for reading and I am looking forward to your suggestions!

[KenCotigirl]

Happy to have you here. I like the shape of your new tank. One of the best parts of keeping these shrimp is the small and unique habitats you can use. Before responding to your questions you need patience. As resilient as these shrimp are rushing things just causes more problems. Now to your questions. Feeding: little and infrequently. Say a dime sized flake once a month. This is a low tech system. Over feeding will create problems. Reproduction: when they are ready. No changes in your tank, stable water conditions, happy shrimp several months to a year. Replacing water: use ro water or distilled and replace as needed. Fooling arround with salinity will just delay reproduction. Other plants: this discussion has been ongoing for years. Most 'brackish' plants eventually die as they really are only tolerant of low salinity and while our salinity seems low it is higher than most plants can survive. The same is true at the other end. Some full salt plants can tolerate brackish conditions but they require higher salinity than we keep our shrimp.

Good luck and keep posting those pictures.

Ken

[camaronqueseduerme]

Thanks for your reply, Ken, and sorry if I am bringing up again things you've discussed many times!

First of all a little correction. It's a two-gallon tank, not 2.5. I suppose that doesn't make a huge difference, but anyway I am not very good with imperial measurements and gave the wrong figure before.

Regarding your advice, I'll wait for one or two weeks before feeding them the small amount you suggest. I need to get some fish food at the pet store. At the end of the month I'll go away for four weeks and the shrimps are going to have to go on a diet ready or not. I hope they'll miss me Also I'll replenish the evaporated water as per your advice. I will pass on the marimo for the time being. Perhaps later on when the tank is well established I'll try with a small piece.

Four days after arrival, I'm noticing more and more red color and also less frantic activity. They are still doing the merry go round thing, but not as much. They are grazing all the time, it's very entertaining seeing them do their shrimp things with their little claws. They also poop a lot, the snails have their work cut out for them. Speaking of, I just discovered two baby snails, hope it's a good sign. At least some reproduction is happening already

So this is all for now, I'll keep you posted and thanks again!

[Nexus6]

Hi there, just a quick comment. When i started my tank, i just threw in fresh Distilled water mixed with instant ocean salt and left it in there for a month, thinking that it would cycle. Only when i added shrimp and food did it start cycling. So i would recommend no feeding for a while and when you do, very small portions.

[camaronqueseduerme]

Thanks Nexus! So far I have only fed one tiny pellet of Hiraki crab cuisine to all 23 shrimps. They took turns and ate it all I think. Right now I am seeing translucent film on the surface of the water that they skim upside down once in a while. Also a green layer is appearing on top of the dead coral rock. There are little bubbles rising from all the little orifices of the coral rock, I suppose that's algae photosynthesizing. For some reason they love to hang in that spot and eat their invisible food there and I love to observe them.

I have zero experience with aquariums, but I'm trying to follow all the advice from this forum which I really appreciate. So far the shrimps look animated and reddish and the baby snails that were born a week ago are growing pretty fast, so hopefully everything is alright. I'll keep posting

[Nexus6]

You should get a water test kit such as this: http://www.amazon.com/API-Saltwater-Mas ... B001EUE808

You want to make sure that your ammonia levels, nitrite and nitrate levels all read 0. Nitrate not so much..

[camaronqueseduerme]

So my little ultra low tech tank has been running for about three weeks now and here are my observations so far:

1. The shrimp seem to be happy. They are quite active, swim around and graze a lot. A couple of them are deep red, most are different shades of pink and there are a couple of transparent ones. I've read here that the color variation is normal.

2. All the stones and surfaces are developing algae. There's green popping up everywhere and the macro algae, both Mustafa's and the ones I introduced from the ecosphere, are clearly growing. The pretty fossilized coral looks dirty now but I guess those are nutrients that eventually will be consumed by the shrimp and snails and incorporated into the system. The translucent film on the water surface is very evident now. The only food I've introduced was a single pellet smaller than a grain of rice. That will be the last time I give them any extra food for a while.

3. The snails are eating and reproducing. The original babies have grown a lot and today I saw a new tiny baby, 2nd litter already?!! (you can see one of the older baby snails on the stone to the left in the first picture)

I guess there is too much food in the tank, therefore the algae growing and the snails reproducing. I don't know where those nutrients might have come from, but am not adding any food for the time being. I am enclosing two pictures and would appreciate if more knowledgeable members can tell me if the amount of algae is normal or I have a situation. After reading older posts I know that waiting it out without feeding is what I'm supposed to do, but I would welcome any suggestions. Thanks!

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[Mustafa]

Thanks for the update! I can't see anything wrong with your tank. Looks great! And the shrimp look great too actually Congrats on the baby snails! The first one you discovered was probably a hitchhiker on the macroalgae, but the ones you're discovering now may be newly born ones. The only thing I would do is get rid of the hair algae on top of the dead coral that came from the ecosphere. That hair algae can take over and literally infest the macroalgae. It's not harmful per se, but shrimp tend to get stuck in it and when you trim the hair algae there is always a chance that you're throwing away stuck shrimp (especially babies later) with it. Hope to see/read new updates soon!