Opaeula.co.uk

A dedicated forum and online store for the Opae ula shrimp! 

Share photos/videos, journals and logs for your Opae ula tank setups for others to read.
 #2691  by Opaeforms
 
Now i've started to see my Opae Ula venturing out from the shadows on a regular basis I thought i'd start a thread and explain how my tank experience has gone so far.

Initially I wanted to try growing a green patch of dwarf hairgrass within the tank. It's known to have some brackish tolerance so I thought it may work. I knew that there would definitely have to be some sort of fertilisation in order for the dwarf hairgrass to grow so I decided to use some ADA Aquasoil in part of the tank where the hairgrass would be planted.

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I left the tank like the last picture for a few weeks to give the hairgrass a chance to grow itself in before fully immersing it. Using a high powered LED lamp and periodically misting the hairgrass so it wouldn't dry out too muc i'd hoped it would flourish! Despite my efforts there wasn't much growth... I decided to fully flood the tank about two weeks later, and then slowly added marine salt over the course of another few weeks. After about 3 weeks of the tank being flooded, and about 1/2 of the salt I needed added to the water, the dwarf hairgrass didn't look very happy at all so decided to remove it.

Some unspecified amount of time later :smile: I decided to add the rest of the marine salt and some Chaetomorpha (it's no dwarf hairgrass but it'll have to do!) , and a day after that I put 10 Opae Ula in. I saw them swimming around for around 24 hours, but then I didn't see any for about a week! After days of no shrimp I succumbed to the urge to remove some rocks to make sure they weren't all dead... I found out they weren't! I was worried they may be hiding due to high nitrates or due to the fact I used tap water though so I added a bag of purigen to be safe. I was also worried about the salinity of the water and suspected my hydrometer was not giving me acurate readings so got the water checked at my local fish shop. The salinity was fine! Although there was a weird layer of salt at the bottom of the tank for a bit which I mentioned here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=189 . No sign of that anymore.

So after a month they tend to avoid the bright LED during the day but they have started coming out during the evening a lot more. I can actually watch them now!

Here's how the tank looks now. Not the greatest pics, sorry!
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Hope this post helps someone. I'll update this thread if anything changes!
 #2692  by odin
 
That's a really neat setup and thank you for sharing! Your Opae ula look nice and red so they must be happy. Keep the photos and updates coming.


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 #2697  by Opaeforms
 
Thanks! The goal is to have them beeeding at some point.

Forgot to mention about the temperature! I had it hanging at about 20C initially but around the time I put the purigen in I raised it to a constant 23C.

Also forgot to mention that I have about 10 trumpet snails in there too. A few adults and the rest juveniles. They were added when the tank got flooded and are always active and seem to be doing a great job of keeping the glass clear of algae.
 #2716  by odin
 
I agree about snails, i was a bit weary of having them in my tanks but they really are a god send!
 #3033  by Opaeforms
 
6 more added to the tank today. These ones are a little more mature than the rest of my shrimp so hope I'll get some berried females soon. One of them also molted while I was acclimatising them! (Bottom left) Hope it doesn't cause any issues. Since my last post I removed a lot of the macro algae as it was taking up a lot of the tank. I added a pile of substrate rocks to one corner and a marimo a few days ago too, which pretty much immediately resulted in the shrimp spending a lot more time out in the open. Guess they feel more comfortable when they have lots of places to hide. Much happier with how they are behaving now as they were so reclusive before!

Here's how the tank looks now:
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Last edited by Opaeforms on 08 Apr 2017 11:09, edited 3 times in total.
 #3034  by odin
 
That looks great, if the shrimp are acting more comfortable and seem happy then you have made all the right decisions on changing the tank. The moulting isnt an issue and is perfectly normal when being transferred from water they have been accustom to into new water which may differ in salinity etc. Thanks for the tank updates! :happy: