I upgraded my Lightly Salted Shrimp and Snail Soup (aka my Opae Ula (
Halocaridina rubra) brackish water tank). They were in a 1 gallon tank (the first two pictures) and they will now be in a 3.5 gallon tank that just finished cycling (last three pictures). The new tank has a lava rock, much more crushed coral, and a large shell for hiding. It looks pretty bare without plants but they naturally live in anchialine pools in Hawaii so not many plants thrive there. Thinking about buying some macroalgae though.
The tank will hold my 9 shrimp and my snails, though the snails recently had offspring so I will have to wait for them to be larger in order to transfer them. Hopefully soon the shrimp will berry! (Both the shrimp and snails are captive-bred so that none came directly from Hawaii). Hopefully they all thrive in their new home.
Thank you for tagging me! Brackish tanks are always so interesting to me
Hey, my Opae Ula are in that exact aquarium! They have white sand and some coral rock that I found in Hawaii. Also a big ole clump of macroalgae.
That’s awesome! Do you have any snails
No snails, I wanted to keep the tank no-feeding for as long as possible so they’ll do well while I’m away at college. I have 10, since January this year. One berried up for a little while but I haven’t seen babies yet. There’s algae all over the place, so they don’t need any food. I found the rock for their aquarium washed up on a beach, and I think there must have been algae spores or something of the sort on the rock, because it only took a couple weeks for ~5 different kinds to grow. I haven’t fed them once and don’t think I’ll need to until the colony at least triples in size. All I have to do is top off the water once a week.
They’re such great little pets! I like watching them doot around the tank. Cute round guys. Hopefully mine will breed soonish. I’d eventually like to upgrade them to at least a 5 gallon, preferably more, and add snails.
Did you get yours from petshrimp.com? That’s where I got mine. I suggest ordering the macroalgae from them if you decide to get some, it’s a neat algae and has been doing well under just the little LED that came with the tank. The bundle has about quadrupled in size since January.
Yep! From Petshrimp.com. That’s where I got my snails too, though I kind of wish I hadn’t since they won’t stop reproducing so I have way more snails than anticipated and no sign of slowing down their growth so far and I feel too responsible to kill any of them or sell them for fish food. Sadly one of my shrimp has died but the rest (9) are loving their new tank. I think that is where I’ll get my macroalgae when I get some more money. Just spent it all on their new tank
Good to know the snails do that, I wasn’t sure if they’d breed like crazy. It’s too bad assassin snails (very slow-breeding snails that eat other snails) are only freshwater, or they’d make great control. Might have to avoid the snails. Those, at least, I’d definitely consider a couple of nerites in a 10gal tank. Nerite snail eggs hatch in brackish water, I think, but there’s a market for those.
I’m only about 80% sure I still have 10 shrimp, actually. They have lots of nooks, and I’ve never counted all 10 at once since putting them in. I haven’t seen any dead ones, though, and it’s entirely reasonable that a tank with about 15 different good hiding spots wouldn’t show me all 10 shrimp at the same time.
What kind of color variation do you have? Mine range all the way from one that’s just about clear to one that’s as deep red as they ever get. Most are more or less in the middle- red, but transparentish red. I suppose it’d be possible to selectively breed just the brightest red ones, though tricky given that they don’t like being moved.
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