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Giant Ecosphere

46K views 104 replies 19 participants last post by  Rob in Puyallup 
#1 · (Edited)
I bought this fishbowl for half off online and decided to try keeping Opae Ula shrimp in it. I've had it set up for several weeks with inert sand, some lace rock, a piece of Seiryu, and some Chaetomorpha macro algae. I'm using R/O water with marine salt at half the normal amount to create a brackish environment which mimics the anchialine pools they come from in Hawaii. They're endemic to Hawaii and are also called Volcano Shrimp and Super Shrimp because they have up to a 20 year lifespan and can survive in nearly freshwater to more saline than the ocean and a wide range of temperatures. These are the shrimp that you get when you buy an ecosphere. I used to have one of these and believed the company who makes them when they said it was a perfectly balanced sealed environment, when in reality they are slowly starved and suffocated to death. This reminds me of a giant ecosphere on a pedestal only this one is open. I learned more about these shrimp from http://www.petshrimp.com/hawaiianredshrimp.php and bought 60 from Cookymonster which were delivered last week. They all survived the trip and I haven't found a single one yet that has died. I'm not filtering the water, I only have a 50W titantium heater and it sets in an East facing window so gets a couple hours of morning sun. I'm monitoring the temperatures and so far the bowl has only gone up 2 degrees when the sun shines on it. They're more active and swim more than any other dwarf shrimp that I've had. They seem to be constantly moving. I'm not feeding them anything, the macroalgae and whatever grows on the rocks will be their food for now anyway. Overall I'm very please with how it's turned out so far. These may be the easiest aquatic pet there is.









 
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#4 ·
The chaetomorpha seems to be doing well and I'm indebted to Mustafa from the above mentioned website for selling me some of his. He said this is the only plant he's found that does well in this half salinity brackish water which is ideal for these shrimp. There are other chaetomorphas readily available for saltwater tanks but they don't survive in these brackish conditions and end up polluting the tank and killing the shrimp. This chaeto is much finer and softer than any other chaeto that I've seen. It should provide a good food source for the shrimp.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Thanks, you can check with Cookymonster but I think he may be out now. There's also someone on ebay from Hawaii selling 90 for $65 including shipping so they're less than a buck apiece. Not bad compared to the $15 I've had to pay per Cardinal. And then there's some out of Asia for as much as $400 per shrimp.
 
#11 ·
Thank you. I've had this going for a little over a month now. The shrimp have been in it for a little over 5 days. The beauty of these little guys is the minimal maintenance. All I have to do is replace any evaporated water with R/O water. Their water never needs to be replaced! No water changes ever! Their natural environment is stagnant water so no water movement is what they prefer. In their natural pools, the deeper layers don't even have any oxygen and they can survive in these anaerobic conditions which is why some call them Super Shrimp. They also prefer to have dense numbers, I could have had this amount of shrimp in a bowl 1/3 the size of this one with no problems. They are ideally suited to a nano tank. The only thing these guys are sensitive to is ammonia which will kill them pretty quickly but then this kills most aquatic life. So you have to be careful about feeding and what kind of plants you introduce. Mustafa who I mentioned above says that no plants should be used other than the chaetomorpha I currently have in their bowl.
 
#12 ·
That stuff is always said about this species of shrimp, but I can't say I believe it.

I can't believe they would be happy in an environment with no water motion, filtration, ect.

They are hardy, sure, but why not treat them like a red cherry (that enjoys healthy brackish water)?

I'm not saying I look down on your shrimp keeping, but I wish they weren't kept in ecospheres, where they eventually die of ammonia poisoning or starve, or forced to endure no water changes.

In Hawaii they live in poor conditions, but nature does water changes with rain and evaporation.


MABJ's iDevice used for this message :p
 
#13 ·
I agree with you on the ecosphere and their water does evaporate and I play rainman by adding R/O water but they do not do well with water movement according to an expert on keeping these shrimp, Mustafa, from the above mentioned site. I suppose you could do filtration but if it isn't necessary why over complicate things? If stagnant water is what they have evolved to live in then they aren't going to do well if you change that.
 
#18 ·
I have been keeping these shrimp for 4 years now. The are amazing. Active without being frenetic. Able to thrive in various brackish water salinities. I have a small group of 9 and enjoy them that way--I can identify the individuals more easily. I, personally, do a 10-20% water change about every month. I don't understand the advice about not keeping other plants with them as I have successfully kept Japanese moss balls and willow moss with them at around 1.008 and am now keeping them with frog bit, a nana petite, and willow moss at 1.005. If you search around the forum, you will see that breeding them seems to be hit or miss. With some people keeping them in a 5 gallon set up with filter and tons of layers of rocks to hide in with no result and others in the world wide web being able to cram 30 of them in 60 oz. and have them breed like crazy. So, i put my stock in them being happy with are they molting a lot? Also, mine can not stand any aeration of any kind. These are VERY laid-back shrimp and will usually not freak about anything but when i introduced an aeration stone, they were still stressed and pale and overly active the next day so I don't aerate or filterate.
 
#19 ·
Your salinity is lower than mine. The plants you mentioned will die at my higher salinity. The reason I believe the shrimp don't reproduce is that the salinity isn't high enough. I want mine to breed and the moderator of the above mentioned site has huge numbers of these shrimp reproducing so I set mine up as close as possible to his. He has tanks that have not had a water change in 5 years, only topping off with R/O water. I think his success in keeping these speaks for itself.
 
#20 ·
Then there was a misunderstanding in your orig. post.

To me, it sounded like NO plants could live with them at all and I wanted to correct that. I have also kept them at higher salinities--all the way up to pure seawater. What is your spec. gravity??

I mention the hit or miss part bc Jason Patterson, whom I highly respect on his background research, etc., is really into them and seems to do everything right as suggested by the handful of seeming HRS "experts" and struggles, the guy I bought mine from had no place to hide for them and had about 30 in a 60 oz. bowl with temps in the 50's at night in the winter--outside the recommended parameters. That's the point I was trying to make. I have no interest in breeding them and actually kept them in the suggested range for that and nothing.
I personally have no opinion on the topping off the water or water change thing.
I sincerely hope you wind up enjoying them as much as I have. They are amazing creatures.

One question for you--where did you get your amazing "mountiain" looking rocks? I would love one as a focal point in my container. Thanks.
 
#22 ·
To me, it sounded like NO plants could live with them at all and I wanted to correct that. I have also kept them at higher salinities--all the way up to pure seawater. What is your spec. gravity??

I mention the hit or miss part bc Jason Patterson, whom I highly respect on his background research, etc., is really into them and seems to do everything right as suggested by the handful of seeming HRS "experts" and struggles, the guy I bought mine from had no place to hide for them and had about 30 in a 60 oz. bowl with temps in the 50's at night in the winter--outside the recommended parameters. That's the point I was trying to make. I have no interest in breeding them and actually kept them in the suggested range for that and nothing.
I personally have no opinion on the topping off the water or water change thing.
I sincerely hope you wind up enjoying them as much as I have. They are amazing creatures.

One question for you--where did you get your amazing "mountiain" looking rocks? I would love one as a focal point in my container. Thanks.
Thanks for your comments, I hope mine breed but if not, they have such a long lifespan it shouldn't be an issue if they don't.
I bought the Seiryu stone in this bowl from PC1 or were you referring to the large Seiryu stones in my Jewel tank? Those two came from flowerfishs. Flowerfishs has some nice large ones available right now. I bought a lot of nice smaller stones from PC1.
 
#21 ·
a very very nice bowl ! :) just beware of direct sun light :p the rays are focusing in the bowl ...once i get my cabinet lack all around the bowl burned :))) lol just sented the smoke and i seen the thin line of smoke and the burn marks :p keep us updated !
 
#23 ·
Thanks, yes the bowl is just like a big magnifying glass but I don't believe I have anything within its focal length so shouldn't be a problem. Glad you didn't have a serious fire from your incident, sorry it damaged your cabinet.
 
#24 ·
Thanks to Koi Kameon for pointing me toward this thread. I really like your tank davrx, best of luck getting them to breed. As Koi mentioned, they can be awfully finicky about breeding in captivity. I've been keeping mine in a 10 gallon tank at 1.012 sg for a while now and have had very spotty breeding. I've got one berried shrimp out of 100 or so going at the moment. These shrimp seem to be able to breed in a fairly wide range of conditions, based on the number of people who post about them thriving on neglect, but they'll also simply refuse to breed for people who have set up what seem to be perfect tanks. I'm sure we (the opae ula keepers of the world) are missing something but I just don't know what it is.

I don't do water changes often (every few months) and I've got a very low flow air powered filter that is probably not doing anything worthwhile beyond keeping the water moving very slowly. I feed them a little bit of spirulina occasionally, and I've tried other foods previously with little interest.
 
#26 ·
I received my first 50 (or so) opae ula today. They are making the slow and gradual adjustment to my tank water as I type this...

Their new home will be a Petco Bookshelf tank. I have "live" aragonite sand as the substrate, some cultured "live" rocks and a generous two handfulls of rock sent to me with the shrimp from the vendor.

I do have an airstone in the tank (which I will remove if the shrimp are freaked by it) and a heater.

I do hope they breed. I've had some success with freshwater shrimp so decided to try these. Maybe some Sulawesi shrimp in the future or some marine "Sexy" shrimp one day!

:)
 
#29 ·
Update

Here's some photos I just took with the sun shining in on them. They're very active today as I just fed them, something I only do about once a week since there's the risk of an ammonia spike which would wipe them all out. Still no breeding but I am hopeful. It took my Cardinals months before I saw babies. The chaetomorpha has floated to the top due to the oxygen bubbles it seems to be producing but it doesn't sink at night. I like this look better as I can see the rocks and shrimp better now.













 
#30 ·
Looking very cool! Love the scifi mountain landscape sort of thing going on!

Cardinals are my next adventure. A store not far from me sells them, not cheap, though, at $12.00 each.
 
#32 ·
Good point... and you know they're alive when you get them locally.

Still have to get a tank and all the goodies before that purchase will be made!

They're so small, at least at the local shop, (I don't know how old they are), they almost make Opae Ula look big. I would like to start with at least ten Cardinals, which equals a fair bit of dough!
 
#33 ·
They're babies then. They are a lot more sensitive than any other shrimp I've kept. I have white orchids aka starry nights in with them and they're reproducing like crazy. They come from the same habitat but seem to be much more robust than the cardinals.
 
#34 ·
I've seen pictures of White Orchids, which is a great name since my other hobby is orchid growing.

Guess I need to see some of those. They don't seem to be as attractive as the cardinals.

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#35 ·
I agree, they certainly eat better than my cardinals which is why they're probably reproducing more. They blend so well with the rocks in their tank that they can be hard to see. In contrast, the cardinals stick out like a sore thumb.
 
#36 ·
The cardinals at the lfs are constantly picking with their brilliant white legs, they never seem to stop.

They have yellow rabbit snails as roommates. Heard they're much more content in their presence.

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#38 ·
Cool. You'll have to post a picture of all of them somewhere, sometime soon!

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#42 ·
I absolutely love this setup and may emulate it down the road. I wouldn't call it a true ecosphere in the sense that the name was coined by the commercial product, since you do feed the shrimp. Have you considered not feeding them for a couple of weeks to see if it's self-sustaining?
 
#43 ·
Thanks! Yea, I just thought it looked like a giant ecosphere without being closed at the top. They can go for a long time without me feeding them but I want them to breed so was hoping that occasional feeding would help. It wouldn't be self sustaining unless I sealed the top since I have to top the water off about every week or so.
 
#44 ·
I have a couple hundred opae ula in my 6.6 gallon bookshelf tank. I feed them a couple flakes of food daily. I also give them other types of food throughout the week.

Like man and "bread alone", I am not certain any shrimp can live on scum alone.

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#45 ·
I agree but am wary of raising the ammonia levels and killing them all off so I'm sticking with once or twice a week right now. I'm using earthworm flakes and New Life Spectrum Crustacean Formula.
 
#48 ·
Baby?

Sitting searching the forum I just noticed a small opae ula and I don't recall having any smaller ones before. I wonder if they are starting to breed? I know with my cardinals it started with me seeing one small one then more with time. But I haven't seen any berried females and I'm not sure what the larval stage looks like with these guys, who knows, time will tell.
 
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