Breeding Opae Ula

**FattChai** · 3rd Jul 2012, 22:25

Hi! Anyone out there with opae ula breeding experience? I'm interested to learn more..

Thanks!

**silane** · 4th Jul 2012, 10:44

Give them a good enviroment and feed well and they will breed. If you give them harsh enviroment, they have to cope with survival then to breed. And feed them well with good food, you have see their body became bulky and bigger and soon they will breed. In bad enviroment or without sufficient food, they body size shrink and they will not breed in this situation.

**FattChai** · 4th Jul 2012, 19:29

Originally Posted by silane

Give them a good enviroment and feed well and they will breed. If you give them harsh enviroment, they have to cope with survival then to breed. And feed them well with good food, you have see their body became bulky and bigger and soon they will breed. In bad enviroment or without sufficient food, they body size shrink and they will not breed in this situation.

Thanks Silane! I already gave a very good environment and fed them top grade spirulina. Just wondering what water temp, level of salinity, water change frequency and other factors.

**silane** · 6th Jul 2012, 09:38

How your setup?

**FattChai** · 8th Jul 2012, 00:46

Originally Posted by silane

How your setup?

Set up is good, hoping they will breed. Just wondering if anyone in SG ever kept these and breed them successfully?

**silane** · 8th Jul 2012, 02:54

Originally Posted by FattChai

Set up is good, hoping they will breed. Just wondering if anyone in SG ever kept these and breed them successfully?

yes, mine breeds, have been keeping them for 3 years and a almost carefree shrimp

**FattChai** · 8th Jul 2012, 22:09

Originally Posted by silane

yes, mine breeds, have been keeping them for 3 years and a almost carefree shrimp

Really!! What's your salinity? Any heater or chiller used? How big is your tank? Any lava rock or gravel?

**biolink** · 19th Sep 2012, 00:19

hi,

may i know the best number of opae ula in one community for breeding?

**Jbridgem** · 3rd Oct 2012, 12:30

I am trying to breed Opae in the refugium of my 90 gallon saltwater tank. They are not the red opae ula, but I am not sure what kind they are. I caught most of them in the ocean tidepools on ewa beach, and they are all white/transparent and some have stripes. The others I bought at my LFS.
I noticed that three of the females seemed to have eggs under their saddle. they are a dark green, and so I removed them from the refugium and put them in a seperate 10 gallon setup that I have in another room. I did this because I did not want the larvae to be eaten by the 30+ opae that are in therefugium, but upon further research I see that sometimes females carry unfertilized eggs...?
1. Should I have relocated these?
2. Is there any way to tell when eggs are fertilized/unfertilized?
3. does anyone have any experience with breeding these guys that can help me to know when/if to seperate them from the colony, or how to tell if they are fertilized/unfertilized, any other tips/knowlege?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. If you don't have experience with this specific shrimp, any experience from similar species may be helpful as well.
I appreciate you guys' help!

My setup:
55 gallon tank up top with deep sand bed and overflow box with a durso silent overflow
55 gallon below that recieves the overflow water into a fluidized bed filter, then spills through some bioballs and then flows through the refugium, then through a filter and pumped back up into the main tank with a 740gph pump. About 90 gallons of water total.

**Jbridgem** · 3rd Oct 2012, 18:40

Only the pregnant ones seem to be stripes. All of the rest are transparent with no striping. pics of both below:
shrimp2.jpg shrimp6.jpg shrimp5.jpg shrimp4.jpg shrimp3.jpg

**wolverxaxx** · 18th Aug 2017, 10:56

hi guys will it be possible for the breeders to actually do smtg to the shrimps just so that they can no longer be berried?

initially i bought 10... a year later still no sign of breeding i bought another 10 , so theres 20 in total and still no sign of breeding after 2 years (im bought from the same breeder because from where i come from, hes the only 1 selling them)

while a friend of mine bought 4 from a neighboring country and he keeps his in a flask and a year later he has like 10+

**Jules** · 6th Feb 2020, 20:31

I had no problem breeding my shrimp, when the salinity was kept stable at 1.015. When water began evaporating out of the tank (increasing the salinity,) I made sure to fill it back up to the previous level (I made a small mark on the side of my tank with a sharpie.) As long as I kept the salinity stable, they bred and bred, going from 8 adults and three larvae to 500+ in just under a year. Eventually, 2 years ago, I was afraid the system would crash, so I slowly converted it to freshwater and the shrimp stopped breeding. They are still happy and healthy and it is a lot easier to buy distilled water and just add it in, instead of having to mix up new brackish water after my water change, each week. Now, I only change 20% of the tank water, every 2 weeks.