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Thread: Have experience breeding shrimp? opae? need info please

  1. #1
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    Have experience breeding shrimp? opae? need info please

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    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.

  2. #2
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    Re: Have experience breeding shrimp? opae? need info please

    Hi there, this is the first time I came across the word opae ula. Mainly because I don't think the species is common here in Singapore. Upon further googling, I found out that it's also known as the Hawaiian red shrimp, which is a tiny looking shrimp which looks like the red cherry shrimp Since the eggs are going through the larval stages, the only concern would be on predators or fishes to pick on the larvae. But since there's no fishes in your fuge, it should be alright. Same goes if you feed those opae ula well in your fuge (I reckon they would feed on their own larvae unless there's really no food )
    My previous camel shrimp pair in my tank have produced hundreds of tiny shrimplets for me a couple of times, but all of them were gone in a matter of hours (picked by my other fishes). My advice would be to keep your shrimps isolated from any predators, keep them well-fed, and let nature take its course But you'd probably need to get some micros for your shrimplets to feed on though

  3. #3
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    Re: Have experience breeding shrimp? opae? need info please

    Thanks zee,
    I'm going to try to get some pictures up of them. That should help me identify them. When I asked the guy at my LFS, he said: "They are just opae"... Lol
    I actually feed the adults frozen mysis shrimp, so I was assuming that they would eat the larvae as well (?).
    Since I moved them to the 10gallon tank, its not really a problem anymore, but if the green eggs that I am seeing under their "saddles" are actually UN-fertilized eggs, then they cannot get fertilized, of course, while seperated from the refugium and male shrimps. Is there a way to tell if the eggs being carried are fertilized or not?
    I'll get some pics up asap

  4. #4
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    Re: Have experience breeding shrimp? opae? need info please

    The majority of the opae are transparent. It appears that the only ones that are striped are actually the same ones that appear to be carrying eggs under their saddle.
    below are pictures of both:

    shrimp1.jpgshrimp2.jpg
    shrimp3.jpg
    shrimp4.jpgshrimp5.jpg

  5. #5
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    Re: Have experience breeding shrimp? opae? need info please

    Wish I could get them here. The first pic resembles the transparent body of the anemone shrimp I guess like you said, if it's green then it's not fertilized. Since you have many of them in your tank, why don't you try to spot a mated pair and leave them be, instead of separating them in your display tank and fuge.

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