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Good move on the crushed coral as this will stop you getting any issues in the long run, the more you have to mess around with the tank the more you have to disturb the shrimp! Don't worry about the mossballs and algae situation, you can just drop in some food for the snails and Opae ula once a fortnight or longer. With regards breeding i agree with @opae ula related on this one and they really need a matured tank to get breeding consistently.

opae ula related wrote:

Edwid wrote:On a side note, how big or old should the opae ulas be before they begin to breed? It's been nearly a month plus for my smaller tank of about 2 liters but no berried female yet. I'm hoping it's due to the fact that the 8 of them are still young though 2 or 3 of them looks 1.5X bigger than the smallest 2 of them

You have a pic of tank? Everyone has different experiences depending on a lot of factors. My opinion is that it is too soon if you started the tank from scratch and have only a few Opae Ula.

At least 8 months old from my experience/ tank.

This is a tank which I bought though and not self set up. A week ago, I took out half the water to hopefully bring some of its beeficia bacteria to my self set up 2nd tank and of course I replaced the water with new brackish water. Maybe that's a step backward in terms of getting the stable environment for them to breed.

Interesting tank, are there any hiding places in the shells?

opae ula related wrote:Interesting tank, are there any hiding places in the shells?

Nope there aren't unfortunately. Perhaps another reason breeding is slower.

How would you suggest I transfer the shrimps into my bigger tank when it matures, without disturbing the aquascape of the tank? Hoping to preserve the look nonetheless in case I do want to move shrimps back eventually? I'll still be buying another 10 or 20 of them to increase chances of breeding :)

This is my way.

Remember patiences for breeding.

Edwid wrote:

opae ula related wrote:

Edwid wrote:On a side note, how big or old should the opae ulas be before they begin to breed? It's been nearly a month plus for my smaller tank of about 2 liters but no berried female yet. I'm hoping it's due to the fact that the 8 of them are still young though 2 or 3 of them looks 1.5X bigger than the smallest 2 of them

You have a pic of tank? Everyone has different experiences depending on a lot of factors. My opinion is that it is too soon if you started the tank from scratch and have only a few Opae Ula.

At least 8 months old from my experience/ tank.

This is a tank which I bought though and not self set up. A week ago, I took out half the water to hopefully bring some of its beeficia bacteria to my self set up 2nd tank and of course I replaced the water with new brackish water. Maybe that's a step backward in terms of getting the stable environment for them to breed.

Cool tank man, Its always hard to catch Opae ula to transfer them! They are like hyper aware of everything around them and changes in the water current when you move towards them with a net etc lol.

Do you think it'll work if I submerge this small tank into the big tank and wait for them to swim out? Hahaha. Will clean the exterior before doing so :p

If that's not possible, I hope I know how to use the suction pump to suck the shrimps out without hurting them as shown in the video

That is one way if your small tank fits in your big tank with a flat bottom. Only thing is that nothing will keep them from entering back to the small tank. Might be lucky with one or a handful but the timing will be difficult for all of them to be out. How many do you have in there? Also it might be too heavy to carry it out?

Tube way is a just by putting thumb on one end of the tube/ gravity and is not a pump. Trick is to feed them so they are in one spot and paying attention to food/eating.

Good luck.

Do you have a picture of how the tube looks like? The tank is not that big and I hope the tube can fit in nicely to do its work. The suction looks pretty strong and I'm surprised the opaes survived the ordeal of being sucked up.

This what I got from Amazon. Unlike a net, the Opae Ula is always surrounded in water.