Anyone keeping Hawaii Red Shrimp?

Beside myself, anyone else keeping Hawaii Red Shrimp (aka Volcanic Red Shrimp, Halocaridina rubra).

Presently I owned 27 Vocanic red Shrimps, all adults at the size of 15mm each
All housed in a 2 ft tank with 3:1 (F/S Salinity ratio).

After 13 months, one of the female is now berried with cluster of 8-10 eggs.

These shrimps are ultra-small, and I had yet to own a good digital camera with macro-focus to document its breeding cycle.

Anyone keeping these shrimps?

History of my Collection
Bought 50 shrimps initially, separated into 2 IKEA 7" bottles, feeding with shrimp-stick (fouled the water) wipeout virtually one bottle population, Now I feed only with toothpick scoop of spirulina algae, one feed every week.
Self-sustaining food of algae, the shrimps molted regularly.

Now upgraded to a 2 ft tank with airpump powered filter with coral sand, lava rock and granite stab. Distilled water topup every 1 month, and waterchange with 2 x 1.5L Seawater collected from Bedok Jetty.

Video of my shrimp first day in IKEA bottle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H57NJfoFDNs

these r marine shrimps? amazing!

Originally Posted by winq

these r marine shrimps? amazing!

These shrimps are one of the most hardy shrimp species.
Pure fresh water to pure marine.

These shrimp's habitat is volcanic crater pool at coastal area in Hawaii, where in normal calm days rainwater would fill the pool, or topic storms will fill in saltwater.

It was documented that a single shrimp can survive up to 5-8 years.
Thats maybe more or less about a lifespan of a pet cat.

[Royston]

Nice shrimps I 1st heard about them in "Tropical Fish Hobbist" quite afew years ago(abt 10yrs) when 1 company started a "self sustaining biosphere" containing them some plants & totally sealed up.

Can you pm me as to where to get them from & also the price if possible thanks

[silane]

Those self sustaining biosphere is a torture chamber, their lifespan is greatly reduced from 10 years to 1 to years. And their size get smaller and smaller due to lack of food. Hawaii shrimps is often associated with biosphere, in fact, they can be kept like normal shrimps without the torture part.

Here are my Hawaii Red Shrimps, started with a few, now, should be 500 of them, keep them in a luxary size 3ft tank. Give them good condition, they will breed. I have not heard of any breeding took place in ecosphere

YouTube Video

Say NO to ecosphere !

means they are very hardy and i can keep them in fresh or sea water as i like? and the ph unstable oso can? abit confusing.

Originally Posted by winq

means they are very hardy and i can keep them in fresh or sea water as i like? and the ph unstable oso can? abit confusing.

Of coz you can, but you won't be able to breed them as wished.

To breed, there is some water parameter to note, since there are 2 stages in the eggs to shrimplets.

When Egg-mode, the female will carry them around, and would drop them if the water parameter is unfavourable.

When Larva mode, the newly hatched larva had not yet fully develop "paddle fins", they would wriggle head down, floating around in top to mid-water, it is suggested to siphon them out to a nursery tank to get them fully developed shrimplets before re-introduced them to main tank.

[CBTG]

Hi bro, saw both video clip, wonder are they swim and move fast, cannot view how the colour and whole shrimp look like. Do u have any pic ? Are the expensive and easy to keep?

My video shown all of them pale white.. since they become Singapore PR for the first day.

In fact they are very red if they got used to the environment (non-stressed). More red than the CRS. I will upload my video to youtube when I got my new macro-capable digicam this weekends.

They are expensive to own, since you need to get someone to hand carry out of Hawaii.
Hawaii is like Australia, where they have some strict restriction in live animal import/export.

The loopholes are that it is commonly sold as tourist gift in "DIY" ecosphere in gift shop in Hawaii. The catch is, they must be hand-carried out of Hawaii.

But after 911, liquid items are restricted in most international flights but excluding US dosmetic flights.

If you want to buy them legally, the only viable approach is to be ecosphere shrimp liberator (which indirectly encourage/boost sales of ecospheres).

[silane]

Originally Posted by kevinlaikf

History of my Collection
Bought 50 shrimps initially, separated into 2 IKEA 7" bottles, feeding with shrimp-stick (fouled the water) wipeout virtually one bottle population, Now I feed only with toothpick scoop of spirulina algae, one feed every week.
Self-sustaining food of algae, the shrimps molted regularly.

The same rule applies for all livestock when you over feed them. A small volume of water with overfed and no fiilter, even if the hardiest shrimps, it will run into problem.

I have them in big tanks and in 1 small glass jar. For the glass jar, after 2 litre I hardy feed the 2 haiwaii shrimp, they are so much alage as food which they also get in nature and they ignore any prepared food. But in the big tanks which packed with lot of shrimps, they are alway hungry and take in prepared food more readily. Those in big tanks get to grow faster and breed, not in jar.