First day taking our opae'ula home! I was so excited to take them home but I was also worried about things like was the temperature to low or high.
When I got home I fed my shrimp and poured the brackish water into my habitat (I saw one turn around in a circle as if in a hurricane). My brother tried to push the cap in but I naturally stopped him. Most of my shrimp are white so I think there stressed. I also wanted to name them but that would be weird and I don't think I would remember all there names. Okay where to start. Oh yeah! The first thing you need to do is make sure your shrimp have water. Check the water level everyday because you added salt and tap water you need to do is fill the habitat with a little more tap water. But that's only if the water level is close to halfway. But even then the opae`ula will be in water that has mainly saltwater ( and the shrimp might die). Next the Opae`ula need oxegon so when you refill your "tank" make sure you leave 1/4 of air. Don't leave your shrimp in the sun for even 6 mins. When you fill your mini aquarium be sure the temperature is just right. Leave the cup of faucet water next to the habitat for 1 hour then pour it in. This should prevent killing them by shock. Feed them with a tooth pick. Dip it into the the spirulina ( what they eat) and tap it against the wall of your habitat 3 times at most. Don"t let mold grow on the tooth pick ( which you should throw out once and a while). Throw out the spirulina if you see white speckles, thats mold so DO NOT feed it to you r Opea`ula. Opae `ula will molt their skin at times. but it could work reverse. If you let your Opae`ula starve they will molt their skin and get smaller. Do not over feed your shrimp as well, because the food they won't eat will collect and pollute the water. if algae starts to grow on your glass put your habitat in a colder enviorment. And if your lucky you might be able to have a preagnent opae`ula! Your shrimp should live for 20 years. Good luck.
Today we finished our opae`ula habitats. Everyone redeemer their opae`ula tickets and got +5 shrimp to put into the habitat.
Today we added an accessorie to our habitats. The accessorie we used was an artifical plant. Me and my class did this so the Opae` ula could have more space to rest. We Glue Guned it to the rock we chose before. My rock has a little cave/hole they could go in. They better like it [haha] (but really, between you and me I had no idea it had a little dip area) it had Mr. Leong said we could possibly get more accsesories like sea snail shells [what a mouthful]. Anyway i hope i get more opae`ula tickets. we also made an imovie based on how to make a opae`ula habitat. Oh yeah and today for the whole day we got to stay in mr. leong's class so we got to finish what we are doing today. Well that's all for now on my blog. PEACE!!!
Before we went on to the next step on making our Opae`ula habitats, Mr. Leong told us that we would be using a hydrometer to check the specific gravity on Seawater (Seawater has a specific gravity of 1.024) and fresh water (freshwater has a specific gravity of 1.000). We used brackish water to fill the habitat. The Opae`ula live in water with a specific gravity of 1.004 but we had the gravity go to 1.006-1.008. Some of our products were decomposers, bacteria, rocks,and producers (which were the shrimps food. we first put bacteria into our habitats. 2) we each picked our rock then we watched Mr. David pour faucet water into a bucket and mix it with a type of salt called Instant Ocean sea salt. the first time it was too salty. the second time it barely was okay to accept because the specific gravity was 1.008.6) Then we poured the water we made, into our habitats. we filled it up halfway. AND THAT WAS IT.
Preparing the gravel was pretty easy. Mr. David scooped 5 spoonfuls of gravel into our glass vases that would be the Opae`Ula's habitat. Then we poured the gravel into a big white bucket. We filled the bucket with faucet water and rinsed around with our hands. We did this process about three times. We washed our hands after we were done with the same water we used to wash the gravel in.
Do you know where the Opae`Ula come from? Answer: they are shipped here from the Big Islands because they're endemic to Hawaii. for the rest of the summer (school) we will be making Opae`Ula habitats. We will also be conducting a log on our shrimp for 2 years. We have about 1,000 shrimp in the tank Mr. Leong keeps on the back table. Some of the shrimp are white because they were being moved around too much but by the looks of it their ok. Mr. Leong feeds the Opea`Ula Spirulina Pacifica. The Opae`Ula live in crystal clear ponds so they ONLY eat the algae on the rocks.
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