# 'Opae Kala'ole



## cousinkenni

Here are some photos of the native freshwater Opae found here in Hawaii. This is the "mountain opae" aka Atyoida bisulcata aka 'Opae Kala'ole aka 'Opae Kuahiwi. Like other atyids? They have a fan basket to filter debris out of the water but also forage for food in the gravel.

They don't seem to like water over 74 degrees, for they die and turn pink, like they got cooked.........ironic because I have heard thay they used to be a native food source when they were abundant.

There are a few photos from differnt angle and one shot has a WT Neocaridina denticulata sinensis to compare size and color. These are relatively small cause I have seen some aproaching 2".

Enjoy,

I think I promisesd these photos to either Jan or Pisces girl well over a year ago......sorry for taking sooooo long 

Ken T.


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## Steven_Chong

They are a beautiful shrimp. I wish we could get reall get a good production line going in Hawaii, but they're so hard to breed (think Amanos but worse) that it's not made much progress among local breeders from what I understand.


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## cydric

I love filter feeding shrimp! Very nice looking shrimp indeed! :thumbsup:


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## bharada

When I was a kid we called them bait. lol


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## fish newb

Hawaii Has some BEAUTIFUL shrimp!

Any luck breeding them yet 

-Andrew


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## dhavoc

no one can claim they have bred them yet on a consistant basis. and they are getting very hard to find. thanks Ken for the tip on looking at feeder shrimp tanks, found a couple that way and rescued them. now i have a reason to look at the feeder tanks again (my wild type neocaridina breed like rabbits so i never need to buy any for my daughters angel fish to eat).


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## Inspire91

Kala'ole what what!!!  ho mean dat shrimp! too bad its extinct in nature! ;-P i really like that last picture ken, very nice, maybe we could get an awesome pic of the fans actually open? (or maybe someone else acting as the shrimp filter feeding...just a hint of a little comedy we could add in ;-) )


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## Steven_Chong

If it were extinct in nature, it'd be extinct period. As we're saying, it's been bred squat in captivity. It is not an easy to breed shrimp.

Andrew, nothing's going to change in a couple weeks. :heh:

The shrimp has an extremely difficult to replicate life cycle, involving a brackish/salt water multi-stage planktonic existance after flowing downstream, before a slow move back from salt to ever decreasing amounts of it into a full freshwater adult form that climbs all the way back up the mountain to live as filter feeder in fast water. As I said, really difficult to replicate in captivity.


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## bharada

There's a park near Punchbowl that I used to dip net in back in the 70s. O'pae, O'opu, Guppies, Swordtails, Sailfin Mollys, and tadpoles galore back then.

Now, when I ask about the local streams my brother just warns me of leptospirosis. Hawaii is definitely not the same place of my childhood.


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## cousinkenni

Hey Steven,

Inspire knows they aren't extict! It is an inside Joke that he and I have due to the fact we have looked for them about a dozen times and had no luck finding them. Maybe we just need to go higher in the mountains or go to Hilo......either way they aren't as easy to find as "the authority on native species" says.

On another note I have talked many times to a guy down at Anuenue fisheries about breeding this shrimp. This guy has had luck breeding every shrimp out there, fresh and salt water but he can't breed these. As far as the difficult life cycle......nothing is really known except that at certain times in the year (usually spring and fall have the highest flow rate if I remember correclty) they can catch the babies in plankton nets as they drift down stream and observe them cralwing back up stream.........where the babies go and anything about the rest of their lifecycle currently is inference. I have seen no legitimate scientific reports of catching babies in the alawai (brackish) or the ocean (full salt) for that matter. If you have seen such reports please share.

Laters, 

KT


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## cousinkenni

Hey Inspire,

If you bring the shrimp over again, I have some really fine food (5-50 um) that we can put in the tank to try to get them to filterfeed. I was using this food to try to raise the larvae but it didn't work!

As for the other photo we should deffinately try to get it on the sly! Hahahaha. That wouyld be hilarious especially since she should be going to the presentation next friday!

KT


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## Veneer

The larvae of this species are indeed amphidromous.


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## Inspire91

EXTINCT THEY ARE!!!  nah jus playin, yeah of course we know its not extinct ;-P thank kt, but yeah id love to give the fine food a try, i have seen them filter feeding but usually only when theyre cruising by the outlet of the filter or when you put a mean current into the tank (changing water and such), pretty interesting stuff i must say  i give u mean props for attempting to raise them larvae cuz, i know i wouldnt have the patience for it...i might end up just raising tiny baby snails!!! ha!


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## cousinkenni

Veneer said:


> The larvae of this species are indeed amphidromous.


I want proof!!!!!!

Nah, just playin. We have all assumed that they get flushed out to see but I want solid proof of it, not just plankton nets collecting them as they flow out the mouth of the stream, I want full saltwater plankton tows. The reason for the saltwater tows is for a gut analysis to see what they eat when they are in the ocean. Besides the 5-50um food I mentioned earlier I have tried, Nano, Iso, Dun, "bloom in a bottle" with water form the north shore and several other algal species.

Have they actually been observed in full saltwater? I read a paper once about collecting them and observing their migration back upstream (I might have even posted it on this website) I think it was written by either someone at UH, with the fisheries, or at Bishop museum. I will have to look for it again.

Any good information that you might have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

KT


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## RESGuy

It is a beautiful shrimp indeed! It must be so cool for you and inspire to look for and find these marvelous fish where you live. Not much over here ...


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## Aaron

yo Ken, 
easy on the histogram, they arent that colorful! You want to shoot them using their filters? try bbs in still water. Mine go nuts grabbing them out of the water column.
I also recently pulled some fat ones ones out of a stream last week. (actually picked them off the rocks!) too bad you aren't on my team, could've told you where...







Nah, just playing! These guys are out there, just gotta keep looking. Knowing that they do coexist with denticulata makes it a little easier. I think you guys were concerned with collecting in places where denticulata was not, right? 
I'd look in streams that do not have populations of bass and hemichromis (that leaves out lots of places in town) Streams without these introduced predators are choked with inverts. 
The other way to find them is to have Jojo and Brent bully the feeder shrimp guy into telling where his secret shrimp collecting stream is. I believe a simple triangle choke would work.


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## Steven_Chong

Oi oi, easy on the bullying of the Feeder Shrimp guy, he provides a valuable service.  

Though admittedly there are few people who wouldn't be intimidated just looking at Jojo. :heh:


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## Six

are those halocaridina rubra? bc i thought those were marine. they too go by the name opae, but maybe there's two different species?


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## fish newb

Steven_Chong said:


> If it were extinct in nature, it'd be extinct period. As we're saying, it's been bred squat in captivity. It is not an easy to breed shrimp.
> 
> Andrew, nothing's going to change in a couple weeks. :heh:
> 
> The shrimp has an extremely difficult to replicate life cycle, involving a brackish/salt water multi-stage planktonic existance after flowing downstream, before a slow move back from salt to ever decreasing amounts of it into a full freshwater adult form that climbs all the way back up the mountain to live as filter feeder in fast water. As I said, really difficult to replicate in captivity.


What if a Rack was created with all the different tanks with the different types of water and flow that they need at different stages of life? Then they could be moved to them, just like in the wild?

I would really love to come to Hawaii and join you guys... But I don't think I could even afford the plane ticket from RI to Hawaii... Let alone food and room lol.... Someday

-Andrew


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## Inspire91

aaron - DAS DA NATURAL COLOZ!  wutchu talkin bout willis!? nah they actually are somewhat blue sometimes, i dont know y, but most of the time they are dark brown, tan, and black with white spots... check it out, this pic is barely touched up..(the black bottom doesn't show the blue very well, but you can see it in kind of clearly in the tail end)

Triangle choke? he's already missing his thumbs..poor shrimp man


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## RESGuy

fish newb said:


> What if a Rack was created with all the different tanks with the different types of water and flow that they need at different stages of life? Then they could be moved to them, just like in the wild?
> 
> I would really love to come to Hawaii and join you guys... But I don't think I could even afford the plane ticket from RI to Hawaii... Let alone food and room lol.... Someday
> 
> -Andrew


Well, they said that no one yet knows EXACTLY the cycle they follow so I don't think that would really work.

I know I want to go too!!

Cool picture Inspire!rayer:


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## Steven_Chong

Six-- Rubra is a different species.

The word "Opae" means "shrimp" in Hawaiian. All the shrimp are "Opae-something-or-other." Among many local hobbyists, "Opae" short-hand (with no specifying name put with it) has come to frequently refer to the wild neocaridina we use as feeder shrimp.


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## dhavoc

local fisherman also use the term opae for the small saltwater species that we use for bait as well. pretty much used by all to describe any small shrimp here.

the feeder guy must be on a roll, just happened to look in a feeder tank today at a lfs and there were tons of them. bought like 20 of them for 3 bucks total. the sales person was giving me funny looks when i was catching them. you normally cant choose your own feeders, but i gave the story of only wanting large ones and she eventually gave up asking me if the one she caught was large enough and let me catch my own. they usually end up being the last in the tank as they are much harder to catch than the neos. in a net of shrimp, they are the ones immediately up and walking out of the net.... may go back for the few remaining in the tank to rescue them. two of them were carrying eggs but i dont have the time or resources now to even attempt to raise the fry, so just put them in my 120g planted with all the other ones i have found. may try later to setup some salt water tanks and try to keep the shrimplets alive. heck i may just dump them in my opae ula (rubra) tank at work and see if that works. i have been breeding the opae ula regularly now for over a year and they also go thru a larval floating stage....


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## fish newb

dhavoc said:


> the feeder guy must be on a roll, just happened to look in a feeder tank today at a lfs and there were tons of them. bought like 20 of them for 3 bucks total. the sales person was giving me funny looks when i was catching them. you normally cant choose your own feeders, but i gave the story of only wanting large ones and she eventually gave up asking me if the one she caught was large enough and let me catch my own. they usually end up being the last in the tank as they are much harder to catch than the neos. in a net of shrimp, they are the ones immediately up and walking out of the net.... may go back for the few remaining in the tank to rescue them. two of them were carrying eggs but i dont have the time or resources now to even attempt to raise the fry, so just put them in my 120g planted with all the other ones i have found. may try later to setup some salt water tanks and try to keep the shrimplets alive. heck i may just dump them in my opae ula (rubra) tank at work and see if that works. i have been breeding the opae ula regularly now for over a year and they also go thru a larval floating stage....


Good to hear you've got some!

Would shipping them over here count as domestic shipments? So It wouldn't need any specific paperwork? If so maybe If I get the room I'll have to get some and give them a try.

-Andrew

Hows the moss doing?


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## dhavoc

it would count as domestic, but the socialist state of Hawaii has some pretty strict laws regarding native species (almost all are threatend or on the endangered species list unfortunately). they are also so hard to come by on Oahu anyway (they are a little more common on the outer islands). getting the larvae to survive is just the begining, you also need to consider the reverse acclimation back to full fresh water, no one knows much about how that happens either. like Steven said, think amano shrimp but harder.....


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## cousinkenni

Aaron said:


> yo Ken,
> easy on the histogram, they arent that colorful! You want to shoot them using their filters? try bbs in still water. Mine go nuts grabbing them out of the water column.
> I also recently pulled some fat ones ones out of a stream last week. (actually picked them off the rocks!) too bad you aren't on my team, could've told you where...
> 
> Nah, just playing! These guys are out there, just gotta keep looking. Knowing that they do coexist with denticulata makes it a little easier. I think you guys were concerned with collecting in places where denticulata was not, right?
> I'd look in streams that do not have populations of bass and hemichromis (that leaves out lots of places in town) Streams without these introduced predators are choked with inverts.
> The other way to find them is to have Jojo and Brent bully the feeder shrimp guy into telling where his secret shrimp collecting stream is. I believe a simple triangle choke would work.


Hey Aaron,

Good to see you are still alive!

Actually, on the first two photos, I didn't mess with anything and my d70s was set to default contrast/sharpening. On the last two photos all I did in photoshop was auto color and increased contrast a little (+7).

As far as you finding the shrimp..............you can't hide that stuff from me  ................I really really want to observed these things in the wild. Were they really crawling out of water on the rocks? Cuz if so that is so cool! When we went to look for them in manoa the first three times all we found were the denticulata, no natives.

Can you at least give us a hint of where? North shore? windward? Pali?

Thanks,

KT


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## cousinkenni

dhavoc said:


> local fisherman also use the term opae for the small saltwater species that we use for bait as well. pretty much used by all to describe any small shrimp here.
> 
> the feeder guy must be on a roll, just happened to look in a feeder tank today at a lfs and there were tons of them. bought like 20 of them for 3 bucks total. the sales person was giving me funny looks when i was catching them. you normally cant choose your own feeders, but i gave the story of only wanting large ones and she eventually gave up asking me if the one she caught was large enough and let me catch my own. they usually end up being the last in the tank as they are much harder to catch than the neos. in a net of shrimp, they are the ones immediately up and walking out of the net.... may go back for the few remaining in the tank to rescue them. two of them were carrying eggs but i dont have the time or resources now to even attempt to raise the fry, so just put them in my 120g planted with all the other ones i have found. may try later to setup some salt water tanks and try to keep the shrimplets alive. heck i may just dump them in my opae ula (rubra) tank at work and see if that works. i have been breeding the opae ula regularly now for over a year and they also go thru a larval floating stage....


Yo havoc,

That info was supposed to be confidential! You weren't supposed to air that out there! No how are we supposed to find them if we really want them? They will always be taken by others!

Well I guess this option is better than them actually being used as feeders!!!!!! At least they should find good homes instead of "the belly of the beast".

On another note, sorry for not calling you, I do need to talk to you about some other stuff.

Ken T.


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## dhavoc

Yo Ken, sorry man now the secret is out... but yeah most of the ones i see would end up fed to some guys oscar or arrowana... most stores i found them at wouldnt know the difference between the two anyway. even when they looked at them after i caught them they still didnt see a reason i wanted those particular ones... better for us.

no prob on the call, i spoke to Robert and he says there is a delay on the stuff. oh and i hope your ready to take some plants back, i need to trim badly...


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## mrbelvedere138

No wonder the native species are being choked out by Neocaridina. The natives require brackish water? I'm not sure what any species would have to gain biologically by having a complex breeding cycle.

These native Neocaridina, would there be any way to start shipping these guys to the mainland? I'm sure the natives would appreciate it, and I'm sure a lot of hobbyists would like some (me, for example).


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## Aaron

hey Ken,
Ah I forgot. It's not that your PP skills are shady, its the fact that you're shooting Nikon. 

hehe just messing w/ ya man!

I'm not dead... its called work. For the sake of my hobby, I need to do one of two things... retire, or be like Chuck!

I was just pulling your leg about finding them. I haven't looked in streams in a long time. I really think they are out there, you just gotta look harder. You gotta believe that the shrimp guy who supplies the lfs isn't trecking miles and miles into the far reaches of the koolaus. he's probably just scooping some stream near his house. Start with one valley and if they aren't there, move on to the next. I bet you'd find them in Palolo or even in the valley above Kahala.


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## Neon Shrimp

Are all the young yellow? Thanks for the pictures.


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## Veneer

mrbelvedere138 said:


> No wonder the native species are being choked out by Neocaridina. The natives require brackish water? I'm not sure what any species would have to gain biologically by having a complex breeding cycle.


Probably lower need for female investment with each (oftentimes comparatively larger and more frequent) brood.


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## cousinkenni

Neon Shrimp said:


> Are all the young yellow? Thanks for the pictures.


The smaller yellow ones aren't the young, they are the wild type Neocaridina denticulata sinensis, an invasive species that competes with the native 'Opae. I purposefully included them in some of the photos so people could compare the two for size/color/patternage/body shape.

Hope that answers your question

Ken T.


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## dhavoc

got a pic finally of one of the ones in my tank and it shows the 4 fans they use to catch small food particals. got about 6-8 that i see all the time as they like to hang out on my HOT filter intake (good current i guess) but there are more hiding around the rest of the tank.


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