Project Orange

Turned the light on this morning and all looks well. The other female had a full hatching last night so now both tanks are full of zoea. I'll clean out the unhatched eggs and get the new batch washed out to sea this evening.

One thing that slipped my mind during this experiment is the temperature. With the A/C running, the basement temp is around 68. I don't believe that is going to be good. I may have to rethink things with the light and just run it 24x7 again. The only difference with this round will be the amount of food available in the tank. If I limit it more, the amount of light available will be greater which may help (hopefully) keep the zoea suspended longer.

Still working on a better water current idea as well. Have a couple of ideas floating about. One of those sounds interesting involving some PVC piping (idea was presented to me via a member on another forum).

Going to be takind daily salinity checks as well.
 
Why run a light 24/7 for heat? Why not use an aquarium heater?

I didn't know about the chocolate chip stars and the harlequins.

Oh, I now realize you think I meant marine harlequin shrimp. No, I meant freshwater harlequin shrimp. http://www.planetinverts.com/Harlequin_Shrimp.html

That's what happens when they give different animals the same common names. Gets confusing.
 
Ahhhhh....freshwater harleys. Sulawesi species. They are a high order breeder unlike the salties I thought you were refering to.

Cant really put a heater in the tank as it is only a 1g. Although I may eventually attempt it if i turn the lights out.
 
Turned lights on this morning and all looks well still. Zoea floating about nicely.

I think I stressed the last female out when I tried catching her. She dropped all her eggs yesterday and a few hatched out. I didn't think she had been expecting that long. Didn't think I was too stressful when I caught her. I have a nice gentle routine I use. I'll see what may happen with the rest of those eggs. Otherwise, I catch the zoea and place them in one of the other tanks.
 
Maybe a Hagen Elite 25 watt heater? I use those on my small tanks but they're not 1 gallons like you have. I think they even make heaters for those horrible goldfish bowls now that may be even less watts. I bet this whole project is costing a lot more than you initially though!

I know you said you have a gentle routine but how about using some kind of a trap to catch them? You can gently shoo out the ones that you don't want that enter in.
 
Paint one side of the tank black and shine a light on it. I did that while breeding M. scabriculum.
 
captmicha said:
I know you said you have a gentle routine but how about using some kind of a trap to catch them? You can gently shoo out the ones that you don't want that enter in.
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Close to what I do right now actually. I coax her into a bowl and then gently raise it out of the tank.

pixl8r said:
Paint one side of the tank black and shine a light on it. I did that while breeding M. scabriculum.
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I've actually considered this at one point.
 
Would keeping a light on all the time, or almost all the time, mess with them? Do they even have circadian rhythms??!
 
captmicha said:
Would keeping a light on all the time, or almost all the time, mess with them?
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As with most all zoea, they are phototrophic. All my research suggests keeping the lights on 24x7 for them. They are attracted by the light which would keep a healthy zoea in the upper levels of the water. So far, all my studies have been based on what I have read and nothing more. I am branching off of that now and doing more experiments to see what may or may not work at all. Now, I am working on the light piece of it. Out in the wild, they aren't going to have a 24x7 light source. I have went to a 16 on / 8 off test now. As such, they pretty much aren't going to have consistent temps either. Sun goes down, water cools off. This will give me a variable spread in temps. I'll have to see what the swing is like from before I turn the lights out to when they come back on.

Salinity in both Amano tanks is almost at 1.018. Have a little bit more to go to get there. A little slower than I wanted to get there at but seems to be ok for the moment. Lights on this morning find the zoea still doing well. Water is not green from phyto as yet. I just hope I'm not starving them. I'm adding roughly 1.5mL of phyto/day. So when the lights are out, they huddle up to any area where they see light. Since the phyto station is directly under them, they are at the front of the tanks in the morning. Once I turn the lights on, that's when I feed. I place the phyto right where they are at. That should provide for quick eating before everything gets moved away by the current. The fact that I haven't seen any zoea hanging out near the bottom is a little encouraging. Still very early yet. I have adjusted the air tubes just a bit as well to where both are a couple of inches away from each other. This has provided a very nice current and keeping things moving nicely. I'm still going to work on a small bubble wall as well with hopefully smaller bubbles for increased O2 staturation.

Another thing I'm going to do during this round is perform a water change. I'm going to do this at Day 5. Depending on the development of the zoea, I will do this every (5) days. Salinity level will be maintained at 1.018.
 
captmicha said:
I bet this whole project is costing a lot more than you initially though!
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Not so much actually. The biggest expenditure is the bag of salt. Well...that and the shrimpies themselves of course. I have received a couple of donations for my efforts which has helped greatly (Thanks again Rachael!). Contributions are always welcomed to the world of marine biology. ;) But I don't look at it as a cost thing though. As with every project, you have to put forth the funds, time and passion into it. Most importantly though, it's what I love to do.
 
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