Project Orange

Man...forgot to turn off the lights again last night. Definately got a get my timer for a more controlled test. I don't think it hurst anything which is a good thing.

Amanos:
Fed combo of phyto and spirulina this evening. The big zoea are really moving around nicely. I'm curious to know how many might be in these tanks. It's too murky to get a good feel for it. I'm debating about starting Golden Pearls now. I may do this at next water change. Might even just do a tid bit tomorrow.

Ninja's: Surprising they haven't hatched out yet. This is the longest I've noted them carrying eggs. The eggs are also a more pinkish color at the moment. I'm wondering if this is a bad sign or if they turn this color prior to hatching. Did a water change in their tank.

Propinqua: No carrying females.
 
Only a few Amano zoea remain in each tank it looks like. A little discouraging but at the same time encouraging. The zoea that I can see are big, they are brown and hopefully these will be the first ones to make it. This is the furthest along we've been in the project. That is the encouraging part. I'll have to go back and take a look at the data to see if I can pick up on anything. One thing that immediately comes to mind are the days that I left the lights on instead of turning them off. The days that they were left on were late into the round which is why I'm thinking this may attribute.

As for the water changes, I think the zoea did very well with them and it turned out to be a big plus. I kept the gunk from building up on the bottom to some extent. I want to see if i can manage that even further for the next round.

Now the question is, should I consolidate the zoea to one tank or not? At the moment, I'm going to let things ride and just see what happens.
 
Starting with the Amano zoea. I gave the tanks one final water change. I think this one will be the last until we know what will happen. Either the remaining zoea will make it or unfortunately, they will perish. I do feel pretty comfortable though. After draining the water, I got see better. There are a few that are a nice size and nice brownish/red color. The tanks remain cloudy after the wc. This could pose a problem if/when they morph. I'll have to be able to see them as shrimp to be able to pull them out. The unknown for me is to know how long a shrimpet will be able to survive in the brack conditions?

On to the Ninja's. When I first checked them when I got home, all looked well. I did need to do a water change in their tank as well. Got everything done with the Amano's and some other tanks and went to start working on the Ninja's. I started a siphon and started to pull the gunk from the bottom. Something caught my attention. Zoea! Awesome! I immediately stopped the siphon. Then I got a flashlight to take a better look. One female had all her eggs hatch. The other one is still holding but hiding behind the airstone. She will release hers anytime now.

With that, I removed the one female and acclimated her back to the main tank. I scraped the bottom with a card and then using a dropper removed the buildup. I still performed the water change with my regular routine with zoea. Filled it back with fresh tank water since the other lady is still in there. Now the real test. Lights will go out tonight. We'll see how they do. Hopefully all will be fine and the others will hatch tonight. If so, they all will be washed out to sea tomorrow.
 
lol...maybe I should set up all kinds of beakers and such to really add to the effect. :)
 
This is a continuation update from last night actually. I went downstairs to turn off the lights on the zoea tanks. I got to Ninja's and noticed the other female looked a little "empty". Broke out the flashlight and confirmed that all her eggs had hatched as well. Removed her and acclimated her back to the tank. I went ahead and added a little of the phyto cocktail for them and at 2300hrs, the lights went out.

This morning when the lights came on, all is well. There are hundreds of "dust particles" (that's how small the ninja zoea are) floating about. I have the zoez tank located next to the main. Will relocate it to where the other tanks are today, drop the water level to four cups and then begin the salt transformatin.

This is by far the biggest group of zoea I've worked with to date. I'm going to shoot for the same salinity as the Amano's at 1.018. My initial goal was actually going to be lower but I liked what I saw in the Amano's even though there aren't very many of them left.

Progress indeed.
 
Little after weekend update here:

Amano's: Last remaining zoe are still hangin in there. Big and a nice dark color. I still have some of the smaller ones that I added from the one batch I thought was lost as well. If my calculations are correct, the big guys should be morphing any day now. One tank is more clear than the other at this time. I'm pretty much done with these tanks until they morph {crosses fingers}. At that point, I'll combine the smaller ones into one tank and see how they progress.

Ninja's: All is still looking well with these guys. They are a little bigger than a dust particle now. Something to note with their tank. I didn't immediately move it over to where the others are so I just rigged up an air stone instead and have been running off of that. It seems that the stone is creating a much better current. I may have to play with this more and see if I'm getting better current results. This morning they were fed a mix of Phyto and Spirulina.

Propinqua: Found a berried female yesterday and immediately moved her into isolation. This morning, I changed her water and will be moving her to a rearing tank today. I'm going to try and be extra cautious with her since I've been losing all my Prop eggs of late.

In the next couple of weeks, the new improved phyto cocktail will be ready. The other two cultures are finally settling in and getting established. This will make the cocktail a (4) phyto mix which should cover all the nutritional bases.
 
Morning check when the lights came on and all continues to be well. Still no Amano shrimpets as yet. The big zoea continue to drift about. I fed (or should say offered) them a small amount of Golden Pearls last night. We are at the one month mark for the initial hatching. I'm going to move another Amano female into isolation either today or tomorrow. That will fill all my rearing tanks for now. May just have to bite the bullet and go to Petsmart and buy new ones since I haven't been able to locate similar size containers elsewhere. I'll keep looking all about though.

Ninja's continue to grow. I no longer have to squint to see them drifting. They are approaching one week now. With this batch, I'm going to do water changes every (10) days as opposed to the (5) with the Amano's. With the ladies holding the eggs about as long as the Amano's, I'm expecting the same time frame for them to morph into shrimpets. I'm curious how the much smaller size of the Ninja's may play into things. One other interesting item to note with the Ninja's; I have their rearing tank located right next to the main tank. With that, the light isn't sitting directly on top of the tank as the others so this is keeping the temps lower. To be honest, I don't believe the light is at a level where it will impact the temp at all so this tank is strictly sitting at room temp which is around 68F. Much lower than I would like. I'll take a temp reading today and see where it actually is.

The Propinqua female is still holding her eggs as of this morning. Still early yet but we are in that window where they have been dropping their eggs of late.

I think this weekend I need to focus on building a new station to house the rearing tanks and phyto cultures. Will make things much easier.
 
Still no shrimpies yet from the Amano's. Zoea continue to float around and such. If they all morph, I believe I'm looking at around 20.

Took a peek in on the Propinqua lady and it looks like she has dropped her eggs agian. :( Very confusing. I'll verify this afternoon. I noticed yesterday that the other two ladies are berried as well. I'll run another gambit of water tests and see if anything stands out. TDS should be nice and low with the new substrate and I doubt the water went to the hard side. {scratches head}
 
Confirmed today that the Propinqua female did drop her eggs. Dang! Cleaned out the tank and moved the other two females in there. They were berried at the same time so if by some minor miracle their eggs hatch, they will hatch together. Quite frustrating it is. I ran the water test and all water parms are spot on. TDS is even < 100. No clue as to why this keeps happening. Maybe there is some type of stress going on. I have moved their rearing tank over to where the Amano's are so maybe that will provide a little more peace.
 
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