Berghia Nudibranch Development

[zeroinverse]

This thread will be used to track a "photo log" of Berghia Nudibranch and how they grow/develop over time.

The egg batch was collected from my berghia adults tank on 4/8/2013.
They may have been in there for a few extra days.

Thanks to Colin (cbrennan4) and his office's high power microscope... We will be trying to take photos often to show their development.

 

[zeroinverse]

Day 3 - 04-10-2013

Day 3 - 04-10-2013

Nudibranch egg strands are usually attached to a surface and are pretty sticky. For a egg-laying container, best to use a smooth flat surface so you can collect the eggs and move them into a separate growout/culture vessel.

I used 2.5 gallon tanks for the berghia adults for them to lay eggs and collected them off the glass walls.

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50X magnfication

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80X magnification

 

[cbrennan4]

I love a project like this. My goal is to take a picture everyday(even weekends) so we can watch the development.

 

[woodnaquanut]

That is cool.

How long till the eggs hatch?

 

[E Rosewater]

following

 

[zeroinverse]

Aquanut: from my empirical experience, it seems maybe 2 weeks or so before the egg masses sort of "disintegrate". From my reading, it suggests you can artificially hatch them at that time with pipettes to suck in and out. Or you can just them hatch naturally, which they will.

For those curious how I am culturing them, I am using plastic deli containers. It's a decent water volume and when berghias hatch they don't have to travel as far to hopefully find aiptasia to eat.

 

[sigmapiguy1061]

I bought 4...acclimated for an hour. Gently inserted in rocks with no flow on. All dead.

 

[zeroinverse]

@sigma: sorry, can't help you with why they died. Sometimes if they have a shock, they are hard to keep alive. I have lost a few myself. Also if they are 1" long, they are "old adults". Normally they only live 6 months (or so I have read)...

If you want to discuss more, let's put it on a separate thread to discuss what may have happened or PM me.

Thanks for following this log and hope it gives you some advice for next round.

 

[Dragonvale]

Thats crazy! You should be doing a article in reef hobbyist or something. Whats the average amount hatched per batch? Seems like alot based on seeing that many eggs.

 

[thysrof]

looking Good!

 

[zeroinverse]

@dragonvale: not sure how many eggs are in one clutch. A lot. Maybe 200+?

But many risks of them not surviving. Accidentally putting aiptasia on top, walking around in circles and never finding food to eat...
Not sure what else.

 

[Reef Bass]

Very cool. Nice job with the pics. Go Ron!

 

[lokii_37]

I'm looking forward to see how these develop.

 

[zeroinverse]

Day 4 - 04-11-2013

Day 4 - 04-11-2013

Again, courtesy of cbrennan4

Colin said he noticed some tiny critters. Most likely from microworms/fanworms in my adult berghia tank #1. I've tried to change water in past to reduce them, but probably some larvae hitched a ride back into the tank, since I can't completely "air" the berghias.

We'll try to swap out the water in next few days to make sure to minimize the fan worms from taking over and killing the eggs/babies when they hatch.

 

[zeroinverse]

Day 5 - 04-12-2013

Day 5 - 04-12-2013

Courtesy of Colin through Tenera Environmental (they do water microorganisms analysis, among other things, I'm sure).

Also, they're starting to "move/vibrate" in their egg sacs!!!
Very very cool. See the YouTube video below.

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[Reef Bass]

Neato. Cute little aiptasia eaters...

 

[cbrennan4]

It's so cool how you can see a big difference in the morphology in 1 day as well as they are now moving. I look at stuff like this at work all day but this is still so interesting to me. Can't wait to see how they will look tomorrow. I will try and get a video each day now.

 

[Dragonvale]

Thats is cool. Talk about the equipment used to film whats going on. I call it now future reef hobbyist article!

 

[zeroinverse]

@dragonvale, that is something Colin & I discussed. We may do something like that later if asked. But let's document first. ^_^

 

[cbrennan4]

Here is picture of the microscope and camera used to take these pictures. The microscope is a Leica Z16 APO. The camera is mounted above the oculars and has a 3.1 megapixel rating. The pictures are taken with the use of a program that projects what I'm viewing in the scope onto a computer screen. The video was obtained by filming the computer screen with my Flipcam HD. I'm a fisheries biologist and I use this microscope to identify and enumerate zooplankton and larval fish of the Sacramento/San Joaquin River delta.