hey i was on youtube and found this video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7iUmdUhGU8
Dr. Roy, is this from your laboratory?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7iUmdUhGU8
Dr. Roy, is this from your laboratory?
Feeding L. Maculata Video From Berkley
- Thread starter Msby12
- Start date
Gonodactylus
Premium Member
It is my setup with a pair of 30 cm L. maculata. We've had them in the lab for a year.
Roy
Roy
Gonodactylus
Premium Member
It is a 100 gal divided lengthwise. The animals are in the narrow part 5 feet long and 6 inches wide. the bottom of the burrow is a 3.5 foot piece of 4 inch thin walled pvc with 45 degree elbows on each end. I started the animals with only a few inches of sand in that section of the tank. As they started mixing the sand with mucus and buiding a burrow around the entrance of the pvc, I gradually added more sand to the point that it is now about 16 inches deep and the animals have natural sand burrows on both ends. If you want to see what the animals are doing, you can slice off a thin strip of the pvc and seal it to the side wall with silicone and cover it with black plastic on the outside of the tank. The animals will build the vertical portions of their burrow bending away from the glass, but you can still see what is going on in the bottom of the burrow.
If you want to get really fancy, you can use the cut away burrow technique, but I placed a sheet of Polaroid on the inside of the tank wall covering the cut away section of the burrow. On the outside of the tank I have a second set of Polaroid panels that I can rotate to completely block light from the burrow or allow as much as desired to be transmitted. This allows us to see brooding, molting, watch the male feed the female, etc.
Roy
If you want to get really fancy, you can use the cut away burrow technique, but I placed a sheet of Polaroid on the inside of the tank wall covering the cut away section of the burrow. On the outside of the tank I have a second set of Polaroid panels that I can rotate to completely block light from the burrow or allow as much as desired to be transmitted. This allows us to see brooding, molting, watch the male feed the female, etc.
Roy
Gonodactylus
Premium Member
Yes, we usually do this wilth smaller burrowing species. I usually use plex panels and rather than seal them in place with silicone I use self adhesive weatherstriping. That is all it takes to keep the sand in. The panels are held in place by plex one inch stock spacers at the bottom and notched dividers at the top.
Roy
Roy
Gonodactylus
Premium Member
We have red, green, yellow, and clear plastic feeding sticks scattered all over the lab, but I still keep a pair of red and green ones near the large Lysiosquillina because I often demonstrate the strike to visitors and using an animal trained to take a fish or shrimp from the red stick is a bit more dramatic.
Roy
Roy
