Happy Monday
Some updates from this weekend
Batch III - Day 24
The final three from this batch are doing most excellent. They have mingled right in with Batch IV and have all completed meta. The have both their stipes and have developed their orange coloration. They are now eating Oto A. I am very happy with my decision to save these three from the death tank they were originally living inside.
Batch IV - Day 13
I would venture a guess that this batch has around 20-25. It is still quite difficult to count them. They have all entered into meta and are developing quite well. Many have developed their headstripe. There are a few that are developing a bit more slowly. Not sure if they are from the second half of the two night hatch or what??? In any case I do not predict that I will have any issues getting these guys up to snuff. The whole gang in this tank, including the three from Batch III are eating Otohime A. On Friday I stopped adding Rotifer Diet to the water and plan to siphon out the remainder of them after the stragglers make it through meta. The tank is to the point where it will need a good cleaning as well. So I imagine I'll be straining rotifers, adding the sponge filter, and cleaning the tank sometime this week.
Batch V - Day 2
Wow! It was an amazing hatching event on Saturday night. I did not interrupt the normal light cycle of the DT and simply waited until the lights went out at 10 PM and then shut down the tunzes and the return. Within about 30 minutes I had a complete hatch of four to five hundred fry. It was simply amazing to see them all swimming around the tank.
Then I had to try and catch them all
With the help of my offcial flashlight holder, whom I love dearly,
We were able to suck all (90%) those bad boys out of the tank in about 30 minutes. My eyes were getting buggy after about 30 minutes of staring at minute silver fry amidst a black background so I didn't bother hunting down the remaining few. It was a complete hatch which was also nice. Transferred those suckers over to the remaining 5.5 gallon larval tank which was brimming with rotifers. What is brimming you say??? I do not think that the fry will actually have to do any hunting, the rotifers are dense enough so that the fry need only open their mouths and let them swim in. It's like my very own underwater veal productiion line.
Well Sunday morning proved to be on par with the "day afters" from all the previos hatches. I had a pretty massive die off. I'm sure that 75-85% of the fry were dead. Those that remained seemed to be hunting happily along. I have been thinking hard about the die off and am juggling some thoughts around regarding why it happens:
1. Broodstock health
2. Physical damage from the transfer
3. Some missing 1 day component to the larval tank
I wish that I could get the parents to lay on a tile so I could test out theory 2 but they, really me, am unwilling to hassle with getting a tile to stay in place.
Whatever the reason I have plenty of fry to raise.
No action from the GSM's they are just happy to be happy. My Onyx pair are absolutely stunning and I am tempted to pull the Tomatos out of the DT to put these guys in. This would undoubtedly break my father-in-laws heart so it probably won't happen but they sure are purdy!
Take Care and Thanks for Reading!
Kurt
