My Straw (Perlatus) baby thread

[Curlz]

[...]and I'd have to leave for 7-8 hours, and by the time I get home they have bacteria on them from the food breaking down around them. How did you girls fix that? just come back in another 30 mins and try to remove it again? [...].

You can the bacteria?? hm I never seen that. We put in frozen pacific krill in a little cup. Put the cup into a case ) similar to tupperware. So that it is closed and can be defreeze slowly.
In the morning an in the evening we take a some and put the in to a sieve (Artemia sieve). And then I rinse the krill with water. After that we put in some bigger and full ones. Depends on how many megalopa there are.
(At the moment I have round about 32 megalopa and we give them 10 and more pieces of krill plus Dennerle Crusta Gran marine)

We take out the old krill and put in new krill in the evening. After work. So the krill stays in the water for ~10 hours.
The keep the water clean, we change 50% of the water and we clean up the floor (both daily) - like in the kreisel. The transition pool contains 5 liters.

ah do not thing this way. As I told you it is not that easy. It is not only feeding, changing water! It is not only feeding some Artemia and krill . I am doing my 8th try. And I do not know of I did it good or bad. So often when it looked good, it failed at the end. In some cases it failed after 2 weeks.


They are all cannibalistic at megalopa stage! And even if there is enough food (krill mysis or gammarus) it happens that they eat each other. Only thing that will help is seperating them one by one.

[kuza]

I could see white spots on them and the legs would slowly gets shorter or they would lose parts of their tail fins so I assume it's bacteria. Maybe it was salt build up? Maybe I should have washed the food better but I did wash it in a glass before feeding them, I didn't use a sieve though.

I think the jars don't help because I can't keep all the water moving, there are void spots where everything sits together. Is there areas in your Kreisel tanks where the water doesn't move?

I'm going to build some Kreisel tanks for my next try for sure, I think it'll be easier then the jars.

[Curlz]

without microscope pictures it can be everything!?

spots may be molting skin remainings

loosing parts and get shorter legs? They may be eaten by their colleageaus (cannibalism)


in the Kreisel there are only two parts where the stream is a little bit smoother. But the stream is never that hard that a zoea larvae or a megalopa caould not swimm against!
and the megalopa were taken out of the kreisel (so that they do not eat the zoea larva) and put into the transition pool. 5 liter, same conditions. With a bubbler - so no stream. But it is an angular shape with enough place on the floor.

[kuza]

Do you have a picture of the 5 liter transition tank?

And the white spots with the tail fin and legs getting eaten was even when they were alone, but maybe they were almost dead already when that was happening. Sometimes it's hard to tell if they are just resting or dead :/

[Curlz]

Box in box system. The bigger box below is this one: http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/produ ... #/40102978 with lid. We cut out he lid, that a smaller box (non ikea) fits into it. In the outer box there is water in it and the heater. The small box hangs in the water and will be heaten through it. (Like my Kreisel in the aquarium)

The inner box (the pool) is: (ca.) 33 cm lenght, 17 cm width, 12 cm height and has a capacity of 5-6 Liters. (the ground is a little bit smaller as the top)
A bubbler is in it for oxygen. And a thermometer.
This picture is from 21.08. Only a few megalopa in there. You see a piece of krill some tiny shells and if you have good eyes you'll see some megalopa, too


If there are some strange things at the fishtail or the legs or in front of them, it is mostely molting leftovers.

See an example:

first the molting leftovers are light, but will getting darker.

or this larvae:


or this one:

[kuza]

So you're putting the megalopa right into the transition tank, hmm maybe I should have done that. I thought you only put them in there after they would be in a shell for a couple hours.

And those look just like the white spots I was talking about only they got them after being megalopa when the water would get too dirty.

[Curlz]

I put them out directly if I see one, because this time I have different kind of larvae. And freshly hatched larvae. To prevent the megalopa to eat them.

in my other experiments I kept them in the kreisel or put them into transition pool depended on the situation. In my successfull project (first Kreisel experiment) , they stayed in the kreisel till the stay a time in the shell. But there I noticed that the megalopa catch and eat the zoea larva.
The first transition tank was built as we noticed that the megalopa seems to be fit and were growing.


these spots are definetly motling skin leftovers. This seems to be normal. I can see these motling leftover on all my larvae from experiments No 1 till now. And I have seen this on other larve too.
But in some cases it is a molting problem. And maybe bacteria or algae can settle down on this (dead?) molting skin leftovers... I do not know.

I do not have experience with jars. So I only can guess: I think, the problem in the jar is, that the larvae are too often at the same places. They converge on one point. And do not have enough place. (how long it the diameter of your jars?)
And in jars there is no straight streaming, I think. Sorry I can't explain it enough.

[Nat_addicted to HC's]

No you explain it fine, I made note on the voids in flow inside the jars due to the shape, they hang in one place against the glass or just hovered in the void until the current caught them again.

[kuza]

ya the jars aren't not very big and the floor space is small. Each jar is are 1.9 Liters but it's they are very tall.

[Curlz]

but, kuza, even if you would use a kreisel like mine... there is no guarantee that you will have luck. Chin up!

[kuza]

oh yes I know, but it will take less time each day. The jar method is a lot of work and the water gets dirty fast. My issue is that I don't have a lot of free time to take care of them every day, so I would like to have a setup like yours with and auto feeder. I can't do that with my setup now.

[kuza]

So it's over, I've been busy taking everything down and cleaning up the last 2 days. But I'm now more determined than ever. Now to wait and take the time to build a proper tank(s) and better the transition tank.

[aussieJJDude]

If you built the proper tank(s) I can't wait to see them!

[fraksocks]

Glad to hear that the experience has left you even more determined. Can't wait for the posts on your next efforts.

[Curlz]

oh yes I know, but it will take less time each day. The jar method is a lot of work and the water gets dirty fast. My issue is that I don't have a lot of free time to take care of them every day, so I would like to have a setup like yours with and auto feeder. I can't do that with my setup now.

To be on the safe side we clean the kreisel and the transition pool, daily. Clean the sides and the ground. And we change water (about 50%) in both, daily.
We use the auto feeder, but this time it was not enough food. So I set up an extra jar for artemia every morning an evening. That i can feed them more artemia. (With this way I do not have to put in more eggs into the auto feeder.)

checking, cleaning, waterchanging and feeding can took some hours. (not to forget the daily documentation update)