OUsnakebyte August 19, 2009 Share August 19, 2009 I know many of us use rubbermaid trash cans for water storage, water changes, etc. I saw in another post that Dave was going to use one in his system. I have been using one for years to store new saltwater, I use one at work for curing rocks and water changes, and I know several other aquariums that use them for various applications. This year we were using one to store 0.5 micron filtered sea water down in Puerto Rico for our climate-controlled system. We did rinse it out, but I guess not enough. We had no idea why the first few days of spawning we were getting 0% fertilization in some kreisels and 10-12% on others (these larvae were almost certainly being fertilized in the bottles on the way back to shore). We just assumed that b/c of the early full moon, there was immature sperm this year. Well, after the third night, where I had enough bundles in my bottle to equal about 500,000-750,000 larvae, we still got virtually zero fertilization. Mary (our cryobiologist) put some palmata sperm, brand new from the ocean right out of the bottle, in some of our filtered sea water - and the sperm died within minutes. It must have been the plasticizers or other anti-fungal agents they coat those things with - it is a trash can after all. So, just a word of caution - not that we all care that these new trash cans kill coral sperm - but I would let them cure in saltwater for some time before you use them - or seek out the "green" version (which run like $250!!!). I can't recall that I have ever had a problem, but it is almost certainly b/c we are dealing with adult corals. The larvae are MUCH more sensitive of course. Cheers Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind August 19, 2009 Share August 19, 2009 Wow, that has to be frustrating! So did you catch this early enough to switch it out and actually get some fertilized larvae? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bshriver August 19, 2009 Share August 19, 2009 Hey Mike. Thanks for the tour the other day! It was a thrill to see what you were doing there! Good stuff. I just put a post on CMAS about your experience and directed them over here for details. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaesun August 19, 2009 Share August 19, 2009 (edited) you should send a correction to the washington post. a bunch of kids are thinking that you overfed them. Edited August 19, 2009 by jaesun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaesun August 19, 2009 Share August 19, 2009 Growing Coral at Zoo the link from today's kidspost. not sure if registration is required. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OUsnakebyte August 19, 2009 Author Share August 19, 2009 (edited) Wow, that has to be frustrating! So did you catch this early enough to switch it out and actually get some fertilized larvae? Frustrating barely begins to scratch the surface of what we were feeling... By the time it was all said and done, our closed system reared a whopping 9,000 larvae - not really enough to do anything with. However, the other team using the flow-thru kreisels we have used the past two years did very well. They were able to supplement us greatly. So, I brought back 6 bottles @ 4,000 larvae each - 5 from theirs and one from ours... So, 2009 spawning season was not a total loss, but I don't have enough to do what I wanted to do this year. I want to look at the effects of growth, post settlement, of larvae raised at two different temps - 30C and 27C. I need at least 8 bottles to do this (4 from each) to have enough replicates for the experiment. I'll plan for 2010. We'll also know in a few weeks, but I think we experienced another split spawn with the early August full moon. There was not one night where all 1100 colonies in the reserve went off - it was isolated colonies each night, that moved down the beach each night. Corals are weird... And.... I'm not expecting too much from this year's settlers on a low spawning season. It is my belief when that happens (only isolated colonies each night), the genetic diversity of the larvae is reduced. I think we are going to see low settlement akin to what we experienced in '07. Hey Mike. Thanks for the tour the other day! It was a thrill to see what you were doing there! Good stuff. I just put a post on CMAS about your experience and directed them over here for details. You are quite welcome! you should send a correction to the washington post. a bunch of kids are thinking that you overfed them. Ha, ha... that is too funny. Thanks, I had not seen that. Yeah, I spoke to her for a few hours on coral reproduction about a month ago. Those facts are just a little mixed up. The lone survivor from the 2007 split spawn finally died. Last season's (2008) are when the water quality deteriorated with high phosphates. I was reading through all of Dirk's thesis about how important food is for young settlers, and I was soooooo very concerned with that; I thought I could keep up with the water quality with large water changes. Nope. I now have PO4 reactors and a larger sized tank. Cheers Mike Edited August 19, 2009 by OUsnakebyte Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbartco August 19, 2009 Share August 19, 2009 I'll go next year so you collect more ok? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OUsnakebyte August 19, 2009 Author Share August 19, 2009 I'll go next year so you collect more ok? There are many details to work out, but depending on grant money, next year we may charter Shedd's boat and head out to Mona Island. We need to start working on cervicornis too, and there is a massive stand of it starting at about 40ft. There is a nice bit of palmata there too. Or... we have been batting around the idea of Secore Indo-Pac, working with common acroporids such as formosa, valida and millepora - that would be sweet! Guam?!?! So many corals to work on and so little money... Cheers Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbartco August 19, 2009 Share August 19, 2009 Been wanting to be part of SECORE since it started... In other words, you have space (even if it costs), lmk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OUsnakebyte August 20, 2009 Author Share August 20, 2009 It's mostly a space issue. We can only take so many participants each year. If we are on Shedd's boat next season, I'm sure this number will be even smaller. I will say that it seems word has gotten around the past few years; this year there were quite a few people in the water - snorkelers as the collection site is very shallow, just off the beach - that were just there to observe. Cheers Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 August 20, 2009 Share August 20, 2009 It's mostly a space issue. We can only take so many participants each year. If we are on Shedd's boat next season, I'm sure this number will be even smaller. I will say that it seems word has gotten around the past few years; this year there were quite a few people in the water - snorkelers as the collection site is very shallow, just off the beach - that were just there to observe. Cheers Mike Too bad I don't keep in touch with any of the people I used to know in the zoos/aquariums in Chicago - I could have called in a few favors - "Hey, I'd like to come on the boat and bring my friend, Doug, as long as you provide him with the proper diet and nutrient rich liquids, you're guaranteed a full moon every night!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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