“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
Ben Franklin
The Gift
March 10, 2008The Post – The Fiddler Babies are Dead, But We’ll Start Over And Prove Horseyhannah Wrong!!
March 10, 2008The fiddler babies are dead.
I am sad, because I really did like the fiddler babies. I looked around on the web last night for clues to their demise and that’s when I got ticked.
The Discovery Channel’s Animal Planet Online Forum had a discussion of how to raise fiddler crab larvae. “Horseyhannah,” a senior member on the forum basically told a member who asked how to raise fiddler larvae that it’s so hard and requires hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment to simulate ocean environments, waves, tides, etc. so it’s really not possible. Horseyhannah told the person to just enjoy the adult fiddler crabs and don’t bother to raise the babies. Needless to say, the person asking the question was polite, said thank you, agreed it will probably be hard, but would still like to know horseyhannah’s info source…just in case she decided to raise them anyway. My answer to that person is: GO FOR IT!!!! PROVE HORSEYHANNAH WRONG!!!!!
In fact, I am determined to do just that. In my book, Horseyhannah has thrown down the gauntlet and I am determined to prove her wrong.
I will concede failure on this first attempt. I am sad as I was so looking forward to having some fiddler grandchildren survive. I was frustrated and disappointed because contrary to the advice above, I think it was not only possible, but it was happening. Because I lost them so quickly, that tells me something overwhelming happened in the tank to kill them all off at once.
To review, by Friday afternoon, there were no babies moving around. It was a rapid decline, and up until that point, we still had quite a large number alive. I have to conclude it was a water quality issue and I think the biggest culprit was the live phytoplankton. But to go through this methodically, let me look at several things. If it were salinity, ie they didn’t like the marine environment I don’t think they would have lived that long in it to start with. I suspect the following things were problems:
1) I used gravel and we did lose MANY babies because they burrowed into the gravel crevices and died there.
2) The nitrite levels in the water spiked suddenly and got very toxic. Thoughts on this point:
a) I didn’t get the tank set up early enough to have a mature and well-functioning nitrogen cycle.
b) I either fed them the wrong food, or too much, or both. The wrong food or too much food meant it didn’t get eaten, sat in the tank and rotted. OR it created a huge algae bloom that raised nitrite levels beyond a tolerable level.
c) I didn’t change the water fast enough once I realized the nitrites were a problem, though given the phytoplankton issue, I was probablly fighting a losing battle from the beginning.
d) I no doubt lost babies doing the water changes because my only option was to bail water out of the tank and pour it down the drain
So boys and girls, what have I learned from this first attempt that can be done better next time?
1) I will use calcium sand not gravel. Aside from the fact that the babies won’t get trapped in the substrate material, the calcium sand will provide enough calcium for the babies to stay healthy during many molts.
2) Figure out the right food and amount. The gentleman from Finland whose article I quoted a few days back (he raised the Red Clayed Mangrove crabs) fed his larval crab Artemia…brine shrimp. He had a hatchery right in the tank to have a fresh supply. He also used something called JBL Nobilfluid for when the larvae were too small for the brine shrimp. This product is probably similar to the Small Fry liquid food I was using. It it made by a company in Germany and I’m trying to find out if it is marketed here. It has 50 different vitamins and minerals as well as brine shrimp and is geared for newly hatched aquatic animals too small to tackle live brine shrimp yet.
3) DON’T USE LIVE PHYTOPLANKTON this time. In spite of an almost 50% water change, I could not get the nitrite levels down. In fact, they kept rising. Now I am finding information that phytoplankton excrete nitrites. The better the phytoplankton did, the higher the nitrites. And with each feeding I basically inoculated the tank with more. I created my very own algae bloom which released such high nitrite levels, the babies were doomed.
Frankly, the tank seemed to be doing okay until I started using the phytoplankton. I would feed the liquid Small Fry food and while the tank would be cloudy initially, it cleared quickly, telling me the babies ate the food. At that point, in spite of it being a new tank with an unestablished nitrogen cycle, the nitrite levels stayed pretty low. However, once I started using the phytoplankton, the tank got cloudy quickly, the nitrite levels spiked, the water had a greenish tint, and the larval crabs numbers dropped dramatically. So, NO phytoplankton.
4) For water changes, instead of bailing water out, I will use the water bubbler as my “filter” to keep the babies in the tank, and let gravity siphon water out of the tube. I have the bubbler’s pump set up beneath the tank and have a regulator valve in the line to keep water from back-flowing from the air bubbler, into the pump. If I remove the valve and let the tube sit in a bucket, it will slowly siphon off water through the bubbler. This should let me slowly get water out for changes, without bailing larval crabs out of the tank and sending them down my kitchen drain.
So. I will start over. Admiral Byrd is doing his part, trying to get Scarlett O’Hara to notice him. Scarlett O’Hara has been eating and hanging around Admiral Byrd’s cave den. I figure it’s only a matter of time before Scarlett has eggs again. Therefore, tomorrow, I will take down the nursery tank, clean it out, get some calcium sand, and get that tank up and running again with the live rock in it, and get that nitrogen cycle stable.
We are going to try this again! My husband and I would love some fiddler grandchildren, 🙂 and even he said that we must prove Horseyhannah wrong!!! Stay tuned.
The Gift
March 9, 2008“Our personal attempts to live humanely in this world are never wasted.”
Pema Chodron, from her book, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times.
The Gift
March 7, 2008Sometimes when you are feeling very “full of your own power and worth” it helps to be reminded to be humble. If you think you’ve seen it all and know it all, consider the tree below. It might look like the shattered remnants of a tree, not very useful and certainly not pretty for landscaping. But remember that in life, all is not what it seems. Sometimes the most important things come in humble trappings.
The tree below is from Colonial Williamsburg. It is well over 250 years old. It witnessed the beginning of our country’s struggle to be free and shaded British and Colonial soldiers alike. It’s leaves blossomed over hostile residents of Williamsburg on their way to besiege the Governor’s Palace when his soldiers stole their gunpowder from the magazine. In fact, it witnessed the dark figures of those same soldiers stealing that powder in the early morning darkness, just hours earlier. This tree watched George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Peyton Randolph, and Patrick Henry walk by. Actually, “saw them” in the flesh.
So this strange-looking tree – missing most of its insides – is still here with us, nursed along by the Colonial Williamsburg staff. Strange-looking maybe, but it’s life history gives one pause. It has witnessed so much. A reminder that sometimes the overlooked broken silent things in the background just might have amazing stories if only they could talk, and carry a value beyond money.
The Post – Lee Woodruff – In An Instant and Helping Our Injured Soldiers
March 7, 2008Taking a rest tomorrow, so posting Saturday’s Gift and Post tonight.
Tonight I had the honor of hearing Lee Woodruff speak at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, about her book In An Instant. It’s co-written by Lee and her husband Bob Woodruff, the ABC News anchor who sustained a traumatic brain injury from an IED while on assignment in Iraq . It’s the story of their family’s journey through pain to healing and then recovery.
I could say many things about her – she’s a great speaker, frank, honest, down-to-earth, warm. Passionate comes to mind – she speaks so passionately about our servicemen, what they go through and the struggles they have after sustaining such injuries. She very frankly noted that her family was lucky as they had the care of ABC, Disney, and many family and friends to sustain them. Our servicemen do not. She also frankly noted that it is the willingness of those young men and women to step up to the plate and volunteer that makes it possible for the rest of us, her 16-year-old son included, to have a choice as to what we will do with our lives.
She noted that their family has worked to turn the experience into good, lemons into lemonade, including setting up a charitable fund for servicemen with traumatic brain injuries, which I’ll explain in a moment. They have grown as a family. They have tried to help others. When asked though, given all the good that’s come out of what happened to her husband, and all the good things they’ve done and people they’ve helped, did she view what happened to him as a good thing? Her immediate answer was an unequivocal “NO.” She said if she could rewind the clock, she’d wish this never happened. However, it did. She has come to understand that life is suffering and you simply choose whether it can ennoble you or make you bitter. She noted very simply that she did not want to become a bitter old woman.
She has tremendous compassion for others and said she imagined everyone sitting there has experienced some kind of life-altering event. She feels for all. Often times people come up to her and say “this happened to me, but it wasn’t anything like what you went through.” She immediately put a halt to that thought. Her feeling is that life hands everyone suffering and pain is pain.
She spoke strongly about the struggles of our servicemen and their families when there is a traumatic brain injury. Too often these families are struggling and forgotten. She and Bob make it a point to visit VA hospitals when they travel. It is obvious this is a driving passion for both of them. She feels they were given a chance to have good care so now it’s their turn to bring attention to the servicemen. She shared a quote:
“The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their country.”
That came from George Washington. She felt we are not doing enough for our injured veterans now.
In gratitude for their good fortunes they’ve started the Bob Woodruff Family Fund to assist service members injured while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Special emphasis is for traumatic brain injury victims. They work to raise public awareness of the problem, excellence in research, prevention, diagnosis, treatment. support and resources for the injured as they try to reintegrate to daily life. They work with individuals and small organizations to do everything from provide money for cab fares to wives of injured servicemen going to and from hospitals, to funds for bills, treament and rehabilitation for a blinded veteran who lost his pension and whose wife had to quit work to nurse him back to health. The stories were too numerous.
Her deep commitment to these men and women showed in her words, her face, her eyes. It is said eyes are the windows to the soul. That is the truth. Her eyes showed her soul. It is a soul of love.
If anyone wants more information on how to donate to the fund and help our servicemen who have given so much, the website is:
And she noted they have only one paid employee – the wife of a Marine who is on his 3rd tour of duty in Iraq, and she works out of her bedroom so they don’t have to use any money to pay for an office.
The Post – A Fiddler Update – Water Issues and Decreased Numbers
March 7, 2008I am not sure that things in the nursery tank are going well. A sudden reversal in fortunes over the last day or so. Very decreased numbers of babies. In fact, this morning, it’s hard to tell if there are any left. The water got cloudy, like an algae bloom, and the nitrites spiked high and even a touch of chlorine showed on the dipstick, odd since I use distilled water. So the chlorine is coming from tank conditions, not the water I used. Some thoughts:
I am not sure if the decrease in numbers is:
1) Normal? They cannibalize each other.
2) High nitrites?
3) Touch of chlorine?
4) Wrong food?
5) Too much or not enough food?
6) Salinity? Are the science articles wrong and should I have left it brackish?
Water quality:
It started out that the water would get cloudy for a little while after I put food in the tank. Then it would return to being clear. Now, however, it’s cloudy all the time. I replaced 1 gallon of water last night (still “marine” at 1.019), and I added buffer to raise alkalinity for them to have enough calcium to molt. I also added Prime to get rid of chlorine and decrease nitrites. I succeeded with raising the alkalinity, and eliminating the chlorine. Nitrates are still in the “okay” zone, but nitrites didn’t drop.
This morning the tank is still cloudy. I will recheck parameters in a little while, and probably replace another gallon of water. I hate to do that because if there are babies left, I am most likely pouring some of them down the drain with water I tank from the tank. I do pull the water from the side of the tank where the babies did not hang out much, but still. Nothing to be done there though. a.m.
It occurred to me this morning that maybe the phytoplankton was either a bad idea or I just gave too much. The phytoplankton is alive. I noticed the water I drew off last night had a greenish tint. That means the phytoplankton, which is PLANT plankton, and alive, may be blossoming, in fact, maybe it’s a phytoplankton bloom in the tank. Given it’s not the open ocean, but a closed environment, the bloom, while successful in generating more food for the babies, maybe too much of a good thing in an aquarium. If too much growth, is it raising the nitrites and killing off the babies? I am wondering if I should have left the food at “Small Fry” and maybe the ground up krill and not added the phytoplankton.
I will also put a sample of the water under my “precision” microscope later to see if in fact the water is jammed with plant cells.
I will update on the results of water change, microscope viewing, and repeated parameters later, as well as whether it looks like there’s any babies left.
Live and learn. As my husband says, “Next time”….I think there’s always things we can do better. AND, once this experiment is over, we’re going to leave that spare tank up and running empty so it can settle out with a matured nitrogen cycle. Stay tuned for updates.
The Gift
March 7, 2008Okay, the gifts have been deep and meaningful all week. Humor is good meditation too. Here is an “excuse” shot – one of those you take just as an excuse to try out your new “macro” camera lens. I am sure everyone is familiar with “road apples.”
They are appropriate I think for a Friday, the end of the work week. For one, people often take off to visit places on the weekend and in that regard, these are special road apples. They come from one of our trips to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, left behind by the specially trained horses pulling the handcrafted colonial carriages. So, this should feed that “weekend wish to get away from it all.”
More to the point for a Friday, whether you were an 18th century farmer, or you work in a 21st century office, by the end of the work week, everyone has probably gotten their fair share of this stuff…. 🙂 Happy Friday.
The Gift
March 6, 2008“The intention to open the heart and mind is what’s essential. If we do good deeds with an attitude of superiority or outrage, we simply add more aggression to the planet. …When we practice generosity we become intimate with our grasping. When we practice the discipline of not causing harm we see our rigidity and self-righteousness. Our practice is to work with guidelines of compassionate conduct with the flexible mind…seeing things without “shoulds” or “should nots.” We aren’t drawing upon a code of conduct and condemning everyone who doesn’t comply. If we draw a line down the center of a room and tell those in it to put themselves in the category of “virtuous” or “nonvirtuous,” are we truly more liberated because we choose “virtuous”? More likely we’re just more arrogant and proud. Bodhisattvas are to be found among thieves and prostitutes and murderers.”
Pema Chodron, from her book: The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times
Soul Mosaic 