Posts Tagged ‘Admiral Byrd’
March 25, 2008
Yesterday was one week that we noticed Scarlett O’Hara was pregnant again.
Looking back over my notes on the first pregnancy – we noticed her eggs (2/17/08), then moved her about a week later (2/24/08) into the spare tank I’d just set up. Five days later she delivered. (2/29/08) The one thing we weren’t sure the first time was how long she was carrying the eggs before we noticed. From my log notes, I saw her on the 14th and didn’t notice anything. So, I expect it wasn’t much before 2/17 that she brought the eggs out on her abdomen. Given that, it appears it was about a two week gestation period.
If history repeats itself, 2 weeks will be about 3/31/08, next Monday.
With that in mind, I decided to move Scarlett O’Hara to the nursery. She seems calm this time, doesn’t seem disturbed by the calcium sand, sat under the water filter for a while, then moved toward the side of the tank and greedily went after the shrimp pellets I dropped in.
Since I can’t be sure when the eggs will hatch, I will shut off the water filter today.
Yesterday’s water parameters show both the main aquarium and the nursery aquarium to be about equal. No nitrates in the nursery yet, but moving Scarlett into it should kickstart the nitrogen cycle; I did drop in some shrimp pellets into the nursery the other day, just so “something” organic would be “rotting” in there and feed the nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Hopefully that will be enough to do the trick.
Yesterday’s parameters:
Main aquarium (before moving Scarlett):
Salinity 1.0115, Chlorine 0, Alkalinity 300, Hardness >300, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 20, pH 7.8-8.0
Nursery aquarium:
Salinity 1.013, Chlorine 0, Alkalinity 300, Hardness >300, Nitrites 0-0.5, Nitrates 0, pH 8.2
I have brine shrimp eggs though I won’t start hatching those until the fiddler babies are born. According to the package they take about 24-36 hours to hatch. I have something called “San Francisco Bay Brand: Brine Shrimp Hatch Mix” It has eggs, sodium chloride and magnesium sulfate and you just add a liter of water. I have a container with an air bubbler to put the mix in. No heater though. Just not going to spend another $30 or $40 for a brine shrimp heater. The kid at the pet store who has a marine tank and raises brine shrimp for his fish told me there’s no reason you can’t hatch them at room temp. He does it all the time. I’ll let you know how that works. I don’t know how many shrimp I’ll get in one of these packets. There’s three packets to the package. If needed, I’ll go back to the aquarium store and just get the larger container of shrimp eggs.
If you want to see some good instructions on hatching brine shrimp, as well as some pictures of the shrimp as they go from eggs to the tiny shrimps, click here for the San Francisco Bay Brand website.
In any event, I have the Kent Marine “ZooPlex” product to feed the babies for the first few days until the crab larvae are large enough to chase down live brine shrimp. This food is made to work well for invertebrate larvae and is considered a good brine shrimp replacement. It’s available at PetsMart. Again, we’ll see how it goes.
Tags:Admiral Byrd, alkalinity, aquarium, aquarium store, brine shrimp, brine shrimp eggs, Brine Shrimp Hatch Mix, brine shrimp heater, chlorine, crab, crab larvae, eggs, hardness, hatch, hatch shrimp, invertebrate larvae, Kent Marine, Kent Marine ZooPlex, live brine shrimp, log, magnesium sulfate, marine tank, nitrate, nitrates, nitrite, nitrites, nitrogen cycle, nursery, organic, PetsMart, pregnancy, room temp, salinity, San Francisco Bay Brand, Scarlett O'Hara, shrimp pellet, sodium chloride, tank, water filter, water heater, water parameters
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March 16, 2008
When I first I walked by the fiddler tank yesterday morning, I was sleepy and oblivious. Then I did a double-take. Sitting at the front of the tank was the discarded molted shell of somebody. On closer examination, and with my husband’s consultation too, we both agreed it was Melanie Hamilton’s discard. That means she is at the moment most likely to get pregnant if Admiral Byrd invites her in.
At the same time we noticed that Scarlett O’Hara was sitting on top of the water filter….again. The last time she did that, we noticed shortly afterward that she was pregnant.
Admiral Byrd of course, was marching up and down the tank, claw arm held high, and waving.
To continue – Scarlett O’Hara spent the entire day and evening yesterday, on top of the water filter. She is still there this morning. She has never done that before or since, except when she was pregnant. I know she is still alive because she is “blowing bubbles.” Crabs foam sometimes when they’re out of water, to moisten their gills.
Even when I freaked out Admiral Byrd yesterday, and scared Melanie Hamilton out of her live rock because I was cleaning the tank and accidentally bumped the live rock, Scarlett O’Hara didn’t leave the filter perch. She just moved down into the filter for a bit, then climbed back up. Admiral Byrd meanwhile kept trying to climb the heater power cord up to the top of the filter to be near her, but he couldn’t quite do it with that large claw.
Yesterday afternoon we noticed that Melanie Hamilton remained outside the live rock, sitting there on the gravel serenely watching Admiral Byrd flex his claw. Then she spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in his cave lair. This morning she was resting just outside his lair, picking algae off the rock. He was napping inside.
With any luck, we can try the larvae thing again somtime soon?
I am in the middle of re-establishing the nursery tank. I had emptied everything from the original set-up, cleaned out the tank, put down the one inch or so of the calcium-releasing sand, and added the water. Now I did forget to rinse the sand out, so the tank water was cloudy at first, but it has settle out by now. I’m not sure how one effectively rinses sand out anyway without half of it going down the drain. I will say the white sand really makes the inside of the tank bright when the light is on. If we get babies again, it should be much easier to see them in such a bright tank.
I couldn’t decide whether to make the 3 gallons of water I added marine or brackish. I guess I should start brackish because first we’ll have to move the mom, whichever one of them it is, from their tank, which is brackish into this one. I wouldn’t want to shock them. Right now the tank is on the “marine side” of brackish. I’ll adjust the salinity with a bit more water shortly.
The live rock is back in the tank hopefully doing its thing to establish the nitrogen cycle. Both the air filter AND the bubbler are running and so hopefullly the tank environment will establish itself as quickly as possible. Rather than replace the old water filter cartridge and lose whatever nitrogen-fixing bacteria that had started to thrive in it, I left everything in place and returned it to the tank.
An interesting about the old water in that tank. I tested it before I emptied it out just to see if the nitrite levels ever came down. They read zero, and the nitrates were in the “okay” zone. I guess once I stopped using the live phytoplankton and let the water filter run for a few days, that was what it needed. So the phytoplankton was most likely the culprit in the high nitrites. In any event, I dumped the old water and just started with fresh sea/brackish water all over again.
One thing – that Reef Calcium product that I’d hoped would raise the alkalinity but not raise the pH, when added to half strength Instant Ocean… maybe it didn’t raise the pH but it didn’t solve the problem of the pH being too high from the Instant Ocean even when I used that at half strength. So I still had to use a pH lowering solution and this morning it is about 8.0 vs 8.4 that it was yesterday. So that’s perfect . At least though, the Reef Calcium did raise the alkalinity.
I will keep you all posted on any news from the adult tank. Keeping good thoughts for a new crop of larvae babies. Stay tuned.
Tags:Admiral Byrd, air bubbler, air filter, algae, aquarium, blowing bubbles, brackish, bubbler, calcium-releasing sand, claw, crab, crab foaming, fiddler crab, fiddlers, foaming, fresh water, gills, Instant Ocean, larvae, live phytoplankton, live rock, marine, Melanie Hamilton, molt, nitrite, nitrogen cycle, nitrogen-fixing bacteria, nursery, nursery tank, pH, pH lowering solution, phytoplankton, pregnant, Reef Calcium, salinity, Scarlett O'Hara, sea water, shell, tank, water filter
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March 14, 2008
It’s been a day of taxes and bills and other aggravations…enough to drive any sane person to the comfort of their fiddler crabs. 🙂
Admiral Byrd has been robustly marching around the tank, and no matter if he’s on “gravel hill,” the top of his “fake cave” or perched on “live rock” he stands tall and waves his claw. We just walked back in the house from dinner and the first sight to greet us across the kitchen was Admiral Byrd waving. Now we know deep down inside that he really couldn’t care less about us unless we’re a female fiddler crab, but still, on a tired night we could live in denial and pretend our “pet” is welcoming us home.
On a bit more serious note, I received a great comment from someone about my post on the death of the fiddler babies and how the Discovery forum person, Horseyhannah, said not to even bother trying to raise babies.
This person currently has living crab larvae – day 3 – and she’s offered a lot of ideas from her own experiences. There is SUCH good information and several suggestions for fiddler crab owners in her comments. I wanted to first say THANK YOU! And secondly, for anyone who didn’t catch the comment, just click here to read it.
She noted that she doesn’t use substrate on the tank bottom, which is interesting to me. I have heard others who’ve done the same, so I think there might be some merit to that approach. For myself this time around I will use the calcium substrate, since by the time I got that post, I had already started setting up the nursery tank with the new sand. So I’ll see how the sand “experiment” goes. But still, her approach to not using substrate seems very interesting and if she wants to send any updates on how it’s going, that would be great. I imagine there are many others out there who’d like to know if that is a better way to go. So anyone with info on keeping the tank bottom bare, please do send along your experiences.
I also appreciated her kind comment about my blog postings – re my novel, the fiddlers, and my marriage. Many thanks. To respond to the requests in her comment:
1) – There are many more posts to come on the progress of my novel, Under the Pier, and about life in general.
2) – She asked if I could put all the fiddler crab posts together in one place for all those “crab junkies.” Well, have no fear – they already are. On the right-hand side of my main blog page, under the “Pages” listing, click on the page called:
“And What’s the Deal With All The Fiddler Crab Stuff”
Every fiddler posting is on that page with a live link to each and every post. So crab junkies – have a great time. 🙂
For anyone who is following the progress of my “Author Journey,” or for the process and progress of my novel, Under the Pier, I’ve done the same thing. Each topic has a page with all the posts listed there, and live links to them.
If you should find your way to my blog on a page that doesn’t have the “Page list” on the right, just click on the Soul Mosaic words in my header and it will bring up the main day’s page. Then you’ll see the Page list on the right.
Well, I will re-group tomorrow. It is simply nice to know that in spite of irritating taxes and bills and other life annoyances, there are those constants like Admiral Byrd waving his claw no matter what time, day or night, that you walk in the room.
Happy Weekend to you all.
Tags:Admiral Byrd, Animal Planet, bare tank bottom, calcium stand, crab, crab junkie, crab larvae, Discovery Channel, fiddler, fiddler babies, forum, gravel, Horseyhannah, larvae, live in denial, live rock, marriage, no substrate, pet, substrate, taxes, under the pier
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March 12, 2008
Some Fiddler Updates – New Product Technical Details and Romance
1) Preparations, Take 2, for the Fiddler Crab Nursery Tank:
I came home from PetsMart yesterday armed with calcium sand to replace the gravel in the nursery aquarium. That project will commence later today. The sand is actually something called Seachem Meridian Tidal Marine Substrate. It’s basically calcium carbonate precipitated from ocean waters by coral. It will stabilize the calcium and alkalinity levels in the water, and keep the pH from getting too low. Its porous structure and size supposedly are good for the growth of denitrifying bacteria. We shall see.
At the very least, it’s a dual purpose as I can also use this sand for the bottom of the land hermit crab cage I just bought. The land hermit crab project will be ramping up soon.
I also picked up some liquid food that should work fine for the larvae. I’d mentioned a product called JBL Nobilfluid that a gentleman from Finland used to raise his crab larvae. However the Nobilfluid is made in Germany and appears to be available in Finland, Germany, England, Italy and the UK, but I couldn’t tell if it was available here in the US. I could get it from a UK website but between the exchange rate and the shipping, I expect the cost is prohibitive. A JBL representative answered my email yesterday and said their product is not available in the US yet.
I found this new product at PetsMart called Kent Marine ZooPlex. The problem I had with the fiddler babies was trying to find liquid plankton to feed them. My mistake was getting live liquid phytoplankton, which made the tank toxic and killed them. I realized larval crabs need zooplankton, which is animal plankton = roughly translated: MEAT. Phytoplankton, being plant based, is the wrong plankton. Larval crabs are carnivores, not vegetarians. Anyway, Kent Marine ZooPlex is “concentrated aquacultured Marine Zooplankton” and is geared toward invertebrates including larvae. The bottle notes it can be used as a brine shrimp replacement. So this sounds like it might be just the thing for liquid feeding of newborn larval crabs who are too small to chase live brine shrimp around.
I will still need to get the dried brine shrimp eggs to hatch when I know I have a pregnant female ready to shed her eggs. The brine shrimp hatchery project will come a bit later.
2) How to raise the alkalinity of the water for the brackish tank without raising the pH?
The dilemma I have when using Instant Ocean to make up the brackish tank water for the adult crabs, is that I have to use it at about half strength. That way I get a salinity of about 1.010 instead of 1.020-1.024. The trouble is, that makes the alkalinity way too low meaning there’s not enough calcium in the water for the crabs when they molt.
I’ve tried adding Seachem’s Marine Buffer, to raise the alkalinity and it’s very successful, but it also raises the pH way up to 8.3. That’s fine for a marine tank, but for the brackish tank, the fiddler crabs seem to like the pH closer to 7.8-8.0 I have a constant battle trying to get the salinity low enough, the alkalinity high enough and the pH “just right” somewhere between a freshwater tank and a marine tank. When I use the Marine Buffer I have to then add something to lower to pH.
I was hoping to find something that would raise the alkalinity, but not the pH when I use Instant Ocean to make up the brackish water. Yesterday I came across Seachem’s Reef Calcium. The website description reads:
“Reef Calcium™ is a concentrated (50,000 mg/L) bioavailable polygluconate complexed calcium intended to maintain calcium in the reef aquarium without altering pH.”
I am going to try the Reef Calcium product and see if that solves the problem. I will let you know.
3) Romance: a humorous update for a Wednesday:
Ever since his success with Scarlett O’Hara, Admiral Byrd has been out there claw-waving up a storm. Melanie Hamilton spends just about all her time inside the live rock. Yesterday afternoon is the first time I’ve seen her out of it in weeks. I think she took to hiding out in the rock when Scarlett O’Hara was living in the nursery tank. With Scarlett temporarily gone, Melanie was the total focus for Admiral Byrd. I don’t think she liked that.
Anyway, after giving birth, Scarlett O’Hara has been eating almost non-stop. I think she finally slowed up a bit yesterday, but she’s still pretty ravenous. In fact yesterday, I dropped a shrimp pellet in the tank and Scarlett scrambled up and caught the thing in mid-drop. It never even touched down on the gravel. And she’s pretty good. No fumbling and bobbling the shrimp pellet. She spotted it, she jumped, clutched it to her chest and landed on her feet, eating the pellet before she landed. She could probably earn a spot as an outfielder for the Red Sox.
Unlike Melanie Hamilton, Scarlett hasn’t been too concerned one way or another with Admiral Byrd’s where-abouts. She doesn’t run from him, or toward him. She just eats. Still, I don’t think she’s averse to his presence as she’s spent a fair bit of time in his lair, the fake rock cave, while he walks around waving his claw. I have to wonder if he realizes she’s sitting in his house?
Last night I turned off the tank lights, shut off all the house lights and went upstairs to bed. A little later I had to come downstairs for something and walked by the tank. Even in the dark, I could see Admiral Byrd standing there on his gravel hill, waving his claw. Total darkness, but the crab is still out there trying to get the attention of the ladies of the tank. What dedication.
He is also very funny in his pursuit of Scarlett O’Hara. He climbs to the top of the live rock, to wave his claw of course. Yesterday while claw-waving, he caught sight of Scarlett down on the gravel next to the live rock. He stopped waving, tip-toed to the edge of the rock, peeked over the edge at her to see which way she was going, then, like a teenage boy in love, scrambled down the rock and followed her around all the while waving his claw.
So watch out Scarlett, Admiral Byrd is peeking.
Tags:Admiral Byrd, alkalinity, aquacultured, aquarium, brackish, brine shrimp, calcium, calcium carbonate, carbonate, carnivore, carnivorous, claw, claw waving, coral, crab, denitrifying bacteria, eggs, fiddler, fiddler crab, Finland, gravel, hatchery, hermit crab, Instant Ocean, JBL, JBL Nobilfluid, Kent Marine, Kent Marine ZooPlex, larvae, larval, larval crabs, live rock, marine, marine buffer, Melanie Hamilton, Meridian, molt, nursery tank, ocean water, PetsMart, pH, precipitate, Red Sox, Reef Calcium, romance, salinity, Scarlett O'Hara, Seachem, Seachem Marine Buffer, Seachem Meridian Tidal Marine Substrate, Seachem Reef Calcium, shrimp pellet, tank, Tidal Marine Substrate, zooplankton, ZooPlex
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March 10, 2008
The 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.
Tags:Admiral Byrd, air bubbler, air pump, algae bloom, algal bloom, Animal Planet, aquarium, aquatic animal, Artemia, brine shrimp, bubbler, calcium sand, crab, crab larvae, Discovery Channel, eggs, fiddler, fiddler babies, fiddler crab larvae, fiddler larvae, Finland, forum, gravel, hatchery, Horseyhannah, JBL Nobilfluid, larvae, larval crab, live rock, marine environment, nitrite, nitrogen cycle, ocean environment, Online Forum, phytoplankton, Red Clayed Mangrove crabs, regulator valve, Scarlett O'Hara, Small Fry, tank, tides, toxic, water changes, waves
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March 4, 2008
Just a brief note today – buried in writing work, bills, and car stuff….reality creeps in. 🙂
The fiddler babies continue to thrive. I notice the numbers are down in the tank, and we also noticed they seem to congregate on the right side of the tank, near to the live rock. They swim in and out of the live rock crevices, and some do wander to the other side of the tank to investigate the water filter which is not running at the moment. They probably figure it’s another cave because any babies over there tend to hover under or behind the non-running water filter. But even as tiny guys, they know to keep to shelter.
My husband diligently checks on them with the flashlight and noted that they are bigger…he commented that since birth they have grown from “periods” to “commas.” It will be interesting to see how many survive. The tank is “ocean” level salinity now at around 1.020. I’ll keep it there until the 17th, which will be two weeks “in the ocean” for the guys. About that point I will start doing water changes and bring the salinity slowly back down to the brackish level I keep the adult tank at: 1.010-1.012.
I am keeping an eye on the nitrite levels in the babies’ tank since it’s up quite a bit. I added Amquel to lower the nitrites but I never really see that happen with that or Prime. I sometimes wonder if the solutions to bring the nitrites down are really “placebos” for the owners of the tanks? In any event, monitoring water quality, especially since I’m putting liquid food into the babies’ tank 3 times a day.
The adult tank has been “business as usual” – Melanie Hamilton spends most of her life hiding inside the live rock, Admiral Byrd is ALWAYS waving his claw these days, and about the only difference is Scarlett O’Hara. She must be recovering from “pregnancy and childbirth” because she has NOT stopped eating. She is shoveling in shrimp pellets and picking algae off everything, with both claws at once. She gives “two-fisted eating” a whole new meaning. It is non-stop, almost “frantic” in its intensity. I guess she is making up for lost time and nutrients. Otherwise, she seems fine.
That’s the goings-on today. Working on the next Under the Pier installment, hopefully to be done for tomorrow. Need to finish some chapter revisions first. Stay tuned.
Tags:Admiral Byrd, Amquel, aquarium, bills, brackish, car, cave, chapter, chapter revisions, childbirth, claw, claw waving, crab, fiddler, liquid food, live rock, Melanie Hamilton, nitrite, pregnancy, Prime, salinity, Scarlett O'Hara, tank, two-fisted eater, under the pier, water filter
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February 29, 2008
I came out of the gym and my cell phone went off – the vibrating beep to indicate a text message. It apparently came earlier, but given the facility is blocked I only just received it. My husband sent it – a few simple words: We’re grandparents!” I understood immediately – our pregnant fiddler crab, Scarlett O’Hara delivered her thousands of babies.
When I left this morning, she was wandering around, not really interested in eating. Just walking around. Ed noted the same thing before he went upstairs to do some work. When he came down, he said she was just sitting there eating a shrimp pellet … and she was skinny. He did a double-take and noticed the babies were gone from her abdomen, and all these little teeny really teeny black dots, floating around the tank!!!
As soon as I got the text, I raced to PetsMart to pick up the liquid baby fish food called “Small Fry” and raced home. Did you ever notice how many asleep drivers there are on the highway when you’re trying to get home fast?
I quickly got Scarlett out of the nursery tank as my husband reminded me, because at this point, Scarlett’s maternal instincts are probably done. In fact she may view them as floating “cheeseburgers” and start munching. So I moved her back into the main tank. It was like she never left. Not even a second to re-adjust for her. She just walked over to the live rock and started picking off algae and eating. Kind of like “Ahhhh – good to be home.” I don’t think Admiral Byrd has noticed her return yet. Not sure about Melanie Hamilton. She’s been in seclusion since Scarlett O’Hara left the main tank, probably hiding out from Admiral Byrd who has been waving his claw non-stop these days. I expect Melanie may be relieved to have Scarlett back.
Anyway, just had to let you all know she has successfully birthed. I will keep you posted on what happens from here. We’ll see how many, if any, of the babies survive!!! 🙂
Tags:abdomen, Admiral Byrd, algae, babies, baby fish food, beep, birthed, black dots, cell phone, cheeseburgers, crab, delivered, drivers, fiddler, grandparents, highway, husband, instincts, liquid, live rock, maternal, maternal instincts, Melanie Hamilton, nursery, PetsMart, pregnant, Scarlett O'Hara, shrimp pellet, Small Fry, tank, text message
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February 24, 2008
I will be returning soon to the evolution of my novel, Under the Pier, but given the goings-on here, I have to take some time to tell of events unfolding in the fiddler crab world.
I decided to see if it is possible to raise at least a few of Scarlett O’Hara’s and Admiral Byrd’s babies, should they survive birth. It’s a long shot, but I want to try. Scarlett looked really pregnant yesterday – that abdomen of hers is large and when she pushes at it, it’s like jelly. I have these observations again from my husband.
It is TRUE LOVE when your husband acts as midwife for your pregnant fiddler crab, keeping close eye on her while I ran out today to get a chunk of live rock for the aquarium. He even called me on my cell phone at the aquarium store to tell me that Scarlett was picking at the larval mass, pulling out a brown thread here and there and planting it in the gravel. He felt birth was getting close and I should hurry home with the live rock. I tell you, is that a friend or not? How many people would call you on your cell phone to let you know your fiddler crab is getting ready to deliver? 🙂
To back up, we went to Petsmart last night and picked up a new 10-gallon aquarium, tank top, light, light bulb, thermometer….. yes, another whole set-up. My husband is laughing but then, he is a geek, just one with different interests, so he respects this endeavor I’m involved in.
In fact, he is working on setting up his own blog that will have all kinds of tweaky things that reflect his interests. When it’s up and running, I’ll be sure to mention it. He finds the most unusual and interesting things out there. To give you a sample of the man, when we are out on a date it is not unusual to walk through the parking lot and have him explain to me the mechanisms for the inner workings of car backup lights and such. I just love it. Going somewhere with him is always interesting and an adventure. Sometime I’ll have to share how he and I hunted down the overgrown boarded up command bunker for a former Nike missile launch site in Newport News VA. 🙂 But a story for another time. Those are the kinds of dates I love. Anyway, I’ll let you know when his geek site is up and running.
To get back to fiddlers, I spent last night setting up the tank. This time I started with distilled water. We have a small water distiller and I proceeded to use up our drinking supply to make up salt water for the “nursery tank.” Mixed up Instant Ocean powder in the distilled water, set up the filter, and within a couple of hours, got the water parameters just about where I wanted them: pH 7.8, alkalinity 180, hardness >300, chlorine, Nitrite, and nitrates all zero. Salinity was about 1.008, a little lower than I wanted because I want this tank’s water to be an almost exact match for the main tank.
This morning I used some marine buffer to bump the pH up to 8.0 and alkalinity closer to 300. Added a bit more Instant Ocean to get the salinity up to 1.010. I seeded the new filter with a strip of “very well colonized” filter material from the old tank to jump start the nitrogen cycle, and brought home from Fish Pros the MOST amazing chunk of live rock – ALREADY had all kinds of marine invertebrates and microscopic algae on it because it had been in another tank that had just been dis-assembled. So, the live rock is well underway growing organisms and probably has another dose of nitrogen-fixing bacteria ready to go.
I debated about what to do with Scarlett O’Hara, leave her in the old tank and struggle with where to release her babies or put her in the new tank with plenty of room for all. Finally decided to take a chance and I’ve moved her into the new tank. She seems to be doing okay in spite of being rattled by being moved. I’m hoping it didn’t disturb her too much. It always shakes them up a bit to move them around. I have done my best to make her a good nursery and here she is free from Admiral Byrd’s claw-waving. I even took the heater from the old tank and gave it to her in the new one. I ordered a new heater for the main tank which should be here Wed. But I figured Melanie Hamilton and Admiral Byrd will be fine for a couple days with the tank lights to keep them warm. I figured “momma” needed it more.
By the way, the tank heater I use is a small one geared for 3 gal aquariums. It’s pre-set and can be mounted sideways with suction cups, and there’s no risk if it touches the gravel. It’s a Marineland Shatterproof Heater (10 watts) part number VTMD10 and found it online at That Pet Place. Since my tanks are only a third full of water (to allow space for the crabs to get out in air), regular heaters won’t work. Not enough water for them to be fully submerged. And regular heaters are generally large and have to be vertical. This guy is short and can be sideways. Keeps the tank in the range of about 78-80 degrees F. So for what it’s worth.
So…the nursery is up and running. So very much hoping that 1) Scarlett will do okay in the new tank; I would feel terrible if she doesn’t make it because of the move 2) the babies do okay.
Then all we have to worry about is how to sell off many many many many many grandchildren? 🙂 I’ll keep you posted.
By the way, if you want to have a few seconds of just staring at some nice marine creatures swimming amidst coral, click on the Instant Ocean link above. Neat intro.
Tags:abdomen, Admiral Byrd, adventure, algae, alkalinity, babies, backup lights, brown thread, car, chlorine, claw, claw waving, colonized, command bunker, coral, crab, creatures, dates, deliver, fiddler, grandchildren, gravel, hardness, heater, husband, Instant Ocean, invertebrates, jelly, larva, larvae, larval, launch site, live rock, marine, marine buffer, Marineland Shatterproof Heater, Mass, microscopic, Newport News VA, Nike missile, nitrate, nitrite, nitrogen cycle, novel, nursery, pH, pregnant, salinity, Scarlett O'Hara, sea water, tank, That Pet Place, true love, tweaky, under the pier, unusual, water, world
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February 21, 2008
I am going to be out of the office today, so a brief, fun posting with pictures of pregnant Scarlett O’Hara carrying her larval fiddler crab babies. Also a shot or two of the proud father, Admiral Byrd, who is STILL waving his claw. I am determined to get a really good shot of him doing that claw wave, but these aren’t too bad.
Here are some shots of “the babies.” They are the brown mass of egg-looking things tucked in that shelf on her abdomen. They’re not the sharpest shots, but then, Scarlett O’Hara is not the most cooperative super-model. She won’t stand still. Also, it’s hard to get a shot where she’s not moving her claws. She is CONSTANTLY shoving food in her mouth – she is a two-fisted, non-stop eater. I guess though, she is eating for a few thousand? 🙂
Admiral Byrd spots me and tries to hide in the corner of the tank against the live rock. The grayish streak is the silicone sealant in corner of the tank. I think he likes to hide behind that strip and also the thermometer strip (not seen) because it blocks his vision of me – that whole “if he can’t see me, then I don’t exist and he’s safe,” mentality? What do you want from a creature with a brain the size of a pinpoint?
The other two pictures are classic Admiral Byrd poses. He sometimes spends all day with his large claw in the air, sometime both claws in the air. While I know he’s either trying to scare me off or encourage the ladies, sometimes when he has both claws up, he looks like he’s paying homage to the god of the tank, the aquarium light above. He is also very pragmatic when trying to show off for the ladies. He’ll have his large claw up to get their attention, while using his smaller claw to shove food in his mouth. A guy has to eat, right?
See you tomorrow!
Tags:abdomen, Admiral Byrd, aquarium, babies, brain, claw, crab, egg, fiddler, God, larval, mentality, mouth, pinpoint, pregnant, Scarlett O'Hara, sealant, silicone, super model, tank, two-fisted
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February 17, 2008
Well, that is life for you. One minute you’re choking in the ER, the next maybe we’ll be surrogate grandparents for our fiddler crabs?
Again, it is my husband, the one who made fun of my fiddler crab project, who notices changes in the fiddler crab tank.
We have noticed Scarlett O’Hara on occasion, seeming interested in Admiral Byrd. Admiral Byrd of course, ALWAYS waves his claw even when no one is around. My husband explained this is a guy thing – you always stand around looking cool, just in case. Well, apparently things happen when the lights go out.
For the last 2 days my husband has mentioned, with concern in his voice, that Scarlett O’Hara has been climbing all the way up the water filter, almost to the top of the tank, and has been hanging out up there. We just thought she wanted to be queen of all she surveyed and liked being up high.
Today he looked at her and said: “I think Scarlett is going to have babies! Do fiddler crabs carry their eggs on their abdomen?” I glanced at her and there was this wad of brownish spongy stuff tucked against her abdomen, underneath her mandibles.
Sure enough, a glance at a web site of the Fiddler Crab Life Cycle, shows pictures of pregnant females carrying hundreds of thousands of fertilized eggs on their abdomen. The pictures look just like Scarlett O’Hara. So, she’s pregnant!!!!
Now my understanding from something I read, was that female fiddler crabs burrowed down into the sand 23 inches or so, to lay their eggs. So I felt assured we would not be contending with “babies.” In fact, maybe that’s why Scarlett’s been climbing on top of the water filter. Maybe she’s been looking for someplace deep to lay her eggs.
However this same website on the fiddler crab life cycle indicates that female fiddler crabs RELEASE their fertilized eggs into the water and they float around as plankton. When they molt and get big enough, then there’s JUVENILE CRABS running around the tank.
My husband’s reaction was almost identical to 20 years ago when I invited him to have lunch with me at the hospital one weekend when I was working, so I could tell him the results of a certain pregnancy test I had just run: “Oh my God.” My husband said, “I’m not ready to be a grandfather yet, especially to a few hundred thousand fiddler crabs . . . ” But you and I both know, if there’s babies in the tank, he’ll be watching over them and concerned about them.
Now another site I found, About.com’s Keeping fiddler crabs as pets, (which by the way is a GREAT summary of how to raise fiddler crabs in general AND has instructions on setting up a brackish water tank) indicates it’s near to impossible to raise the babies in captivity. Apparently the babies need to go out into deep ocean water to grow then return to the brackish water estuary when they are older.
Well we shall see. Who knows? We may yet have BABIES in the tank!!!!! 🙂 So, the $4 fiddler crabs, with the >$100 of support gear so I could establish a brackish water tank so they wouldn’t die, have apparently not only not died, but thrived! Now we may need ANOTHER TANK so the thousands of babies have a home. Anybody want to buy some fiddler crabs? I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the pregnancy.
Stay tuned this week for pictures of the pregnant mom!
Tags:Admiral Byrd, babies, choking, claw, cool, crabs, eggs, ER, fertilized, fiddler crabs, filter, grandfather, grandparents, guy, hospital, husband, juvenile, life cycle, pregnant, project, queen, Scarlett O'Hara, surrogate, tank, test, thing, water, waving
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Soul Mosaic 