Our sweet 10 day old embryos!

[deb]

We're so fascinated by the progress of these embryos I just had to take photos. We think they are all wild-type.

 

[alex]

its kind of hard to tell what type they are when they are still embryos but you will know for sure when they hatch. they look exactly like mine used to

.

 

[vanessa]

Wow, they look cute. Even as embryos.

 

[karen]

wow ..never seen any that colour before ..

 

[alex]

karen, they look kinda blackesh whitesh ay. thats just the yolk and the embryo.:>

 

[deb]

They're now 14 days old and almost all the white yolk has disappeared. Just two have hatched of about 40 eggs so far but I think that's because the water is quite cool (18 degrees celsius). We are frantically hatching brine shrimp in expectation of their 'births'. Spending at least an hour a day just watching them in awe.

 

[alex]

deb, after they have hatched they can live for something like 2 days because they still feed of the yolk. its such a mission to hatch the brine shrimp every single day i find. the hardest part of hatching brineshrimp for me is trying to seperate the eggs from the brineshrimp, if a baby eats an egg or egg shell by accident then they are going to die from impaction.

 

[deb]

Thanks Alex - yes we're trying to perfect our harvesting technique before we have dozens of hungry little larvae. Turning the pump off and letting the water settle seems to work since the egg shells float to the surface and the teeny little shrimp move toward the bottom of the hatchery (upside down plastic bottle). We then suck up some liquid from the bottom of the hatchery with a turkey baster and find that it is full of shimmering little shrimp. We tried filtering it through a fine net but all the shrimp just went through the mesh. A paper towel works best. I wonder how much to feed them?

 

[alex]

i just feed a whole batch at a time. it seems to work for me.

 

[deb]

18 days and all have hatched - approx 60 we think. And Alex you're quite right, we couldn't tell the colour accurately when they were just embryos. They are all kinds of colours - pale brownish, dark greyish black and shades of translucent. How fascinating. Now we have 2 shrimp hatcheries going and a couple of cultures of microworms! The house echoes to the bubble of air pumps. Can you spot the cute little critters in these photos??

 

[deb]

An update on our nursery of baby axies. Here's a couple of photos to show development at between 7 and 9 days old. They haven't eaten brine shrimp for 24 hours so their tummies aren't bright orange!

 

[drew]

there so small and cute

 

[mary]

hi Deb,
where did you get your Brine Hatchery thingey-
we have embryos 9 days old!!

 

[elliot]

hahah i found out u can feed them sea monkeys, dont no if its healthy tho, and well if ur sea monkey tank is as full as mine i guess its ok ^^

 

[deb]

Mary we made a couple of hatcheries ourselves and we think we're so DIY! Very simple really if you want to try. You might like to take a look at the photos on Jennifer's information page:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/microfoods.shtml
The only change we make is that we can't work out how to glue the tubing into the bottle so we just poke the end of the tube right down to the bottom of the hatchery and then use a big metal clip to hold the tubing firm against the top rim.

We use one small air pump to aerate two hatcheries so we bought a $4 gang valve to send two lines off the pump. We find the 750ml H2Go water bottles perfect (only plain water and kiwifruit flavour - the other flavours have bobbly bottoms to them!)

We don't use heat lamps and we're getting hatches every 2 to 3 days. Turkey baster INDISPENSABLE. Finally found one at 'Plastic Box' if you have that store?

If you need something to feed larvae before shrimp hatch see if your pet shop has microworms - they are fantastically easy to culture at home and they'll do until the more nutritious shrimp are ready. Let me know how you go. Our 15 day old larvae are approx 2 cm now with fluffy looking gills, big heads and orange tummies from the shrimp.

And Elliot, sea monkeys are the same thing as brine shrimp.

 

[ang]

Mary, you can also get brine shrimp hatchery kits on trademe

 

[deb]

Larvae are 15 days old so I thought some current photos are called for! We have the larvae in 2 tanks at present - one's a tank and the other a plastic container (we're about to divide into 3). Still no front leg buds - but we're on the look out.

 

[mary]

thanks Ang- got the shrimp hatchery off trademe and creating shrimpies as we speak....

 

[ang]

Good one Mary! Ours is on the way,I hope it arrives in time! I also have two sea monkey tanks coming too.

Hi Deb, our babies are at 10 days old, but they look more like the pictures of yours at 14 days!

Ours are at between 16 and 18 degrees, mostly 18, They are moving, and have gill feathers and you can see their wee black eyes too!

Thanks for the pictures, your babies look great!

 

[deb]

Yours must be precocious Ang! Look forward to hearing about the 'births' - all 200 of them?? I think I spotted leg buds on a larvae this morning - should be some at 3 weeks shouldn't there?