48 replies to this topic

[Irate Mormon]

AUban, do you think you could write an article for the website?  I found your account very interesting.

[Auban]

sure.  what exactly should i write?   a how to?  my experiences with my strain of T. longicaudatus?  i say "my strain" because i am pretty sure mine have a higher than normal hatch rate.  for a long time, i tossed anything that did not hatch on the first hydration.  comparing my experiences with them with those of other people who have kept triops tells me that mine seem to love hatching, or i have just been super successful.  

 

this new species my wife and daughter are trying are having me second guess my success lol.

[Irate Mormon]

All of the above...if you can expand upon what you wrote at the top of this thread it would be great.

[Irate Mormon]

If you like, you can just send it to me and I'll make any necessary edits before sending it along to the web maestro.  I'm trying not to increase anybody's work burden.

[lilyea]

AUban, do you think you could write an article for the website?  I found your account very interesting.

 

Martin - I am not sure if you meant for the website or for American Currents, but I would suggest that this would be great information to be shared in the American Currents as well.  

 

Auban - this discussion has prompted me to dig back into Voshell's book and look at water in a different way - thank you.

[Auban]

well alright then.  ill start working on writing an article this weekend.  half our troop decided to go on pass this weekend, so barring any crazy hotspots developing in my AO, i doubt ill be too busy with work.  

 

as for the triops tank, i managed to video chat with my wife and finally got to see what it looked like.  the tank did not look...  dirty enough, for lack of better word.  so i had her go grab a hand full of dirt and toss it in.  whenever she wakes up in the morning, ill have her send me a picture of what it looks like now.  if it looks about right, ill post it up here.  triops are voracious eaters in their first few days.  they grow incredibly quickly.  when i first started keeping them, i didnt know just how badly they needed readily available foods that they could eat.  dirt was actually the way to give them what they needed.  leaving a light on the tank was the easiest way to keep the water from fouling a few days later.  

 

there is an interesting paradox there for people keeping them in tanks...  they need lots and lots of organic matter to get them started, but they can also succumb to the water fouling due to having too much organic matter in the water.  the best solution i have found is to introduce as many different kinds of microorganisms as possible, and encourage algae growth as soon as possible.  the wide variety of microorganisms and bits of organic matter found in  typical topsoil dirt serves the purpose of food pretty well, and the algae and cyanobacteria growth serve the purpose of keeping oxygen levels high and nitrogen levels low.  

 

i usually dont even turn lights off at night.  they will produce a lot more eggs with more oxygen, and will grow faster at warmer temperatures, so leaving the lights on 24/7 just makes sense.  

 

from what i have read, they also seem to benefit from small swings in temperature, but i have never tested this to try and figure out why this is.  is it the changes in activity?  was the study done in a situation where the lights were turned off every night, possibly affecting dissolved oxygen levels?  was their tank mostly sterile? who knows.  i haven't tried testing it myself and i cannot remember which paper i read it in.  

[Auban]

ok, so my wife sent me this pic today.  

 

that is pretty well set up for hatching triops in.  its a little dirtier than most people would like, and i will admit a bit dirtier than i was expecting, but not by much.  triops should have no problem finding enough food in it.  

 

my wife has not gotten around to hydrating new eggs yet.  at about 1030 she walked outside and saw our native bee colony swarming(lives in a tree on our property), so she called me up all excited.  after getting her to calm down long enough to tell me what was going on, i told her to stop wasting time and go get what she needed to catch them!  they only hang out at their first location for 15 minutes to an hour...  usually.

 

she rushed out to a local bee keepers supply store and got everything she needed to collect the swarm.  by the time she got back half an hour later, they had settled on the exact same little tree that the last swarm settled on last year.  she ended up collecting the swarm using an empty wendys french fry container doused in sugar water.  and she got the queen!  last year, the swarm we got had somehow lost its queen and we weren't able to get one fast enough to save the colony.  i could tell on the phone that she was jumping up and down like a little kid as she told me about it.  

 

right now she is looking for the triops eggs, which she misplaced in her excitement over the bees.  when she finds them, she will hydrate more.  in distilled water this time.  

Edited by Auban, 25 May 2018 - 11:45 PM.

[mattknepley]

Swarming bees are a good excuse for misplacing triops eggs! Props to her for catching 'em.

[Auban]

Swarming bees are a good excuse for misplacing triops eggs! Props to her for catching 'em.

 

 

i totally agree!  

 

it was actually kinda cute hearing her all giddy about catching the bees.  i think this is the first hobby she has engaged in that has REALLY let her understand what i get out of all things aquatic.  she is so excited about them...  its crazy.  she has been scouring the internet for hours at a time for every bit of information she can find about bees.  there isnt much that is more beautiful to me.  

 

the funny thing is that now that she has really gotten bitten by "the bug", she wants to help me with my aquarium ventures more than she ever has.  she wants to know everything about it.  she can now understand why i bought so many books about bee keeping last year.  

 

my wife is turning into an amateur ecologist!  oh dear!

[Ken Kilby]

Me and my grandfather tried to catch a swarm of bees one time.  It was ugly.  We had 30 or so hives, the worst experience of my life, those freaking bees.

[Irate Mormon]

 

Martin - I am not sure if you meant for the website or for American Currents, but I would suggest that this would be great information to be shared in the American Currents as well.  

 

Auban - this discussion has prompted me to dig back into Voshell's book and look at water in a different way - thank you.

I was specifically interested in the website, as we need content and A/C already has editors who are out snagging articles 24/7.  But as I'm in neither working group, I suppose others will make that determination. 

[Irate Mormon]

I'm trying to envision how one goes about catching a swarm of bees.  Makes for an interesting mental picture.

[Irate Mormon]

I've always (well, not ALWAYS, but lately) wanted to to try bees, but with chickens, turtles, fish, garden, and assorted other things (many of which go BANG!) I don't see how I could fit bees into the schedule.

[Auban]

lol, catching a bee swarm is actually pretty easy.  

 

bees are incredibly docile when they are swarming.  the process is this:  find the swarm of bees, scoop them up, and put them into a box.  simple as that.  without a hive to defend, they don't sting anyone.  well, i guess you could start squeezing bees and convince them to sting you.  i never tried.  

 

anyway, i have no updates on the triops tank today.  my wife got lost in bee land.  she spent most of the day watching them at their hive.  she even forgot her phone for about 10 hours.  i have a feeling i am going to end up with an apiary soon...  

 

and i have zero problems with that. 

[Irate Mormon]

Bees interest me because they are one of the most studied animals ever...I ran into a guy at BPS who had tubes of honey in his pocket and a bee club shirt on - that was a real interesting conversation, let me tell you.

[Auban]

So, i found out what was going wrong with my daughters triops tank. There was a dragonfly larvae in it. I kinda wanted to keep it, but my daughter didn't want it. So away it went.

I am home now, so i can actually see the tank and can know how things are progressing. Things are a bit off in the tank, and im not sure why. Im probably going to drain it and restart.

I already tried hatching some of MY triops in her tank since i got home, and it didn't work. I have been keeping only the eggs laid from triops that hatch from their first exposure to water over the last 20 years.

Their hatch rate at initial inundation is pretty high. A few days ago, i put some of my triops eggs into the tank and about 150 or so hatched. Apparently, they all died, though i could be wrong about that. This would be the point where its easy to miss them... they are crawling around at the bottom of the tank and are still incredibly small.

I want to figure out why i have been successful where others have not,so i need to figure out why the triops died after this last hatch.

It was the same strain i was keeping in an old pretzel jar when i was in germany, so i have to think something is going on that i have either ignored or have not thought about yet.

Im home now, so at least ill be able to watch and figure it out.

For anyone reading this, no, i am not selling my triops eggs. From what i have read and seen, i know that my t longs have very high hatch rate. I am not in the position to sell them. Im willing to share though.

[Auban]

Random moment of joy...

Seeing my daughter on stage with Big Smo(John Lee Smith), dancing and having a grand old time, while he was taking jars of shine from crowd and sampling them as he was performing. Lol

I went with my sister, wife and daughter. This is the best homecoming i have had by far, despite the fact that aki(my wife) is depressed and hurting from her medical issue. We set up a chair for her up front near the stage.

My job requires me to stay on top of evolving technology and know how it works, but that doesn't stop me from loving my "kinfolk".

It was a like home... kids running around playing, lots of people sampling each others shine, mud on every neck but never on the face of a lady.

I can say now that i really needed to see that. I didn't know how much i needed it until i was there. We sent video grams and pictures to my sisters husband, who is in prison right now. I can't wait to go do something like this with him when he gets out and moves up here with us. Im looking forward to seeing what he does, and struggling with him.

[Auban]

The last post had no relevance to the topic at hand. I just felt like posting it.

[gerald]

Glad you're home.   Hope you get to stay a good long while and reconnect with civilian life.

[mattknepley]

What Gerald said. Glad you're back home, and that it feels like home. Enjoy your favorite season stateside. Hope your wife is doing better soon enough.