A qualified "Eureka!"
Hi,
I was off to the desert on one of my periodic work trips to do exotic removal, pupfish and dace habitat maintenance, etc. When I arrived home Sat. about 8PM, there was a message on my answering machine that I had fish from SG at the post office on Friday morning! Arghhhh!!! as Snoopy says.
Ronnie had sent me another batch of gertrudae eggs at the worst possible time, for I had left for Ash Meadows and Devil's Hole on Thursday morning.
The PO is closed on Sun., so I showed up bright and early on Monday to discover it was the "Columbus Day" holiday and the PO was still closed.
I was about ready to post a wail to the Chill-Out forum, but decided to wait until this morning and see what I actually have. At least they spent the last 4 days in the relatively benign atmosphere of the post office, and not on a loading dock in Anchorage.
Just about all the eggs had hatched in the breather bags, and the earlier collection were 90% dead. The ones collected a couple of days later (Sept. 26th) were mostly lively and well. I have a few (3 or 4) of the first batch struggling, but a lot of the later bunch (16+?) are looking pretty hale and hearty.
I diluted their salty water about 50% with my soft tap water, which brought tds to just under 1000 ppm. To each batch, I added a couple of drops of "Amquel" to quickly wipe out any ammonium buildup. I'll do another 50% dilution this afternoon.
I'm about to go out and get a baby medicine dropper full of my thick green water (Euglena species), and give them their first feeding. I'll try a couple of bbs later today, but suspect they may still be too small to handle them. I'll also add some Java Moss (from a Hydra-free tank ) and a drop of Liquifry No 1 to build up infusoria for them.
Gotta go, lots of babies to tend, y'know.
Wright
01 760 872-3995
805 Valley West Circle
Bishop, CA 93514 USA
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