The Post – Admiral Byrd Kicks Back on Father’s Day With Bubbles

It’s been a while since I’ve done any fiddler crab updates. Just to let you all know, they are alive and well. I’ve been under the weather a lot, so I had to put my attempts to raise babies on hiatus. However, not to worry. I’ll get there yet.

In the meantime, suffice it to say both ladies are doing well and have been mostly hanging out in their live rock. However, I did notice today that one of them was resting in Admiral Byrd’s “lair.” So I suppose babies might be on the horizon again in the not too distant future.

Admiral Byrd decided to celebrate Father’s Day by kicking back and relaxing. He climbed out of the water and sat on top of his cave rock, blowing bubbles. It does have that “foaming at the mouth” look, but in reality, I think he’s just relaxing and aerating his gills while he sits out of water. He keeps moving his claws and legs up and down as if he’s using them to spread the bubbles around and like he’s then washing himself. It does look odd. But, he seemed pretty relaxed.

I came across this entry from Wet Web Media’s FAQ on Freshwater Fiddler Crabs, where someone else noticed the exact same behavior with their fiddler crab, and asked about it:

“Odd freshwater Crab behaviour
I have a ten gallon tank with low water and rocks for crabs and other crustaceans. I bought some crabs and here’s my q’s.
Today the male??, one large one small claw, climbed out of the water onto the rock and started foaming? or bubbling from his face and doing something, like he was washing?? what is this? He the proceeded to sit then later he did this crazy claw dance, waving his arms around slowly in these rhythmic motions all the way out and then back in, what the heck? Does he have mad crab disease?

>> Crabs have to get oxygen when they are out of the water they will “chew” a small amount of water to mix it with air and get oxygen from this process, that is likely why your crab is foaming. He is waving his claws to show his territory and attract females, so he is not mad. …For a great website on crabs and other crustaceans check http://www.crusta10.de not sure if it is all in English, but the site owner is one of the most knowledgeable people on the subject. Good Luck, Oliver”

For some pics of Admiral Byrd’s bubble-blowing session, here you go!

First from the front:

And then from the back…note that Admiral Byrd is still watching me even though I am photographing him behind his back…he has his “eyes” tilted back to watch me:

The Post – Fiddler Babies Thrive in the “White Cloud.”

The white cloud in the babies’ tank continues, yet the water quality is GREAT.

What mystifies me is the absolute ?attraction the fiddler babies have for the aragonite sand and the reef rock. They swarm all over areas of the sand, stirring up clouds of dust, and bouncing down against the aragonite sand, then move on to another area. They are equally attracted to the reef rock, which is nothing more than a hunk of petrified coral.

On the flip side, while they swim by the live rock, they do not seem to be interested in it to any great extent, even though there is a wide variety of algae growing all over it.

The aragonite sand is Seachem’s Meridian Marine Tidal Substrate. The reef rock is “Carib Sea Reef Rock.” Both products help to maintain proper pH and calcium levels, as well as encourage the growth of coralline algae and beneficial bacteria. In fact, I suspect it is the cloud of aragonite dust in the water that may have helped spur the bacteria on, resulting in the nitrite levels in the tank dropping to zero. It just seems counterintuitive to me, to have a tank of water I can barely see through, yet have it be so healthy by the numbers.

I shine the flashlight in the tank and can see thousands of babies swimming around, digging in the sand, or clustering on the reef rock. All are in motion, so they are most definitely alive. I have to wonder if there are already lots of microscopic algae on the surfaces of the sand and the reef rock, and the congregating of the fiddler babies is about eating what’s there.

I am currently feeding them 4 drops of Wardley’s Essentials Small Fry Liquid Food and a 1/4 tsp of Kent Marine’s ZooPlex, 3 times a day. I’m being very careful not to overfeed, and monitoring ammonia and nitrite levels 2-3 times a day.

I’ve also started the live brine shrimp hatchery going, though I have to say, I’m not sure if that’s something I want to deal with on a regular basis. Just one more job I have to do and as one of the sites mentioned, if you can’t get live food, frozen brine shrimp is the next best thing. I know I saw cubes of frozen brine shrimp at PetsMart and I may yet change to that. But for now, I’ll see the “sea monkey” hatching project through and see how it goes. I expect I’ll have hatched brine shrimp by tomorrow so I will try some of that instead of the liquid feeds and see what happens.

Just as an aside, I found a page on About.com that mentions their top picks for “small fry” food.

While these are primarily small fry as in baby fish, they all contain the multitude of nutrients need, and in an accessible, easily digested liquid form for young aquatic creatures. So I’m not too concerned.

Frankly, even though the Kent Marine ZooPlex is supposed to be for larval invertebrates, I have to say I’m more happy with the “dispersal” ability of Wardley’s Small Fry food. Wardley’s is a milky liquid that spreads completely and uniformly through the tank, so the most food and nutrients are available to the most number of critters.

The Kent’s on the other hand, is like ground up bits of brine shrimp in a pink liquid. The instructions say a teaspoon per 50 gallons, and since I’ve only got a 10 gallon tank, I am giving 1/4 tsp of the stuff. However it seems like precious little food, that probably isn’t getting to anywhere near the number of baby fiddlers that are hungry and needing to eat. So at least so far, I’m not that impressed with the Kent Marine ZooPlex and will stick primarily with Wardley’s. From there it’s live or frozen brine shrimp.

I raised the salinity of the aquarium yesterday to 1.017 from 1.012. I’d be happy to get to 1.020, which is close enough to a marine environment. I’ll leave it there for a couple weeks then, and gauge the appropriate time to lower it back down to brackish. I want to match that to the development of the more advanced crab forms from the initial larval stages.

As to the adult crabs – they’re doing fine in the main tank. Admiral Byrd, flush with mating success these days, never stops waving his claw. In fact, yesterday, I no sooner put Scarlett O’Hara back in the main tank, and he was right there saying “hi.” She hid behind the water filter to eat…though not too hidden, he actually lay backwards and slightly upside down on the water heater near her, and waved his claw at her upside down. Talk about “never give up.”

Anyway, so far, so good. We’ll see how this progresses over the next few days. It would be nice to keep many alive to actually make it to adult crab stage. Stay tuned!

The Post – Odd Goings-On in the Fiddler Tank – Is Scarlett Acting Pregnant Again?

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.

The Post – Admiral Byrd, A Comforting Constant in Life

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.

The Post – Admiral Byrd is Peeking & New Aquarium Products

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.

The Post – The Fiddler Babies are Dead, But We’ll Start Over And Prove Horseyhannah Wrong!!

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.

The Post: Fiddler Update – From Periods to Commas

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.

The Post – What to Feed the Babies and How Salty Should the Water Be?

Just a reminder that coming up over the next week, the next few installments on the journey of my Under the Pier novel. I had to take a break from those for taxes, actually finishing some more chapter revisions, and of course, taking care of the “grandchildren.” But stay tuned. More to come on Under the Pier.

Re the grandchildren:

What wonderful goings on! Soooo many little black dots in the nursery and they are definitely swimming around. Many are hiding out in the shadows of the live rock caves. So tiny and already they know to hide and avoid “predators.”

I am feeding them three times a day with a mixture of ground up mini-freeze dried krill, some ground up flake food, a few drops of the liquid Small Fry baby fish food, and a little distilled water mixed in. We shall see how it goes. And no, I am not grinding the mini-krill with my husband’s lovely stone mortar and pestle that he uses for grinding up herbs and spices in the kitchen!!

Regarding salinity – it’s a tricky call. While Uca minax, which are the type of fiddler crabs I have, are seen furthest up the estuary in areas of lowest salinity, there seems to be evidence that for at least the first two weeks of their larval development (zoeae) , they actually survive and do better at a higher salinity. However there is also evidence that for the next (megalopae) stage to metamorphose into crab Stage 1, this species does best with the lower salinity seen in the upper estuary environment that the adults live in. I will post more information tomorrow including the links to the two papers I found today on this subject. Long story short today though, is that zoeae of all the species of fiddler crabs, seem to need a couple weeks of “being at sea,” hence higher salinity.

I’ll also explain about the three species used in one of the studies and how their selectivity for salinity levels puts them in different spots in the estuaries and thus probably keeps them from competing with each other for resources and food.

Also to come – I dug out the small microscope I had as a kid and will pick up some microscope slides. So to follow, descriptions of babies, under the glass.

A couple of other notes – courtesy again of my engineer husband. He noted a bunch of white things all over the gravel and wondered if the babies had already molted. Maybe they have but these white dots were too big and irregular in size for baby shells. I believe it’s salt crystals that didn’t dissolve in the water before I added it. I added more water to bring the salinity up closer to a marine environment. I started at 1.010 (brackish) when they were born and over the course of yesterday raised the salinity first to 1.012, then by last night 1.015. Today I’ll finish raising it to 1.020. Then in two weeks I’ll bring it back down to 1.010-1.012, the optimal range for Uca minax adults.

Sand. Again, my husband was watching the babies swim – it is amazing to see these tiny things whiz around the tank – but he shined a light to see if they would follow the beam. The article I posted in yesterday’s gift mentioned that the babies will go to the light. My husband didn’t see evidence of that, but what he noted was that many little babies had worked their way down between the gravel bits, all the way down to the bottom of the tank. Unless they figure out how to get back up to the water, they’ve had it. Now let’s face it. Their parents had a brain the size of a pinpoint. How large a brain do you thing babies the size of a pinpoint have? So the odds of them getting back to the surface are not good. I said “evolution at work. Anybody who tunnels down in the gravel probably won’t live to reproduce. ” My husband noted that gravel is less than optimal for this (engineers talk like this by the way, things are optimal, less than optimal, sub-optimal 🙂 ).

The real important point though was his next comment: “The NEXT time we do this, we should use sand.” There you have it folks. My husband has fallen in love with the fiddler crabs. In all truth, he has. He watches them, thinks about how to make their lives better, anticipates the babies getting ground up in the water filter…..those babies are lucky to have him!!!

Anyway, stay tuned for the links on those two articles about optimal (yes, OPTIMAL) salinity levels for fiddler crab larvae.

 

The Post – Extra!!! We Are Grandparents!!! Scarlett O’Hara Delivers

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!!! 🙂

The Post – My Husband, Alias Fiddler Crab Midwife

Again I will note, it is my husband who thought of something crucial. I’d finally gotten the new tank so the water is clear, the nitrites aren’t too high, Scarlett O’Hara is calm and exploring the tank. I got the main tank’s water changed, so it too is in great shape. Feeling satisfied with the world, I commented that now all we need to do is wait for the birth.

My husband turned and said: “I’ve been meaning to ask you something that bothered me. You have the water filter running in the nursery tank. When the microscopic babies are born, won’t they all get sucked into the filter material?”

“OH MY GOD.” The man is right. We’ll come down some morning and Scarlett will have delivered and there’ll be no babies in the tank – just this primal cry of the thousands emitting from the cloth and charcoal filter material – the crab baby equivalent of “Oh the humanity!!”

I first thought maybe I could just pull out the filter material and just leave the water pump running, but again, my engineer husband said, “Well that will be okay I guess while they’re microscopic. But what happens when they start to grow and get a little bigger? They’ll get sucked through the pump and won’t that grind them all up?”

“OH MY GOD again.” You know, for a person who started this whole thing out with “So, we’ve spent $4 on fiddler crabs and a $100 on support gear,” and laughed at the endeavor, he is the one the babies should thank if they make it because he is the one paying such close attention to their every need. When I hedged about spending yet another $30 on a tank heater, he was like, “But won’t they need heat?”

In any event, I ran to Petsmart to buy a tank bubbler. There’s all kinds – wands, rocks, bars, then there’s pumps – all kinds of those, not to mention you have to buy the right pump to handle the volume of your tank and the right sized wand to stretch across your tank, then there’s the check valve you have to install if the pump is going to be below the aquarium instead of above it – keeps the water from backflowing into the pump in case of power loss….you get the picture. I finally settled on a pump for aquariums up to 20 gallons instead of 10. Wanted something with more power to push air in there. And I selected a wand to extend across the back of the tank to create a curtain of bubbles. I thought that might circulate the oxgen better than a bubble rock. It won’t filter the water, but hopefully the huge live rock and the bacteria I’ve already seeded the tank with from the old filter backing, will be enough to jump-start the nitrogen cycle without the filter running. The bubbler will give them fresh air. So, keep your fingers crossed.

At least Scarlett O’Hara seems to like it. She climbs up on the wand and sits there with bubbles flowing up around her. I hope she thinks it’s “surf” and releases the babies soon. My husband wonders if she is scurrying around the tank so much because it’s getting close and she’s frantically trying to find that right spot to let them go and be carried out “into the open ocean.” Sigh.

Truly, those fiddler babies owe him a lot. He is the true fiddler dad. Admiral Byrd may be oblivious and not care, but my husband surely does. It’s that whole “Caring is Catchy,” thing.