I got up early this morning and rushed over to the lab to suck on tanks — danios lay demersal eggs that sink to the bottom of the tank, and you can just siphon them up — and…nothing but fish poop. I have a sad face. It was probably overly optimistic since we only have a few adults yet and they’ve just been plunked into the system, but I had hopes. They look so happy! (Zebrafish visibly respond to stress by going pale, and as soon as these guys hit the tanks their little stripes were vividly dark blue).
Water quality is good, but now I’m channelling my grandmother and starting to fuss over their diet. They need to eat and get fat and good rich fatty food is just the ticket. We’ve got the brine shrimp hatchery bubbling and those should be ready tomorrow, and I’m going to be giving them a range of tropical fish foods. We will plump these little creatures up so they can give me more than just feces to look at in the morning.
We’ve also ordered a couple of defined wild type lines — at $20/pair, so we expect thoroughbreds — so the colony population should climb soon, which will help. Then, observations and experiments and breeding and colony expansion.
Today we colonise Minnesota. Tomorrow we will colonise the world!
“Then, observations and experiments and breeding and colony expansion.”
I think this is exactly what the Alien Queen would say if she could speak. Has anyone checked PZ for ovipositors?
Zebrafish visibly respond to stress by going pale…
Calling all adaptationists, explication needed stat!
Schmaltz
That’s the ticket.
Oh no! Get out of the candy cottage, little Hansel and Gretelfish!
…
Thanks to PZ, I learned today that zebrafish are one of the species of danios. Do zebras have special features that make them particularly good research fish, or is it just an accident of history that their species got picked?
I, for one, welcome our…… oh. :(
The zebrafish are elbowing (finning?) one another and chuckling over how they pulled a fast one on the professor.
“he wanted eggs, we gave him shit!”
First give them a nice dinner with good wine, soft music and dim lights. Perhaps dancing after. Then home for a nightcap, satin sheets, rose pedals…
As lately I’ve been tasked with getting all the Lead, Cadmium, Hex Chromium and DEHP out of our medical devices, perhaps I’m a bit hypersensitive, but i have to ask: is there some special magic that is protecting the fishies from all the possible things that could leach out of the hoses?
Quite often, any plastic that has any enhanced flexibility at all has gained that by a considerable infusion of DEHP.
See:
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/MedicalDevices/…/UCM080457.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/committees/scmp/documents/out43_en.pdf
You might want to verify that your flexible hoses are not flexible thanks to those possibly problematical chemicals.
Just sayin’
Have you tried pumping in Barry White music?
Have you tried some mood lighting and perhaps some fishie erotica?
Not just the hoses. The entire setup is commercial-grade plastics and none of it is intended for fish. The tanks are hamster habitats, as I recall, and the water sump is a plastic storage bin. I’ve seen how these types of things become brittle over time as the plasticizers evaporate into the air, who knows what they’ll do in water? I think I’d at least be investing in some 2-liter or so rectangular glass goldfish tanks for the expensive fish.
You did make sure you ordered some females, right?
Communication: “stay away, dangerous place”. Kin selection, perhaps even reciprocal altruism.
When they go pale, do they become a different “kind”?
I once put a pair of D. rerio in a plastic bag to take to an aquarium our Society maintains in the children’s section of our local library. When I got to the library the bag was filled with eggs which I was able to hatch out and subsequently grow into a tankfull of zebra danios. These are excellent little fish for those just starting out keeping fish.
I find it hard to believe that PZ does not have any Zebrafish porn on hand. That should get them going.
They’re zebrafish, not duggarfish.
Try playing this with appropriate lighting and background music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnI-XR4u4DI
moarscienceplz
Zebra Danios are cheap and sturdy, perfect for starting out a tank and conditioning the water.
It’s the stress of moving.
You forgot “And then we take over the world!”, and the obligatory evil laugh as well.
“Animals vill be bred und scchhaughtered!”
Yes, but what did poopyhead do with the zebrafishy shite? Dilute it and sell it as homopathetic “medicine”?
They’ve all turned gay. We knew we had it coming.
I used to raise bristlenose plecos, in which endeavor I had the opposite problem (how do I make them STOP?). However the pleco forums frequently recommended Barry White for less eager breeders.
So I’m seconding the Barry White.
That many people on the internet can’t be wrong!
No, no, you need to remove the distractions, not add more!
Okay, that link didn’t work, let’s try again:
No, no, you need to remove the distractions, not add more!
You’ve got Sea Monkeys? Cool!
Elspeth: Baby plecos are the cutest fish evah!
French fries done in beef tallow, smothered in shredded sharp cheddar and bacon bits, with a light sprinkling of chives. Let them wash it down with a fine hand-crafted IPA. I guarantee, the little fishies will put on weight. And if you stop them at two pints they’ll even move on to the procreatin’ once they’re done getting plump.
This sentence is just begging to be quote mined by fundies… I can see the results being hilarious :)
I think I see the problem.
The tags are: ” My classes, Organism, Science”.
I think the word is spelled “Orgasms”.
Now – go and spread The Word.