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View Full Version : Three News Items: Snails, Corals, Books in stock

BrianPlankis
02-28-2007, 03:15 PM
Hey DIBSians!

A lot of things have fallen into place over the last few days. I have three brief announcements:


1. Weather is improving and invertebrates are in stock

The weather around the country is improving as spring arrives and I hope to get the first shipments of invertebrates out next week. I have received over 200 invertebrates from MARSH Breeders over the last 2 weeks, so I'm ready to supply most requests. A few invertebrates are out of stock (hair worms, some mini-brittles) as we recently lost a couple of key Breeders and need to wait for other populations to take up the slack.

The best news is that the Pocillopora damicornis breeding colonies are now in and we have our FIRST sexually produced corals available to Breeders. More details can be found here:
http://www.projectdibs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=592

2. We received a new species of Trochid snail into the project last night and they have already spawned.

You can follow the development of the eggs and my commentary here:
http://www.projectdibs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=797

3. We are proud to announce that we are now able to offer for sale Dirk Peterson's book: Breeding Techniques for Reefbuilding Corals: Towards sustainability in ex situ populations.

http://www.projectdibs.com/forums/images/ProjectDIBS/20070228PetersonBook.JPG

More details can be found here:
http://www.projectdibs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=804

As always all sales are reinvested into Project DIBS research, collaboration and educational efforts after expenses are covered. I will continue to work hard to provide additional valuable resources to Project DIBS members.

Cheers,

Brian
jnarowe
03-13-2007, 05:47 PM
Hey, send me some brittles and I'll breed them! I have a few in my system but I can't get to them. How in the world would someone harvest them?
"Umm, fish?"
03-13-2007, 07:35 PM
When my system had thousands of them, every time I would take a rock out of the tank I would shake it a few times and 2-3 would fall off. I miss those days.... :(
BrianPlankis
03-13-2007, 07:59 PM
Hey, send me some brittles and I'll breed them! I have a few in my system but I can't get to them. How in the world would someone harvest them?

Harvesting brittles out of a standard reef tank is problematic at best. Especially for Oph #3 as they like to crawl deeply into crevices. Oph #1 tends to hide in larger crevices and also prefers to hide on the underside of rocks on the sandbed, so they are easier to harvest.

But we are currently looking to develop dedicated species tanks for the mini-brittles in the project that will allow them to breed faster and to be harvested easier. Your system would be far too large to have any chance of harvesting, unless you don't mind laying on the top of the tank for hours to collect 15 mini-brittles :D

Brian
jnarowe
03-13-2007, 08:08 PM
Yeah I figured as much, but wouldn't they make good tank mates for my snail grow-out system?
BrianPlankis
03-13-2007, 08:24 PM
Yeah I figured as much, but wouldn't they make good tank mates for my snail grow-out system?

Yes, they should be good tankmates for your snail grow-out system and if you shift to smaller pieces of LR rubble then harvesting them should be much easier than having larger pieces of LR in the tank. You could feed the tank flake food or pellet food and that will help feed the brittles and the waste will fuel algae growth for the snails without having to add additives.

So far we have not witnessed any aggression from them towards snails or the snails egg masses. I have both Oph #3 and #1 in my tank and egg masses make it all the way to hatching.

Brian
jnarowe
03-13-2007, 09:11 PM
well next time they are available, LMK! :D
BrianPlankis
03-13-2007, 09:17 PM
well next time they are available, LMK! :D

Actually, I have some Oph #1 in stock right now and am looking for dedicated systems for them, we might just have to send some to you next week :D

Our main breeder for them just removed his sandbed, so he'll probably be out of action for some time for collecting from him.

Brian
jnarowe
03-13-2007, 09:29 PM
I am definitely interested. And I don't feed flake food man...that's a crime!
"Umm, fish?"
03-13-2007, 09:29 PM
Mine would eventually just ball up in pretty marginal hiding places. They were pretty darn easy to harvest. In fact, fairly annoying. Anytime I wanted to try to catch possible coral larvae, they would _always_ show up on any live rock I used and they could _certainly_ be larvae predators.

http://65.102.221.68/img_5407.jpg
BrianPlankis
03-13-2007, 09:37 PM
Mine would eventually just ball up in pretty marginal hiding places. They were pretty darn easy to harvest. In fact, fairly annoying. Anytime I wanted to try to catch possible coral larvae, they would _always_ show up on any live rock I used and they could _certainly_ be larvae predators.

http://65.102.221.68/img_5407.jpg

Good image! Yes, Oph #3 appears to try to capture larvae out of the water, when I had my cowrie larvae swimming around the tank they were waving their arms like no tomorrow. They ignore any benthic larvae though.

Oph #1 appeared to have no interest in the cowrie larvae.

Brian
jnarowe
03-13-2007, 09:51 PM
So it sems I could grow them in my grow-out tank right? They might make good cohabitants.
"Umm, fish?"
03-13-2007, 11:04 PM
Sure. They can eat small things you put in and release ammonia to feed the algae that feeds the snails.