Hi Everyone,

I've posted a short overview of the larval rearing for the P. venusta on the Rising Tide Conservation blog.
http://risingtideconservation.blogspot.com

The last P. venusta larval trial with only cultured foods came to an end after two water quality issues. One was a heater that went nuts and over heated. The other was that I had purchased a food grade Rubbermade trash barrel for water storage and after conditioning it with fresh water and letting it sit out in the sun I stored some salt water in it. A few days later the area around the barrel had an odor similar to cat spray (urine). Sometimes neighbors cats do visit my fish garage so I grumbled to myself about cat spray and went on to use the water in the barrel. Then realized the odor was coming from the inside of the barrel! This was strange since I've always used these barrels without a problem. I don't know what the cause is with this one but I rinsed and dried the barrel, refilled it and a couple days later it smelled again. So it is no longer a water storage barrel and I just wanted to pass along this info in case anyone else has a similar experience. Don't use the water if it smells like cat urine! (How crazy is that)!
Otherwise, the cultured food only P. venusta larval run was going fairly well (not great but good) and I will be starting another as soon as eggs are available.

Still no spawn from Faith and Fabio or any of the other pairs.