The last 'cultured food only' larval trial with the P. venusta was looking good at day 5. The larvae I sampled had nice full guts and were looking healthy. Then on days 6 to 8 things were not looking so good. The number of larvae was declining rapidly and they did not look as healthy. Most larvae had empty guts on day 6 and I wondered if the larvae I had looked at on day 5 were the best of the bunch and these empty guts were there but not sampled. I think from the way things were looking that most of the larvae did not start to feed and the larvae I had sampled were the fat/healthy ones up in the water column that I could see. At any rate the run was not going well and I stopped it in order to prepare for a new one. The time required to bring up the copepod cultures for the next run would set us up to start around the new moon which is perfect timing.

So here we are at the week of the new moon. I've been watching the P. venusta pair and was able to collect over a thousand eggs on Tues. evening (3 days before new moon). Unfortunately those eggs were not fertile. I collected another thousand on Wed. evening. Also not fertile. Last night (Thurs. evening) there was no spawn. Tonight is the new moon and we're all set to go so please keep your fingers crossed for a fertile spawn!

Here is a video I took earlier this week of the venusta pair 

http://youtu.be/mH44iP4wPxY

I've also been setting the egg screen for Faith and Fabio and checking for eggs from Jaws, Connie and the fish from the Rising Tide project. I have not gotten any eggs from any of them yet. I'll say it again, Patience is a virtue!