So Jade, Amber, and I have been monkey'n around every day for the last week! ...It's been awesome. =) I have
6 larvae remaining in the kreisel. I had more than I thought the last time I gave a count, but their number has steadily decreased over time and I'm confident 6 is the current total. Not too bad I suppose, given that I more or less starved them for the first week. Now I have a nice supply of eggs from
brineshrimpegg.com.
No need to decapsulate these as far as I can tell; their hatch-rate is excellent all on their own. Of course, I've been sure to try and give them ideal conditions.
As I've mentioned before, it gets
cold in my basement at night, requiring an
extra 24 hours for the eggs to hatch. So I picked up a 14g plastic bin from Lowes, threw in a spare heater, a Koralia Nano, and some tap water. Now even if the air temp drops to 55 degrees, my babies stay an ideal 78-79. Also, that's a 2x24w T5 HO fixture, currently running a single 6500K bulb. I won't need the second bulb until I switch to phyto.
Jade is the tall one. 
As you can imagine, things have been getting really wild! Jade and Amber both said they just can't get enough of Julian's Thing! 
Brought to us by Two Little Fishes, this
thing is an ideal bit of intellectual inspiration. Much of what makes it such a pleasure, requires actually
feeling it to understand, but to put it plainly, it's perfect.
That's a 1mm opening on the tip and the plunger gives you unimaginable control.
Make'n babies! 
When the water is still, the egg shells float and the nauplii sink. They will also be drawn to light, so disconnect the air pump, place a small light near the bottom of the bottle, and let sit for a couple of minutes. At the
very bottom will be any unhatched eggs, so insert the extractor until it touches bottom, then raise it up half an inch, and extract.
Measuring feeding density isn't as easy as it sounds. The problem is, density in the kreisel is neither uniform, nor constant. I did my best to achieve what I believed to be a density of 5bbs/mL in the kreisel's inner drum, then from there, determined an approximate minimum measurement of eggs I would need each day. Mostly it was trial and error, but didn't take long to narrow down. Now I just keep to my measuring spoon while I refine my collection technique such that I use nearly all the brine shrimp I hatch. This way, I can just measure the eggs instead of the density, and adjust as needed.
BTW, If you're wondering what 5bbs/mL looks like, it's roughly equal to 1.5 ****-storms.
Brine Shrimp Egg, Baby, and Adult (napulii) 
Brine shrimp grow quickly, and they won't find much to eat. This means the older they are, the less nutrition they have to offer. See that orange stuff? That's nature's goodness and the baby is packed full of it.
What? Not
sexy enough for you?
This video was taken on the 23rd (a week ago) and the larvae don't have eye stalks yet.
Today, their eye stalks are barely noticeable to the naked eye. I've also been able to use a small light to draw one to the front glass and get a detailed look with my Micronta.
Wow! Got to watch it pluck a BBS right out of the water and devour it.
Very cool... 
Speaking of small lights, it's useful to have a small continuous light over the top opening on the kreisel. This helps to draw the larvae away from the tank walls and into the ****-storm. I recommend a
Marina Betta Kit LED Light.
It's the right intensity, as too bright might grow algae, and fully submersible, never a bad idea. Rigging it up might take figuring out, but two toothpicks and a zip-tie did the trick for me.
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I wish I knew where these larvae are with regards to development. Did the under feeding stunt their growth in the beginning? If it did, should they have since caught up, or does it push the due date back? Do two week old larvae have a better survival rate than newly hatched? What are the odds I might settle one of the remaining 6 sometime in the next two weeks? I'm not counting on it, but that sure would be grand.
<message edited by Whys Alives on Wednesday, February 1, 2012 1:59 PM>