Breeding Journal, Species: Cerithium atratum

Looking forward to it.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Great news! Veligers have hatched, and look healthy! Due to my dunalia not arriving yet, which I did not expect, I stuck just some isochrysis in the bottle with them. This time, just barely enough for a light discoloration. Eventually I will move them to a larger water bottle, since I believe that the water bottle method works for the first two weeks. After they get larger, I'll move them to a fishbowl. 
 

Well, I think that was the easiest thing I've ever breed So 9 days after hatch, I'm pretty sure they are already at settlement, but I'm not too sure on this. You guys can correct me if this is settlement or not, but I glanced in their container, which mind you barely has any water at all, and is literally a 4-5" cube practically, and I didn't see any veligers anymore. Which got me really worried. But I did see that there were dots on the bottom of the bottle.... Sure enough the larvae down there are healthy and alive, and also look different. Here is a vid:
 

Is this settlement? I ask that, because I'm fairly certain settlement is when they skip from pelagic to demersal, but yet these guys aren't "entirely" demersal I believe, since they still have their "whiskers..." but enough from me I'll let the experts decide the verdict (And these guys are still only on isochrysis and are growing faster than the summer attempt)

That's odd. It's not settlement. Those are still the veliger lobes that it's using to eat and move around with and otherwise making it look like Mickey Mouse. Looks like it's eating, though, with food in the gut. Those lobes eventually pull together and attach themselves to each other and form the snail's feeding tube. That's the sign of settlement because after that point they are stuck feeding like snails feed.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Ah, that makes A LOT more sense! Atleast now I know for a fact that these guys love isochrysis, I may not even need the dunalia. The one thing that worries me though, is I believe it was either you, Andy, or it was JRC, but when we talked, I believe it was Joe, and he said that for settlement, the adults release a hormone, is this true with this species Andy? Did that occur with your snail attempts?

"Snails" covers a whole lot of territory with a whole lot of different reproduction techniques. In fact, I do believe that I've caught my little collumbellids practicing reproduction strategies where the larvae can be released from their egg capsules as pelagic veligers or as fully settled juveniles, based (my guess) on the food availability for the parents. When there's lots of food around the mothers are able to put a lot of energy into the egg capsules and the plug that locks the larvae inside, and the babies exit as juvies. When there is less food around the plug comes out early and the veligers exit pelagically. It makes sense to me. When there is less food around the species needs to spread itself out to find new food sources. When there's more around, the adults need help to mow the algae down. I think I might have seen some ceriths kind of in-between the two strategies before: Most of the kids left early but some persisted in the egg capsules until they only had a short time in the pelagic zone.
 
It seems like some veligers need a hormonal cue from their parents to settle. If yours aren't settling for a while try putting some of the adults in with them. Some seem to need a chemical cue from the environment. Often that can be a chemical from the algae the adults eat or, quite often, a chemical from one of the coralline algae. Some scientists have added scoops of sediment from the adult's range in wild to their settlement tanks hoping to get the veligers to settle. Some never find the cue at all and the veligers eventually die. Or, keep zooming around in the pelagic zone, year after year, until the scientists finally figure something out or give up.
 
So in my long-winded way, what I'm saying is: Good luck. See if these guys settle on their own. If not, start trying some things. Snail reproduction and settlement is a complicated thing and no one has all the answers. Hopefully yours will be easy.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Wow, thanks Andy. Seems like I may have a good plan then. I don't have the ability to get the "biological" parents, since these eggs were from a local store, but it sounds like I might have a chance to just get a random snail or something. I'll play around with it a little with sand and stuff if they don't hit settlement at 60dph, then I'll go in and put sand, an adult, and whatever else kind of supplements I can get my hands on. Do you know of any papers that document what's in the hormone itself? 

The settlement cue is different for different species and I doubt you could really ID these to the species level with any reliability anyway even if a paper existed that talked about your species. Species IDing would probably take tracking down the world's expert on the genus (if they are still alive), asking really nicely, and then sending some sample shells. Even then you are still getting that person's opinion and it may or may not coincide with the opinion of the hypothetical scientist that wrote the hypothetical paper that may or may not exist.
 
In other words, you probably have to wing it.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

By the way, this is the best book for hands-on marine invert reproduction that I know about. It's getting old and doesn't talk about the advances brought about by the recent salt water aquarium industry, and it only deals with temperate animals. But as far as I know this book doesn't exist at all for tropical animals. Still, it's a good place to start for inspiration.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Reproduction-Development-Invertebrates-Northern-Pacific/dp/0295965231

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Well, thanks for the support andy! These guys are still growing... Probably should add more water but I hit the mountain yesterday and was too exhosted when it was 11 at night, so I'm adding more water today. again, another development! Seems ever day there is something new with these guys! Now, the two lobes are starting to attach to each other! Hopefully, settlement will happen soon... HOPEFULLY.... I'm also going to order that book in a few weeks, when I can. I also saw a bunch of isochrysis in it's gut, as you mentioned. I have not added any, and these guys are just by sunlight... who knew it was so easy! So on the dunalia, they lost our order so they are going to ship it this week. Once it's here I'll split some of the larvae and some will have dunalia/isochrysis mix and the other on isochrysis alone and see how it goes. Also, is that a SECOND whirl i see?
 

I found some fun Cerith papers this afternoon. One author says, after a taxonomic review, that C. atratum is a synonym for C. floridanum. So when you are doing searches you can use papers about that snail, too. The paper says this species has indirect development (matching what you've seen). Hatching at 3 days. Sadly, here is the result:
 

 
The paper is here:http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/umrsmas/bullmar/1973/00000023/00000004/art00007?crawler=true

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Search for newer papers, though. That one is pretty old.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Hey Andy, thanks So, I guess a contaminate got in (I got rushed one day and did a water change with my reef tank.... noob mistake) lost everything I think I'm going to thing about trying to do a paper on those experiences so that people can have something better than "it survived 3 days" lol. We ordered the book yesterday, should be here thursday and I'll read up on it. Do you think writing a paper on this thus far would be a good idea? I'm planning on doing more work eventually, just gotta find more spawns.

Also, Reproduction and Development of Marine Invertebrates of the Northern Pacific Coast just arrived in the mail today... Did NOT expect the size of that thing! Going to be reading it over the next few days, certainly looks like plenty of knowledge in its 670 pages

With mastering how to culture Dunaliella, my ceriths finally started spawning again. Went downstairs and two egg masses were on the walls. I wont be able to get microscope shots of them however, cause mine broke a month ago -_- Onto round 47 (or whatever trial I'm on!!!)

Hatch was the day after I had posted that, (Wednesday), and I stuck them in a pee cup. I'm trying a small idea, going to maintain salinity in it and see what happens. I have Iso and Dun running with this trial, no Tetraselmis. Been five days and their still alive and kicking, and if they live past the 28th, it will be a new record, which means that the pee cup does something right. Bad part though is I leave for SeaCamp in San Diego on the 27th and won't be back until the 3rd, so mom's in charge of the veligers.

More and more spawns are occuring, as expected. I rarily go down and not see a spawn somewhere on the wall anymore. I'm waiting until after the conference however to attempt them again, so I can focus more. Hmm.... An interesting idea just came to mind, probably won't work, but what the heck. Let's see how they do on RGComplete! (Probably will fail, but gotta try somethin!)

Can't hurt to try and maybe you'll hit on it.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Thanks for the encouragement Andy! The one nest I was going to try hatched last night apparently (I forgot to remove the nest from the tank) so I'll wait a few days til the next spawn occurs. I'm thinking one of the problems may be a rise in ammonia, so I'll be testing that during the trial of RG to see if that's true.

From what I recall--and I could be entirely wrong--RGComplete has anti-ammonia stuff in it. So you won't get a good baseline result testing with RGC.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

You are correct, that just slipped my mind for a moment. I'll test it when I get my algal trials going (our FAF went bad, and a new bottle of it should be arriving by the time the workshop comes)

And Boom! Another nest appeared (There was a nest yesterday, but it was in such a poor position, that I lost the eggs to the water column/fish after I scraped them off... hopefully this will go better!)

Gosh darnit! Another nest lost Hopefully I'll get yet ANOTHER one in the next few days....

Well, still spawning like crazy, have the microscope finally, and have good cultures of dun and iso goin. Time for another round!

After seeing lrood's design, it got me thinking and I'm trying a sieve now with 47um mesh. I got two egg masses and stuck them in it along with some dunalia in case some hatch today while I'm out. More pics to come when they hatch.

Something you might think about: If you are going to keep these cultures inside a display or large tank where you can't keep the phyto density high all the time then you might consider a constant drip of phyto. 47 um is not going to keep any phyto inside your container where you need it.
 
Good luck, though!

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Thanks Andy, yea I figured I'd be pouring phyto in like crazy. Perhaps something smaller? I have 5um I believe, so that COULD work better. I might just try the drip system though as well. Thanks!

That's something I worried about too.  I'm not sure how high the phyto concentration needs to be, but whenever I checked a sample under the scope, I could always see some t-iso twirling about, as well as the occasional tet zooming by, that I had previously tossed in.  Still might not be enough though, and the drip system makes good sense.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken

Just make sure the flow is fast enough that your phyto doesn't die inside the tubing before it gets to the veligers.
 
5um might work better. It won't hold nanno, but I can't remember the sizes of the other phyto you're working with. It ought to hold Dunaliella just fine. On the other hand, it'll foul really fast, too.
 
Sounds like a good idea for a research project: Diffusion times of different sized phyto through various mesh sizes with only passive water movement. Or something like that.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Hey Andy, that does sound like a good idea! Might give it a try after tennis season is over (Like one week from now), since I'll have more time then. So I was looking at the veligers, and two days after they are hatched (not sure if it was yesterday or today, but I do know for certain the egg masses were laid the same day), and I discovered something interesting. 1-2 days post hatch, I'm already discovering some of those larvae in different "stages." Or, at least up to this point I thought they were. Someone can just tell me "yes they are two different stages, you've been right." But here is my thought, the ones without the "long mouth?" - see reference to my originally thought Nerita tessellata thread - http://www.mbisite.org/Fo...mp;m=84629&mpage=2 - Well, back in that thread I had said that perhaps it is either a stage, OR they could be starving. I believe the veligers are starving/unhealthy. They don't show the same hunting pattern as the original stage, nor do they move as fast. I already noticed a few of them in here, but not a whole lot. Could this just be me making scientific guesses that are false? Here is a comparative pic of these two "stages" or "factors" I am talking about.

Hey Andy, I'm gunna try your idea and try and setup some gravity-fed "dosers" for the algae. My veligers are still kicking and doin ok, seeing much more "stage 2," but also some "stage 1's," so who knows. I'm going to dose Iso, Dunaliella, and - crazy idea here - RG Complete. Should do ok I think, I've got plenty of spawns to go through so might as well try something! I'll update in a few days on how that's going.

RG Complete is some good stuff. I was growing my crazy copepods on nothing but the same stuff, plus you are getting the anti-ammonia from that, too. Can't hurt to try it.
 
I have no idea if your theory on the veligers is correct. If they are healthy, though, they should be feeding pretty constantly with only short breaks. If they aren't doing that then there's certainly something wrong.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Most likely something wrong I think, since I tried searching for some veligers and no one popped up thus far. Although there were some black small things hanging off the side of the PVC....... Trying not to get my hopes up too high!