Friday night was a cold one, as was Saturday night, and I dropped the ball.
What I should have done is flushed the tank with our 72 degree well water on those cold nights.
Ironically, today was the day I planned to carry them in to school.
There were ALOT more shrimp in here before "Mayhem" the coon struck repeatedly.
I got tired of trapping and transporting him ... what's that saying about the definition of insanity?
Yeah, that one.
So I rigged some hog panel fencing over the top to keep him from fishing the shrimp off the submerged mesh that they liked to climb upon at night.
That was working pretty well.
They weren't all this big of course, but here's what an ALPHA male Macrobrachium rosenbergii looks like.
That big one was 15 inches from telson to the tip his of chelipeds.
The water was cold and the shrimp looked fresh, so it was a tempting thought to eat them ... only, I didn't know for sure when they croaked.
I stifled that idea, but I did preserve about eight of the biggest males in a jar of alcohol so we can use them in class when we study crustaceans.
The others were frozen for bait/fish food.
We (my students and I) are going to order a new batch of postlarvae baby shrimp soon.
I will share that too of course.
This is a cheliped in case you hadn't googled that yet, Miz S.
16 comments:
Well, dang! I am going to let this serve as a reminder to me that I had better get the gold fish out of the garden pond sooner rather than later. Sorry about your project. It was really cool.
Oh, no!!! I always feel bad when stuff like that happens and I'm the cause. Even if it's a frost-bitten plant. Which reminds me...
Gald I got to meet the Big Guy before his demise!
Lightnin
I didn't know that low temps like that would kill the shrimp. Bummer. They sure were big and beautiful.
Bummer! Despite that, you have once again provided me with my Science Word of the Week for my smart kid science teacher.
Well, that is too bad, but at least one will come in handy for later use!
Oh, dear. Who would have thought temps would dip so low so early in the season?
Well, that's crummy. The exact same thing happened to all of the remaining peppers I left in the garden, hoping that they wouldn't freeze. Dozens of jalapenos, poblanos, green, orange and red bell. It just got too cold too early.
I'm admiring the tails rather than the overall length of those shrimp, but no, you couldn't eat those. No. (Gak)
Aww, that's too bad. That is precisely why we don't raise prawns in Minnesota.
I still had to google "telson" so you didn't save me that much time.
Bummer about the shrimpies!
Oooh noooooooo! Ugh, I hate they kicked off like that and you didn't get to eat them.
Wait --was it the cold or Mayhem the coon that was their demise?
I had to string a couple strands of wire over the cable that my big bird feeder hangs on, and hook it to an electric fencer. No more racoon problems. Of course, I'm not working around a drum filled with water.
well, that sucks. i'm sorry!
"Mayhem" is an ideal name for coon. LTNS.
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