9/01/13

I went to Cabrillo again today. Fed the red abalone and jellies in the morning, freaked out shortly when the Pacific Sea Nettles floated to the top...... but didn't get stung when I pushed them back down, so that was good. I went with some other volunteers across the street to the beach and over to the tide pools to collect snails, hermit crabs and crabs to feed to the octopus. Unfortunately it was high tide so it took us a bit longer to find them. In the end we gathered a bunch of snails, a small number of hermit crabs and one crab. Then we went back to the jelly lab to fetch a moon jelly for the Pacific Sea Nettles. Prepared that and fed them again, this time I felt less bad for it... that sounds bad but it's true. I did my interview today with Andres Carillo. It went really well and I actually decided to change my original EQ because of the conversation. Originally this was going to be my working EQ:
What is the best way to acclimate marine life from the wild to captivity?
But after volunteering at the nursery I've become more interested in the raising of fish. After our interview, I spoke with Andres about this and we came up with an idea. Now I'm thinking of doing a project with hatchling Swell sharks. The aquarium usually feeds the Swell sharks a diet of Shrimp, Squid, mackerel, and clams. Now each of these has a different nutritional value. What I plan on doing is taking a few baby Swell sharks, keeping them in separate tanks, and feeding them one food specifically. For example, I'd feed one only Mackerel and another only Squid. Then I'd see how that would effect things such as their growth and behavior. But I have a long way to go before I do that. I still have to work on that idea more, and then I have to fill out forms to give to the aquarists there and vets so that they can make sure nothing in this problem would be a danger to the sharks.
So after we finished this conversation I headed on up to their library and spent about an hour and a half studying swell sharks. I learned a lot and took good notes I will use later. Then I went back to the normal tasks or p.m. feeding, cleaning the tanks and raiding the kitchen.....