Culturing Photeros annecohenae

Notes on culture and signals

• Saturday January 30 - Trevor trapped animals at Carrie Bow, Belize. He placed them in 50 ml eppendorf tubes, and kept them warm in his pockets on the plane.

• Sunday January 31 - Ostracods arrive in Kansas. Trevor kept them warm in bed over night!

• Monday February 1 - Ostracods placed in culture plates in an incubator at KU. Water changed using Instant Ocean.

• Tuesday February 2 - At KU in incubator. Trevor and Todd went through individuals to clean up tubes and culture dishes. We did not notice any parasites, but also did not look particularly carefully.

• Wednesday February 3 - Todd took ostracods in 50 ml conical tubes from KU to UCSB. Kept them warm in inside coat pocket on the plane. Arrived fairly late to UCSB - put ostracods into 30 gallon aquarium with Belizean plants. Transferred ostracods by floating conical tubes in the water for ~30 minutes, then gradually mixing aquarium water. The LED grow lights for the plants was set to 12:12 from about 6 am to 6 pm.

• Saturday February 3 - Saw signals for the first time. With prospective student Sarah Solie and visiting student John Kirwan, we viewed the aquarium after the graduate student symposium dinner. At about 10 pm, we saw multiple vertical displays.

• Friday February 12 - Changed lights to 3am -> 3pm, approximately.

• Through February 13 - Saw signals on multiple days after lights out. Each time I looked, I saw signals.

• Monday February 15 - Checked for signals with Craig and Craig (aquarium guys). Saw 1-2 constant glowing ostracods, but no signals.