Today I brought home my Opae`ula habitat, it is pretty cool how they act and behave. The car drive I think was pretty scary, at least for my shrimp, it was super bouncy and it was like that the whole drive. I live decently near the school, but my dad had to stop at Manoa Marketplace. H e had to make a deposit, but there was no parking! I couldn't see my shrimp because my teacher poured some of water into a plastic water bottle, but I think they were scared. They might have been shocked (when the Opae`ula turn from red to white) but none of them were white when I got out of the car. The Opae`ula are now just laying on the rocks, one of them is swimming around. I fed them earlier but they ate it all. Here is a video of them. It might get boring so here is a picture too. We are going to take home our Opae`ula so today we learned on how to take care of them. Our teacher, Mr. Leong, gave us a booklet on the basic info and how to take care of them. We learned that your Opae`ula habitat is better in the shade, you want to put only a tip of of a toothpick of spirulina for them to feed on, the maximum length of an Opae`ula is an inch, the Opae`ula need oxygenate so keep a 1/4 from the cap to the water, the Opae`ula start at egg and did you know that the females keep the eggs on their swimmerets ( a body part ) but, they are never seen with their eggs in the wild. The feeding schedule is everyday or at the least, twice a week. At the larva stage for the first two weeks they just bob or float around, when they hit something they twitch and then keep floating.
Today I am so happy because today we got our Opae`ula. How much Opae`ula do we get? Well, we used Opae`ula Bucks that we got from doing assignments or getting five stickers. We also made the caps to cover our Opae`ula habitat that we have been making over the past week(I wrote about it in my last three posts(down). Today I got 10 Opae`ula, but I can get more by doing the things I talked about earlier.
Today, our teacher gave us a fake plant and he dried out our rock and hot glued the fake plant to our rock. If we weren't choosing our spot for our fake plant, we were making a movie on imovie. We did the movie on my last two posts or How to Make an Opae`ula Habitat.
Today we made the water for our Opae`ula habitats. First, we had to get some bacteria to act as our decomposer in our food chain. So, our teacher, Mr. Leong, gave us some gravel from one of his habitats that he made which had the bacteria we needed. Next, we chose a rock to have algae which is going to be one of the foods the Opae`ula are going to eat. Last, we made the water using fresh water and salt (it is special salt) and it made brackish water. The water gravity was suppose to be 1.006 or 1.008. We knew this because our teacher got a hydrometer which lets us see the gravity of the water. After that, we poured the water into our habitats. We were done!
Today we made gravel for our Opae`ula habitats. It was really fun, but it was kind of sad because one of my group members vase (what was what we will hold our Opae`ula). First, we loaded the gravel into our vase. Then, we cleaned out all the dust and other things that were on the gravel in this big bucket. We cleaned the gravel with fresh water. After we cleaned the gravel we took out big handfuls of it and put it in our vase. We had to empty some of the gravel because we were going to put in cinder. There was gravel on the side so we filed it up with fresh water so all the gravel would sink to the bottom. Then we carefully poured out the water. On the step before that was when my group members vase broke. :(
Most of the Opae`ula are very hungry and are eating a lot of Spirulina which is there food. Some of them are on the rocks, why? It seems that they are on the rocks eating algae. I think they already ate the Spirulina, but I'm not too sure about that. Or they are feeding young. Do they have young? Some of them died. They are from the island of Hawaii, they came by air. Some of them are turning around to eat the food. Some are just lifting their heads and eating the Spirulina. Some are big some are small. Yesterday, only one Opae`ula was eating, then it left, but another one came over and started eating it, it seems odd like that? Their behavior is very odd, its not the same. Each one is unique, but odd in their own way. A lot of them are in groups of five or more.
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