Stickleback Head Bones

Adult stickleback stained with aliziran red, bone, and imaged using a fluorescent red filter and digital camera mounted on a scope.

Double Stained Fish

Stickleback and pipefish that have been double stained with Alcian Blue (blue - staining cartilage) and Alizarin Red (red - staining bone). Staining technique can be found here: (Walker and Kimmel, 2007).

Figure 1 Developing dorsal fin and "plates" of a young pipefish

Figure 2 Developing facial bones and cartilages in stickleback.

Figure 3 Developing facial bones and cartilages in pipefish.

Moina Culture

Moina: Adult pipefish are fed live adult brine shrimp, frozen mysis shrimp and live moina. This culture of moina grown at ~ 6 ppt Instant Ocean survives for ~ 1/2 hour when added to the pipefish system 36 ppt.

Moina Culture: Pipefish require live foods. They will feed on frozen foods on a limited basis so I treat it as more of a supplement then a main food source. Adult brine shrimp are purchased from a local fish store but supply is erratic. Moina are cultured as a main food

source and also serve as back-up food source when adult brine shrimp are unavailable.

Moina cultures are fed daily with roti-rich and dried powdered nannochloropsis. Weekly 50% water changes are done using stickleback water (~6 ppt Instant Ocean). I have found that complete break down and cleaning moina tanks too often represses moina production.

Copepod Culture for young Pipefish

Saltwater Copepod Culture: Saltwater copepods growing in 36 ppt salt water in 1 gallon pickle jars. Copepods are ~ 0.5 mm in size and are grown to feed young pipefish. Cultures are added to young pipefish tanks and water is replaced from the pipefish sump. A few drops of rotifer food is added to cultures once every few weeks. (Caution should be taken when feeding copepod cultures as they are easily overfed).

Installation of water quality monitoring system

Temperature probe in upper tank of main room. Water temp is taken in three different places around the room including sump, and upper tanks in two different rooms.