[Killietalk] Peat incubation

[LeeH920226 at aol_com]

I recently went through some old (past due or redried) bags of peat and rewet 
them in the hope of late blooming fry. One bag of Simpsonichthys constanciae 
eggs which did not hatch when first tried, and still yielded no fry. However a 
number of Cyclops of a small size hatched. Apparently the eggs were still 
viable in the peat after wetting, drying and rewetting. I should also mention 
that the peat had dried a bit more than I prefer in this case. Usually the peat 
is damp enough to be easily rewet, but in this case it floated for a day or 
more before completely sinking. The Cyclops hatched soon after immersion.
    Now today, I wet some peat containing (I thought) Austrolebias 
nigripinnis eggs. After a couple hours there quite a few medium sized (about 1 mm 
diameter) Daphnia swimming in the water. How can they be that large (these are 
probably pulex)? No fry have hatched yet.
    I would imagine this same phenomenon occurs regularly in nature. If you 
need to get a starter for Daphnia or Cyclops, try some of your peat that you 
put away thinking you were investing in annual killifish futures.

Lee Harper
Media PA
Join the AKA at http://www.aka.org/aka/modules/content/index.php?id=9.
Archives are at http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/
Modify your subscription at http://www.actwin.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/killietalk