I've got Ick

So my experimental fish started dying, I thought it was due to an external parasite but now know it's due to a fungus called Ick or white spot or here they call it Itch.  A fungus that I treated the fish for when I first brought them into the lab but now I know I should be treating them every 3 weeks or the following happens...more fish were dying, then I saw the fungus and treated the fish for it at 10 pm on Thursday and by 8 am Friday 17 out of 35 fish were dead.  So yesterday I euthanized the rest of my fish and ended my experiment 2 weeks early.  We think that my parasite needs 5 weeks to develop so I'm not sure if any of them will have matured at this point.  My supervisor keeps talking positively (I think for my sanity) and says I might still get data and I'll know how much the parasite grows at this time and what the infection success is and if the fluorescent dye lasts this long, yadda, yadda, yadda.  I'm taking some time for myself today to recharge...slept in, rang home, doing errands, have a coffee date and going out for a friend's b-day tonight.  But I'll be back in the lab on Sunday for a full day of dissections.  Oh yeah, it's day light savings tomorrow so we Spring forward...damnit, I need every hour I can get these days!

1 down, 2 to go

So my first year is over. Today is the one-year mark but I certainly haven't done 1/3 of my project thus far!! Yikes! I better get a move on it. My first experiment is up and going and I've started my monthly field sampling so at least I'm collecting data now instead of doing preliminary crap. But I have a cold and it has slowed me down the past week...in fact I've had it longer than a week but the damn cough is still lingering and waking me up in the middle of the night. Oh and I'm trying out an online dating site here. Two women in my department have found really great partners through this site so I thought I'd give it a try. But the number of men who send you messages is overwhelming! I'll keep you updated...

Minnesota sun

Me enjoying Minnesota summer and Coor's Light, mmmm

Cannibalism isn't a pretty sight

On my 6th day of infecting fish (every other day) I was oh so happy to have all 70 fish for my experiment infected!  At the end of the day, I was doing some cleaning in the tanks and started to feed them.  Just as I was feeding them, I saw one of the bigger fish grab a small one by the tail, shake it around and in a blink of an eye had it half engulfed!  I was giving them food at that exact moment!  I knew these guys can be cannibalistic but damnit! now I am 1 fish short in that treatment!  So today I will infect one more fish and hope they don't eat too many of the wee ones!

On the home front, we now have a sofa bed and 2-seater couch in the lounge!  It's starting to look like a home again...we just need to get some stuff up on the walls now!

Pink parasites are oh so cute!

Yeah, after almost a full year I have finally started my first experiment!  I know that doesn't sound like a very long time to do preliminary work but when you only have 3 years in total the time is flying by!  On Sunday I started infecting the fish for my experiment, by 7 pm my snails started shedding heaps of parasites.  I had gotten 2 fish infected during the day, and then 17 infected Sunday night.  I put the snails in an incubator with a light which cues the parasites to leave the snail.  Then I take the parasites and flourescently dye them (to tell which parasites I put in the fish versus parasites that are already in the fish).  I anesthetize the fish, lay it in a little trough and drop the parasites on them (which look pink in regular light from the dye), wait a few minutes and then put the fish back into water.  To say the least Sunday was a very long day in the lab - 15 hours.  I infected another 11 yesterday and am giving the snails a rest every other day.  3 more days of infections and I should have all the fish done and the experiment up and running for 5 weeks.  I have 3 treatments at low, med and high fish density and am interested in which reproductive strategy the parasite takes in these different treatments.  If there is a low chance of being transmitted to the next host, then it would be advantageous for the parasite to reproduce early (rather than waiting to reproduce inside the eel).  This is what I'm expecting in the high density treatment - when the fish are in high densities they have a low chance of being preyed upon by an eel and thus the parasites inside the fish have a low chance of being transmitted to an eel and thus should choose to reproduce early.  We'll see what happens in a few weeks.  Oh so exciting!