Experiment log: WA crabs!

2024-06-26

• THE WASHINGTON CRABS ARRIVED A WHOLE DAY EARLIER THAN I EXPECTED THEM! That overnight FedEx really works quickly…almost overnight it seems.
• We received 151 crabs, only one dead.
• Heidi and I set up some four large tanks with air stones connected to 40 gallon aerators, aquarium filters, and seawater
• Most of the crabs were a good size for the experiment, but there were some that were slightly too big and others that were way too small! We separated the crabs by size so there was one tank with smaller crabs, two with medium crabs, and one with larger crabs. This way, the smaller crabs would not get eaten and we could distribute the crabs by size later
• Fed the crabs

2024-06-27

• When the crabs were sent to us, they were slightly muddy. In addition to waste product and leftover food, the dirt really made the tanks…dirty! Catlin and Heidi performed a water change with the crabs, being sure to bleach the waste water before dumping since they were not local populations. We did not feed the crabs afterwards

2024-06-28

• After finishing the MA experiment, we cleaned all tanks, air stones, filters, and the room itself. We then put everything back together to add WA crabs
• A total of 13 crabs were added to each tank, starting with the medium and larger crabs then filling in gaps with the smaller crabs. All crabs were at most yellow, with some females closer to yellow-orange only because we didn’t have very many of them.

Figure 1. Number of crabs by size and sex added to each tank

• Remaining crabs that were too small or big for the WA experiment were set aside for Catlin to use in his experimental infections

Going forward

1. Label and measure WA crabs
2. Genotype WA crabs
3. Finish genotyping MA crabs
4. Qubit and re-extract crabs with no gel bands
5. Develop lipid assay protocol
6. Develop heart rate protocol
7. Run WA experiment!