In search of swimming fairyflies

I tried to find some of these aerial/aquatic parasitoid wasps this summer (Mymaridae), but was unsuccessful. Some of them can swim and fly by flapping their wings! They are only 0.2 mm long, so I guess I shouldn't feel too bad that I couldn't find them.

It's unclear if there are any in NC too, but a paper from 1918 claims there are some around Ithaca, NY. Maybe I will go to Cornell next summer. The ones that swim parasitize aquatic eggs, like water beetle eggs. If anyone knows where to find these guys, please send me an email.

Tank redesign

The last of our June order of jellyfish has passed, but it seems to have been a natural death. We took the opportunity to redesign the tank with 2 chambers, a biowheel filter, and a protein skimmer. We haven't had any problems with algae blooms since! We also ordered 6 new upside down jellyfish from carolinabiological.com. They seem to be doing very well. Now the last problem to solve is feeding. We have been home growing our own brine shrimp for them a couple of times a week, but this process is rather time consuming. We are going to try to make a mass amount of them and freeze them. Hopefully this approach will work!

In the meantime, Arvind has been measuring the flow velocities around the bell with piv, and hopefully he will have a draft of the paper soon so that we can submit it to the Journal of Experimental Biology. More pictures will be coming soon!