20 April 2022

Tank system clean up

Danielle and Lauren spent the day completely taking down the entire tank system. All Apex components were carefully taken down. All temperature probes, heaters, and Apex controllers were carefully cleaned and their wires were wiped down with DI water and alcohol wipes for storage. The 24 pumps were turned on in a freshwater bath for ~2 hours and throughly cleaned and their wires were wiped down with DI water and alcohol wipes for storage. All tanks were scrubbed throughly with freshwater, sponges, and a 10% vinegar solution. All equipment was dried completely. The Burkepile equipment was returned to the storage container and all tanks and tank equipment will be put into the Gump storgae room next to the laundry shed.

Temperature

Danielle offloaded all the temperature and light HOBO tidbit loggers from all 24 tanks. All data and outputs can be found in the heatwave section of the Gametogenesis GitHub.

Ash-free dry weight

Following the ash-free dry weight protocol, Danielle labeled and made 228 aluminum pans to be pre-burned. She is processing the April, and heatwave timepoint 3, 4, 5 Acropora pulchra samples for a total of 112 samples. Since we process both symbiont and host portions for tissue biomass, a total of 224 pans are needed.

Ash-free dry weight

Following the ash-free dry weight protocol, Danielle put all the pans in the muffle furnace to be pre-burned.

Ash-free dry weight

Following the ash-free dry weight protocol, Danielle weighed all 322 pre-burned pans using an analytical balance with 0.00001 accuracy. She also loaded the symbiont and host tissue slurry from January, March, April, and some of heatwave TP1 into the pans and placed them into the drying oven so that they could reach a constant weight after 24 hours.

Ash-free dry weight

Following the ash-free dry weight protocol, Danielle weighed the drying oven January, March, April, and some of heatwave TP1 pans and put them back into the muffle furnace for their last ash weight. She then weighed the pre-burned pans for the rest of heatwave TP1 and TP2 and loaded the symbiont and host tissue slurry into the pans and placed them in the drying oven to reach a constant weight after > 24 hours.

Ash-free dry weight

Following the ash-free dry weight protocol, Danielle weighed the final ashed weight for the rest of heatwave TP1 and TP2 and put them into the muffle furnace. FINALLY DONE WITH PROCESSING :)

Ash-free dry weight

Following the ash-free dry weight protocol, Danielle weighed the final ashed weight for the January, March, April, and some of heatwave TP1. She then weighed the dried pans from the drying oven for the rest of heatwave TP1 and TP2 and put them into the muffle furnace for their final ash round.