Thank you for the thought and I hope you make me eat my words BUT please go at this as a project for learning and not for raising a tank generation animal. I would love another Macropus as the two I have had were very personable (as long as you played with them at 3:00 AM
) but I won't hold my breath
What I have is a thimble's worth of frozen eggs that I took from newly dead, fed or dying females. These are not hatch zoea but the closest I was going to get. I would be willing to send them but they would not keep if they thawed. I do have a hefty smaller cooler that came with some frozen fish food and probably some ice packs but the cost of overnight even with the post office is steep (and may not be available in Gainesville - we have very limited overnight service with the USPS because most everything goes directly to Atlanta and then to us). The box would weigh more than the eggs
. Let me see how much it would cost to send them but I am thinking it is not workable (we are having excessive heat and it is not even August). We used to have a place for dry ice that might have faired better but it has been closed for several years.
Watch for eyes on the eggs. If you don't have one, even a dollar store ($2 now I think and $5 at the grocery
) 2x or 5x magnifying glass (anything stronger won't focus) is helpful. I have several and have used them to increase my camera's vision into the tanks (I don't have a macro lens and the macro setting does not often focus in the tanks).
On thing you can try, is to get a pair (two to a net only or you will only end up with two and maybe only one - Hannibal was removed and place by himself in another tank after one such trial) of peppermint shrimp (you can try others but I have only experimented with the peps) and keep them in a breeding net (easier said than done, they can exit if it is not covered) and overfeed them in the net. Peps (and most if not all) shrimp are hermaphrodites so any pair can create offspring but a pair is required. This seems to induce mating and spawning more frequently than just loose in the tank (they will eat the octo hatchlings but are fine for anything as big as they are and they are very helpful to keep aiptasia under control). They won't produce enough to feed as a primary food but may help. Unfortunately the hatchling shrimp don't live long but my pipe fish and mandarin loved them.
If you are adventurous, turn over a few rocks (putting them back in the same orientation) and look for any kind of invert that might have eggs. If you are near the ocean, look for crabs. Check in with any mom and pop restaurants that serve lobster or crab and see if they would keep any they remove (preferably raw but we are on an adventure). In freshwater the only thing I can think of would be crayfish and I am not sure of their spawning season. Commercially, I have seen Oyster eggs (they come in what looks like a face cream jar). I have never tried them but it is on my list to locate when I have viable eggs again (neither of the two I have now will so it will be awhile).
Think about how you are going to keep the dead food suspended to look like live. These are pelagic hatchlings so anything dangerous should be kept close to the bottom and shielded from drawing in the fleas.
Numerous air stones might provide the current you need without being problematic.