Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (picci)

Mon, 06 Oct 2014 10:02:48 GMT

Hi,
I need your opinion becasue I can't take a decision, gosh I am used with nanno and plicatis but I failed in raising marrons and citrinus. So now I would like to try something smaller. But here it comes the hurdle...should I have to start with parvo or rotundiformis? My preferite are parvo but I read so many negative feedback and difficulties in raising them. And also T-iso seems to be quite critical. Any suggestion from your experience?
Cristina

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (shannpeach)

Wed, 04 Jun 2014 21:38:07 GMT

Pics of the bloom:

This weekend I hope to look at them under the scope. Just double check that they are what I think they are (hope they are...).

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (shannpeach)

Sun, 01 Jun 2014 21:31:54 GMT

The 5.5 gallon tank seems to have bloomed nicely. The smaller containers aren't doing quite so well, but still have some Parvo in them. I want to start some larger tank cultures soon.

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (shannpeach)

Tue, 27 May 2014 20:12:27 GMT

Right now I have a 5 gallon tank, about half filled, then a 1 gallon clear cereal container about half filled, and two half gallon containers partially filled. I am feeding with Iso mainly, but I did also give them a small amount of Tetraselmis once. Only the five gallon tank is aerated at the moment, but I will probably start aerating the other cultures soon.

I used water that is sieved through a 27 micron mesh instead of sterilized and neutralized and I haven't experienced the weird cloudy water then death issue since switching.

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (shannpeach)

Tue, 20 May 2014 22:51:04 GMT

Finally got around to taking some microscope pics

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (shannpeach)

Fri, 16 May 2014 21:43:33 GMT

I now have three new cultures started, all using non-sterilized water that was put through 27uM mesh. I also have the wineglass "culture" going, but I added some Centropyge larvae tonight so if all goes well that one will be eaten

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (Fishtal)

Tue, 13 May 2014 23:46:16 GMT

Originally Posted by clayton447

Tetraselmis is a great species of marine phytoplankton to feed to Parvocalanus. I usually have Isochrysis as my base feed and I add either Tetraselmis or a diatom species such as Thalassiosira pseudonana. When I started to co-feed the diatom, I saw much better reproductive success and fecundity. Now, all I feed to my cultures is Isochrysis and Thalassiosira pseudonana in equal parts and I always filter the algae through a 20micron mesh sieve before feeding it out. I use the filter in case the algae is contaminated. You can never be too sure.

Chad,
Thanks for sharing this! It's great to know how you guys at Reed are doing it successfully.

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (shannpeach)

Tue, 13 May 2014 23:36:57 GMT

I created two new cultures from the wineglass culture tonight. No aeration on any of them.

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (clayton447)

Tue, 13 May 2014 11:26:53 GMT

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (shannpeach)

Tue, 13 May 2014 09:24:43 GMT

Originally Posted by dave w

Your problem may stem from the use of just Isochrysis as food. Iso is really small, something like 5 microns in diameter as I recall, and it is an ideal food for small naups in the 60-100 um range. But successful parvo cultures are usually a mix of small phyto for naups and larger phyto for adults, more like the 25-50 um range. The adult parvo waste more calories processing tiny food than they gain from digesting it, just as our baby fish will starve to death chasing live food that isn't sufficiently large. I don't remember which larger phyto were best used in combination with ISO, but I think tetraselmis and pavlova were two of them.

So I was doing some reading, and came across this link I found somewhere else on MBI about the patent for Parvo culture
http://www.google.com/patents/US20060169216

In it they do say that the species of Parvocalanus they use (not identified down to the species level) is slightly larger than P. crassirostris and does need a phyto larger than Isochrysis used along with Iso (they use Chaetoceros mainly, IIRC). However, they also state that P. crassirostris, which I am culturing (well, trying to!), can be cultured on Iso alone. Perhaps that's where all this stems from?

In any case, the wineglass "culture" is still doing well. I will probably pull some out tonight, start a back up and also try to get some microscope pics.

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (KathyL)

Mon, 12 May 2014 22:27:06 GMT

Originally Posted by dave w

I don't think this is her problem. In fact, I can amost surely rule it out. Many breeders raise multiple generations of Parvocalanus crassirostris on live Isochrysis alone. Examples include, but are certainly not limited to Andy Rhyne, Jim Welsh, and myself. Actually, I've never heard of anyone successfully raising Parvo that didn't use live Iso. I did do the research before attempting to grow it myself.

I don't mean to rain on your parade, Dave. Please continue to think creatively.

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (shannpeach)

Mon, 12 May 2014 09:13:57 GMT

Well, the culture I set up that I had use the sterilized culture water all got cloudy and weird. However, the ones I put in the wineglass bowl that has a few Centropyge argi larvae are doing great. Go figure. So I will probably pull some out from there to start another culture (or two...I will clearly need backups lol)

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (shannpeach)

Fri, 09 May 2014 23:40:10 GMT

I've tried feeding tetraselmis, both this time and in the past. I'm not sure that's it. Also, the adults that are still alive are in a larval tank that got only Iso, IIRC.
I've added some younger pods that were still alive to a BRT that has tetraelmis in it tonight though. Hopefully they will do well...

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (dave w)

Fri, 09 May 2014 23:24:41 GMT

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (shannpeach)

Fri, 09 May 2014 09:55:41 GMT

Well son of a gun! Woke up this morning and found the culture with the adults all gross :/ I sieved and nearly all were dead. WTH? I'm beginning to think there is something about my water or sterilization technique that they don't like. The younger pods in the three containers seem okay so far today, and there are live adults in both of the containers that had (or still hold) the angelfish larvae...so I guess that just further supports the culture water. Hmmmm

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (shannpeach)

Thu, 08 May 2014 22:49:40 GMT

I agree as well. My rotifers seem tuned to my special kind of care (neglect). The problem for me with Parvo is getting those first few generations to survive! I hope to get it this time. I have a container with adults, and three that have nauplii (more likely copepodites at this point) and I also "seeded" several larval containers. So hopefully I have them spread out enough where it will be difficult for disaster to strike them all...

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (KathyL)

Thu, 08 May 2014 22:12:05 GMT

One thought I've had about these and phytoplankton, is that once you get some to survive, the offspring of that group also survive, and so there is a natural selection of ones that can survive all the conditions we are able to provide them, i.e. water, food, temperature, etc. Isochrysis used to be hard for me, and now I can grow it even without sterile conditions, with and without rotifers, and it blooms in laval tanks and tubs with no problem. Last year I had an outdoor tub of it that survived heat spells, etc. These things seem to be quite adaptable, given enough time to adjust. Joyce Wilkerson mentioned something about this in the Clownfishes book. I think its true.

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (shannpeach)

Thu, 08 May 2014 20:39:51 GMT

Re-starting this AGAIN...Got a new starter on Wednesday (5-7-14)

The last one was over taken by bacteria or something.

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (shannpeach)

Thu, 10 Apr 2014 23:53:42 GMT

Every little bit of advice helps

Jim--I read your thread and remember how you stated one of the biggest problems is overfeeding. If (when) I do overfeed, what is the best way to fix/handle that? Sieve them and place them in new water? Split the culture and dilute? Scrap the culture and split a non-overfed one to take its place?

Re:Culture Journal, Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris (JimWelsh)

Thu, 10 Apr 2014 23:40:51 GMT

I have never cultured them in any container larger than 3 gallon carboys. I give them very light air (I shoot for maybe 1 bubble per second), and also very light feeding. If I can see the water tinted in any significant way, I consider them to be overfed. I hope this helps.