Culture Journal, Species: Tigriopus californicus

That would be my assumption given how they live in the wild.  In their tidepools, the ones with more decaying matter or more diatoms tend to have WAY more copepods in them.  They love eating decaying matter, especially seabird guano.

I'm sure there is some bird poop in there. Today I noticed that the Enteromorpha algae has showed up again. Just in one tub though.

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The Great Outdoors!
I've also started a 17 gallon round black tub outdoors with just saltwater for a couple of weeks, then poured in a starter culture of rots and tigger pods and green/wild ?isochrysis?. The tiggers are doing great! No food or other attention.  I did put a bird net over the top to keep out squirrels, birds, and small children intent on drowning themselves. We've had a couple of 98 degree days, yet the pods are fine, and the culture keeps getting more dense.  Carefree and very productive.  I wonder if can just throw some fish larvae in there and see if they survive.  Wouldn't that be a hoot? Carefree captive breeding!

I find that an extended period of heat will cause a decline but not a complete collapse. By extended I mean a week or so of temps in the 90's like we had last year. This year has been much better.
 
I've considered tossing some larvae in there too, just not sure if they could handle the heat.

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Their tidepools tend to be pretty high in DO due to the live macro and micro algae.  Perhaps in your tank, in the heat, the DO is dropping too much?

We've had 95+ for several days in a row, and the culture has declined.  To my dismay, however, I seem to be cultureing mosquitos as well. Husband may put the kaibosh on this project.
 
I thought that mosquitos would not put their eggs in saltwater…...

Mine have declined with the heat too, like last year. I'll probably shade them tomorrow as we're supposed to hit 100° this week.
 
I've never had a problem with mosquitos.

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hrm I too am having temp / DO problems this season given the high temps.  I've managed to keep my populations out of decline by shading them with some regular window screening, unfortunately it does not help with oxygenation or allowing rainwater to top off the pond so I've had to be extra careful to check water level and open the top when it rains.  for the DO I've been using a hydor bubble maker... pretty cheap and simple and so far so good.  Though I've been monitoring daily, things might change while I'm out and at the workshop

Pelagically yours,
~J      

What about setting up one of those windmill aeration devices for some oxygenation? I'd imagine more or less free after the purchase cost.
 
I checked my cultures in the basement last night for the first time a week or so, and they're definitely propagating. At least half the pods I could see were trailing big sacs of bright green eggs. Plus I noticed a lot of smaller, white pods in there, assuming these are copepodites?? as they looked similar to the adults just weren't red. The cultures were started with fresh water and just the tiggers.
 
For a note, it does appear that the culture I dropped a few pellets of fish food in seem to be doing better than the one with flake and the one in the 2L bottle with the PhytoFeast for food...

Joe you are some one I can not believe does not have a O2 generator   Your average hobbyist, meh, don't need one.. The JRC, needs one

lol... nah just luft pumps...  I do run Co2 from time to time for the alga....  hrmmm
 
Damn you for putting ideas in my head Gresh!!!  Reed got any used gear for sale?

Pelagically yours,
~J      

We used to sell them a few years ago but we lost our supply   It would be a good idea for us to find a new supplier, come to think of it I am pretty sure we did find one.  Going to email

as always Gresh you guys are way too helpful! Now if you can come up with a way for me to sneak the purchase past my wife. Hrm maybe ill tell her its an add on to the air conditioner to help it run cooler, shes big on the ac working

Pelagically yours,
~J      

I think we can come up with some technical jargon that will convince her it's a AC booster device :lol:
 

this is great and now for the newb question where is the best place to get the cultures as im getting ready to setup my 90 reef and it will be all dry rock and i have a pair of red mandarins in my nano that i feed store bought tiggers another question will the store boughts propagate in a reef tank or is it to warm thx (tom)

I started with Tiggerpods from Reef Nutrition. You should be able to find them at your LFS. Mine do best outside at cooler temps. In a reef tank, depending on environment, they will get eaten pretty quickly by a hungry Mandarin and it may be too warm as you mention.
 
I'd say it would be best to culture them separately and add them as food if you can. 

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"Making captive breeding easier."

outside i can do and i would think the southern texas fall and winter should be good for this is it best to use salt or freshwater and once i have enough culture is it best to strain and store in the fridge well with clean tank water

Too hot?  Hogwash.  Our best production is in warmer weather.  You will be hard pressed to find anyone to date that has grown the amounts we have.  We grow so much now we have large amounts of surplus, so much so keep an eye out this winter for the launch of Tigger-Feast, a concentrated Tigger-Pod product with ~50 bottles worth of Tiggers in our same media you'll find in Arcti-Pods.

Just took a look at one of my outdoor tubs. It's been in the 90's for the last two days so I wasn't sure what to expect.
 
This is about four square inches in a 30 gallon tub: 

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Jeez, my culture sure doesn't look like that!  Awesome for you!  What do you use them for?

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

That's some mighty clear water
 
You cannot see you hand 6" down in our tanks.  That's how much algae we utilize.

I don't feed anything, they just eat whatever falls in.

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"Making captive breeding easier."

Gresham - If you can share, live algae or paste?

Update: I restarted 2 of my outdoor cultures today. I kept some from last year in my garage over the winter. I'll start the other 2 cultures in a couple of weeks when I have more water from water changes and the first cultures ramp up.

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"Making captive breeding easier."

Man, I'm trying to get a culture of these going, not sure if they are contaminated with tisbe or not as everything I see is smallish and white.  I'm hoping that I'm still good though since for the most part they still seem slightly larger than my tisbe culture.

 
Attend the Workshop and see if Chad reveals that.  I'm not at liberty to discuss it, sorry.

I know this is an old thread, are you still culturing in this manner?  Are the containers in full sun?  Thanks

Yes, I'm doing this again this summer. I had a slower start than in past years but they are ramping up pretty well now. Mine get direct sun for about 5-7 hours depending on the month. If it gets really hot for a long period like it did two years ago I shade them.

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"Making captive breeding easier."

Thanks. 
 
Do you shade them completely or do you use something like greenhouse shade cloth?  Could sunlight be the reason for the explosive growth outdoors?

I used a blue tarp from Harbor Freight. Only reason I did this is we had almost two months of humid 90°F+ temps and the water got quite warm in the black tubs. I usually see growth rates slow down after extended high temps.

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Thanks!!
 
I wonder, though, if the slow down could be from more from the shading than the heat...?  Gresham said they get great production in the heat.
 
Thank you so much for sharing your success... very inspiring!  I'm definitely going to give it a try because my garage cultures are slowish, too.  The problem I have is that it hits 90+ degrees in mid June here and pretty much stays there through mid September.  :/

IDK. I shaded them after I saw a slow down in reproduction. I didn't check the actual temp back then but it was quite warm to the touch.

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."