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•  Supplies you need to culture these pods

  Change Page: 123 > | Showing page 1 of 3, messages 1 to 20 of 57 - powered by ASPPlayground.NET Forum Trial Version Author Message Umm_fish? Total Posts : 2835 Scores: 10 Reward points : 953 Joined: 11/4/2009 Location: Boulder, CO, US Status: offline MBI: 775 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Aquarium Society of Colorado Supplies you need to culture these pods Monday, July 25, 2011 6:24 PM (permalink) 0 These copepods need a home. They aren't terribly fussy, but I like to use buckets. I really like to use 2 gallon HPDE (white plastic) buckets that I get at my local hardware store. They are easy to clean and don't hold so much water that it's hard for me to carry them. I also use 5 gallon salt buckets from time to time. You need at least two of your containers for active cultures, plus some backups to move the copepods to when their homes get nasty.   These copepods need water. I use the same water for the copepods that I use for everything else. Artificial saltwater mixed to 1.025. I don't test for pH or anything. I also don't bother to top off for evaporation in the couple of weeks the copepods stay in this water before a container change. They are really hardy and tolerate a large range of salinity.   These copepods need water movement. I just use bubbled air in mine (like rotifers). That means that you need an air pump, vinyl tubing, little airline valves, and rigid air tubing. The rigid air tubing sits in the bucket. I do not bother with airline filters or anything. Heck, they _are_ open buckets, after all.   You need to be able to move the copepods around. For that, you need a sieve made out of a mesh screen of around 50 microns. Here are a couple of options for pre-made sieves: http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/1368/Rotifer-Sieve and http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/Rotifer-Sieve-p220.html. You can also make them yourself by ordering some mesh screen (http://www.amazon.com/Microns-Square-Opening-Thread-Diameter/dp/B0043D1SFQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1311638599&sr=8-3) and sandwich it between some plumbing parts, or just silicone it to the end of a piece of pipe (_if_ you do a really good silicone job). The advantage to this is that you can make sieves the size that you want them. I use some really large sieves so I can pour water through pretty fast. But there's nothing wrong with the premade ones.   These copepods need food. I listed this one last because this one is likely to get pretty involved. You have a few options here: The tried and true is growing your own good quality phytoplankton. Either T-Iso alone (good) or T-Iso as a mix with other algae (even better). It's possible (but not likely) that you could get by with Nannochloropsis, but I doubt it quite highly. You really need the good stuff. Unfortunately, I can't really help you here. I'm really bad at growing phyto. The next option is to use a bagged up live mix of good quality phyto like the Phycopure products. I don't really know how well they work. They are expensive as heck and didn't really work for me the time I tried them. That's likely entirely my fault, though. I don't blame the product. You can use the method I use (and I'll help you with it). I culture a marine dinoflagellate, O. marina, that is willing to eat algae paste and survive on it well enough that it is nutritious enough to keep my copepods thriving. More on this later. In fact, as soon as I get a chance I'll start another post on what you need for O. marina culture. If you use this method, you'll also need to buy algae pastes. I'll tell you which ones I recommend in the other thread. You can try out Luis' new method of culturing these copepods using _only_ algae pastes. I've never managed to get this to work, but I sure as heck wouldn't mind starting a couple of cultures and playing around to see if I can do it. Even if you decide to go this route, I would still highly recommend that you also use one of the other methods above for at least one culture until you get the hang of this method. It's apparently _really_ easy to crash cultures run like this and you don't want to have to buy new starters all the time. If you use this method, you'll also need to buy algae pastes. I need to go and find where Luis tells what algae he's using, but I know that one of them is RotiGrow Plus (note: very definitely _not_ the same as the old RotiGrow).   That's all I can think of for now. Go forth and get your culture stations ready. We want pictures.   And get started thinking about what you want to feed your copepods. Start threads if you'd like to discuss your choices. --Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886   #1 chuenwe Total Posts : 97 Scores: 0 Reward points : 113 Joined: 7/9/2011 Location: Huntington Sta, NY, US Status: offline MBI: 75 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Breeding Initiative (MBI) Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Monday, July 25, 2011 7:23 PM (permalink) 0 I will feed them live phyto since I have my phyto station running for quite awhile for feeding the rotifer and for my green water rearing tanks.  I took this picture before I started my Iso culture.  However, for unknown reason, when I first started the Iso from the algae disks, 1 bottle was green and 1 bottle was chocolate color.  I then split the chocolate color one one more time and both became green.  Puzzling...       #2 Umm_fish? Total Posts : 2835 Scores: 10 Reward points : 953 Joined: 11/4/2009 Location: Boulder, CO, US Status: offline MBI: 775 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Aquarium Society of Colorado Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Monday, July 25, 2011 7:54 PM (permalink) 0 From what I understand (and I could be entirely wrong), green Iso = stressed Iso and brown is what you need. Brown/red is the color of good oils and if your Iso is green then it's not making or storing the oils you need for larval nutrition. We need Joe in here as a teacher's aide to field the phyto questions. --Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886   #3 Caesra Total Posts : 317 Scores: 2 Reward points : 195 Joined: 7/4/2011 Location: Cherry Valley, IL, US Status: offline MBI: 80 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Breeding Initiative (MBI) Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Monday, July 25, 2011 8:12 PM (permalink) 0 What are risks of contamination with rotifers?  Can I run these near my rotifers?  What are optimal temperature ranges?   #4 chuenwe Total Posts : 97 Scores: 0 Reward points : 113 Joined: 7/9/2011 Location: Huntington Sta, NY, US Status: offline MBI: 75 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Breeding Initiative (MBI) Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Monday, July 25, 2011 8:13 PM (permalink) 0 Originally Posted by Umm_fish?   From what I understand (and I could be entirely wrong), green Iso = stressed Iso and brown is what you need. Brown/red is the color of good oils and if your Iso is green then it's not making or storing the oils you need for larval nutrition. We need Joe in here as a teacher's aide to field the phyto questions.       I figured as much.  I read somewhere that I just somehow needs to get it back to a less stressful stage for it to grow properly again.  Somehow...     #5 slosht Total Posts : 178 Scores: 0 Reward points : 1162 Joined: 5/4/2009 Location: Clinton Twp, MI, US Status: offline MBI: 0 Pnts MBI Site: MarineLife Aquarium Society of Michigan Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Monday, July 25, 2011 9:05 PM (permalink) 0 I'll take a picture of my station when I get it cleaned up.  It's really my linen closet which was empty except for boxes and such.    I am not sure at this juncture which method I will use.  I have some RotiGrow + and have no problem culturing Iso, Nano and Tetra.  Right now I am leaning towards culturing the mentioned trio and combining them into 1 container for my phyto feed.   For you DIYers, Tal has a neat plankton sieve made out of peanut butter jars listed on his site.   #6 Umm_fish? Total Posts : 2835 Scores: 10 Reward points : 953 Joined: 11/4/2009 Location: Boulder, CO, US Status: offline MBI: 775 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Aquarium Society of Colorado Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 1:58 PM (permalink) 0 Originally Posted by What are risks of contamination with rotifers?  Can I run these near my rotifers?  What are optimal temperature ranges?   I think the risks are pretty minimal, so long as you keep the O. marina (or whatever) from contaminating your rots. I've done them right next to each other and it's not such a big deal. My rots eat RotiGrow+. They do not eat O. marina. RotiGrow+ by itself can be a food for O. marina, but it really does enormously better on a mix of pastes. Apocyclops might be able to eat RG+, but the rots do much better on it.   Will you get contamination? Yes, but unless you _really_ want to keep monocultures going (good luck with that ), it's not such a big deal. A bigger deal is keeping Apocyclops away from other pelagic copepods. They will certainly out-compete Parvocalanus in very short order. All it takes is one gravid female and your Parvo cultures are done. --Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886   #7 Umm_fish? Total Posts : 2835 Scores: 10 Reward points : 953 Joined: 11/4/2009 Location: Boulder, CO, US Status: offline MBI: 775 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Aquarium Society of Colorado Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 2:00 PM (permalink) 0 Sorry, forgot the temps. I don't know the extremes. I culture in the mid-70s with no issues. My O. marina starts to do poorly at about 68, and any lower and I lose cultures. --Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886   #8 Rook Total Posts : 804 Scores: 1 Reward points : 1287 Joined: 8/30/2006 Location: Grosse Pointe Park, MI, US Status: offline MBI: 0 Pnts MBI Site: MarineLife Aquarium Society of Michigan Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 2:01 PM (permalink) 0 Hmm, so I need to figure out how to keep the heat up a bit.  My basement is 65-68. Rook   #9 Umm_fish? Total Posts : 2835 Scores: 10 Reward points : 953 Joined: 11/4/2009 Location: Boulder, CO, US Status: offline MBI: 775 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Aquarium Society of Colorado Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 2:08 PM (permalink) 0 I trying to figure it out, too. I moved my O. marina to a different room and it sits right between 68 and 69 and I'm really pushing it. I almost lost a couple of cultures last week when our upstairs AC went out. The ground floor AC was working more to compensate and the temp in the basement dropped as a result. I'm still nursing those back.   They are in a small room, so I think a small room heater would take care of me. I only need a couple more degrees. I just need to track one down. --Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886   #10 Rook Total Posts : 804 Scores: 1 Reward points : 1287 Joined: 8/30/2006 Location: Grosse Pointe Park, MI, US Status: offline MBI: 0 Pnts MBI Site: MarineLife Aquarium Society of Michigan Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 2:21 PM (permalink) 0 I'd have to maybe set the buckets in water and put a heater in the water, but thats a large contraption to hold all them buckets.  do you keep lights on theses?  Seems that would give you a few degrees? Rook   #11 Umm_fish? Total Posts : 2835 Scores: 10 Reward points : 953 Joined: 11/4/2009 Location: Boulder, CO, US Status: offline MBI: 775 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Aquarium Society of Colorado Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 2:52 PM (permalink) 0 I tried the O. marina in darkness for a while but they did poorly. Now I keep a shop light on 12/12 over them. That works well (but doesn't warm them up, unfortunately). --Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886   #12 Caesra Total Posts : 317 Scores: 2 Reward points : 195 Joined: 7/4/2011 Location: Cherry Valley, IL, US Status: offline MBI: 80 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Breeding Initiative (MBI) Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 3:26 PM (permalink) 0 ok, so it sounds like my basement (which generally sits around 69-72 year round) will be fine temp wise, now to figure out where I want to place things.  How much light on the o marina?  ambient from tanks work or do they really need direct lighting?   As always I am trying to figure out how to do more with the same power consumption.   And as I understand you, you are suggesting to order some additional pastes to mix with the roti grow+?   #13 THEJRC Total Posts : 1006 Scores: 4 Reward points : 555 Joined: 10/23/2009 Location: Colorado Springs, CO, US Status: offline MBI: 210 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Breeding Initiative (MBI) Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 3:44 PM (permalink) 0 a design I've had very good luck with:     Basically the shelves are the simple adjustable wall mount bracket type, this allows me to move them up and down depending on spacial needs.  I mounted 3 NO flourescent shop lights vertically along the wall and cut out notches for the shelves to wrap around.  I can "somewhat" control culture temps by moving cultures closer or farther away from the bulbs.   While not exactly acheiving results without power consumption, I find that this configuration maximizes my culture capacity with relatively little power consumption (I can run a very high number of cultures with very few fixtures).    If one were to do something similar to this in a cabinet with the inside painted white they might be able to maximize on temperature control (via exhaust fan on controller) an omit one of the light fixtures. Pelagically yours, ~J         #14 Umm_fish? Total Posts : 2835 Scores: 10 Reward points : 953 Joined: 11/4/2009 Location: Boulder, CO, US Status: offline MBI: 775 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Aquarium Society of Colorado Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 7:09 PM (permalink) 0 Originally Posted by How much light on the o marina?  ambient from tanks work or do they really need direct lighting?   I cultured them for years using just really dim ambient light. Since I moved them to another room, I tried both total darkness (fail) and a simple shop light suspended about 18 inches above the cultures. They seem to be doing the best they've ever done with more light. But like I say, they weren't doing poorly with just a bunch of tank lights around.   Originally Posted by And as I understand you, you are suggesting to order some additional pastes to mix with the roti grow+?   You are getting ahead of me (I will be going into depth about how to culture them), but they do best for me with a mix of RotiGrow+ and Nrich PL. Don't order the Nrich yet, though. You can't freeze it and it's best when fresh. You can freeze RG+ fine. (I have a few small tupperware. I divide the RG+ among them then freeze the whole batch, thawing one as needed.) --Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886   #15 THEJRC Total Posts : 1006 Scores: 4 Reward points : 555 Joined: 10/23/2009 Location: Colorado Springs, CO, US Status: offline MBI: 210 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Breeding Initiative (MBI) Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 7:22 PM (permalink) 0 Andy, have you tried these with FAF's Roti Rich?  (I always keep a bunch on hand) Pelagically yours, ~J         #16 slosht Total Posts : 178 Scores: 0 Reward points : 1162 Joined: 5/4/2009 Location: Clinton Twp, MI, US Status: offline MBI: 0 Pnts MBI Site: MarineLife Aquarium Society of Michigan Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 7:36 PM (permalink) 0 Originally Posted by Rook Hmm, so I need to figure out how to keep the heat up a bit.  My basement is 65-68. Jeremy, I'm not sure if this would work, but what about putting one of those reptile heating pads under the containers?  They have these flat hard plastic pads specifically for reptiles. It might be a way to bump the heat up just enough.  I'd put some foam down under the pad as insulation.    #17 Umm_fish? Total Posts : 2835 Scores: 10 Reward points : 953 Joined: 11/4/2009 Location: Boulder, CO, US Status: offline MBI: 775 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Aquarium Society of Colorado Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 8:17 PM (permalink) 0 Originally Posted by I have some RotiGrow + and have no problem culturing Iso, Nano and Tetra.  Right now I am leaning towards culturing the mentioned trio and combining them into 1 container for my phyto feed.   Honestly, I'm a big fan of variety where ever possible. I think you'll likely do very well with this. --Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886   #18 Caesra Total Posts : 317 Scores: 2 Reward points : 195 Joined: 7/4/2011 Location: Cherry Valley, IL, US Status: offline MBI: 80 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Breeding Initiative (MBI) Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 8:50 PM (permalink) 0 Interesting setup, how well does the teddy bear grow with light that level?   #19 chuenwe Total Posts : 97 Scores: 0 Reward points : 113 Joined: 7/9/2011 Location: Huntington Sta, NY, US Status: offline MBI: 75 Pnts MBI Site: Marine Breeding Initiative (MBI) Re:Supplies you need to culture these pods Tuesday, July 26, 2011 9:00 PM (permalink) 0   #20 Online Bookmarks Sharing: Facebook Digg Google del.icio.us StumbleUpon Change Page: 123 > | Showing page 1 of 3, messages 1 to 20 of 57 - powered by ASPPlayground.NET Forum Trial Version

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