Supplies you need to culture these pods

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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

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...
 

 

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

What are risks of contamination with rotifers?  Can I run these near my rotifers?  What are optimal temperature ranges?

 
 
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...
 

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.

 
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

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

Hmm, so I need to figure out how to keep the heat up a bit.  My basement is 65-68.

Rook

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

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

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

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+?

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      

 
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.
 

 
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

Andy, have you tried these with FAF's Roti Rich?  (I always keep a bunch on hand)

Pelagically yours,
~J      

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. 

 
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

Interesting setup, how well does the teddy bear grow with light that level?

LOL the monkey did well until it met it's untimely demise when the puppy arrived.... such is nature!
 
A note on the setup, I have *extremely* limited space so I needed to come up with something that fit and was functional, but was also efficient, flexible, and easy to access and maintain.  I've been extremely happy with this design as I can very quickly add, subtract, or move shelves as my culture needs change; I can also change the bulbs to allow for differing spectrums from one side to the other, currently the right most is running 6500K's the center is at 6500 and 3600 and the left most 3600, this way I can somewhat play with light spectrum.  I did at one point cut some separators to slide between fixtures so that I can isolate the lighting for cultures as I was playing with spectrum...  I've since waylayed that due to time and  *meh* factor.
 
Right now the bottom shelf resides about a quarter inch from the bottom of the bulbs allowing me to keep zooplankters (currently co-cultures of pseudo, T. japonicus, and rotifers) with some ambient light but not a full on photonics barrage.  And of course since all the trips came up... I've got an empty shelf now.... but that wont last for long

Pelagically yours,
~J      

That is my delema, I have already confiscated alot our house for fish stuff (about 1500 sq ft so far) and the wife gave me permission to suck up another 1500 sq ft or so, but I feel completely guilty so I am trying to work within the space I am already using...maybe the reef tanks will have to go =P.
 
So I am trying to figure out if I will be good just to plop these on my shelves I bought for my rotifers, which is basically a 5 level plastic shelf unit.  I am feeling more comfy with the rotifers now, so I don't need to keep 6 cultures going like I am now.  No direct lighting on it..actually no lighting atm accept for when someone is in the room.  I am basically completly out of space.  I have a small area above my fridge in my breeding area, but I was going to use that for fry containers for clowns.  There is some family storage in the 'fish room' I could probably confiscate, but again..trying to avoid doing that.
 
So these are my many questions as I try to figure out how to put more stuff in a small area.  It sounds like I will be fine doing them on the rotifer shelves and adding a T2 light I have sitting around for these.

If it gives you some idea, I'm currently running 23 gals. of O. marina and Apocyclops cultures: 10 gals. (five 2 gal. buckets) of O. marina and 13 gals. (one 5 gal. and four 2 gal. buckets) of Apocyclops. I do 2 gallons of copepod harvest per day and 2 gallons of dinos to replace that water. Then 2 gals. of new saltwater to the dino cultures. The 2 gal. copepod cultures are on a wheeled printer cart that I can move around. The 5 gal. is in a free spot in the fish room. The dinos are on a shelf in another room.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Andy is the bucket man.

 
You know, I was thinking that its too bad there is not an underground heating devise like under floor heating, and you found it.  Interesting idea, I might be too concerned with possible problems spilling the water, which is sure to happen.  I was considering finding a large, shallow storage container, like those cloth containers that fit under your bed; fill with water, place buckets in water, place heater in water.  Not idea, needs to be watched to ensure it does not evap.

Rook

yeah I never got along with buckets... I like my sterilite tupperware containers and smaller plastic jugs.  I'm a fan of multiple smaller cultures, with the exception of my Nanno which sees 3 gallon carboys most of my stuff is in 2 quart tupperware or gallon water jugs, if I feel like getting intense I shift shelves and kick up mason jars, I can fit about 25-30 on a shelf and kick in a ton of shelves due to the low height
 
In edit, seeing the post regarding temp... the $8 concrete tubs (black plastic tubs) from home depot make excellent water baths, this is what I was using when I was attempting to study the Nassarius snail.  Evap does get you but if your culturing you need to spend a few minutes per day anyhow, so it's just a matter of remembering to top it off.

Pelagically yours,
~J      

 
I like that.
 

 
I thought of that, too, but I don't trust that they'd play well with saltwater.
 

 
Water baths are a good idea (the big boys tend to use water bath tables to keep temps stable). They are heavy, though, and you have to find a good container the right size. You can just use fresh water for them.
 

 
I used to be all about the glass, but they are really expensive compared to the amount of water they hold. Plus, you know, I'm kind of a klutz. I don't know if you've noticed, but klutzes and glass don't mix well. And they are always built so that they are a pain to clean for some reason.
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

^^^
sooo many comments, soo many ways to kill a thread... 
 
I've definately broken my share of mason jars, and it's not uncommon for the floor of my small space to get errrm... planktoned...  I suppose one could do it with plastic and such given the great myriad of offerings available now (I love us plastics by the way) but the mason jars are there, handy... waiting...
 
When I flew out for the workshop I took a couple of 16 ounce low cut PET containers I picked up from US in the event that I would do some lake collecting (yes I get into FW copepods too) and they've always served me well.  The core reality is that culturing takes a *ton* of work and attention, modifications are born of necessity and trying new things that you think of on your own to tackle your own specific issues is the best way to go still.
 
I love threads like this as they point out things I never thought of.... it's possible to do a heat rock (they are waterproof fyi) in the back of a shelf and perhaps screen the front with some plastic to hold the heat in??  With the AC kicked up I am always fighting temp here, lower temps cause problems as do higher...  ideas in this arena are always well appreciated!!
 
One of the best things I have done with my new (well new-ish) setup was to push the culture racks in the spaces behind the tanks and back wall where the heat collects...  in front of the tanks may be 68, behind due to the false wall and such is a pretty stable 72

Pelagically yours,
~J      

What about this instead of a reptile heat pad?  http://lllreptile.com/sto...foot-repti-heat-cable/
 
They come in different sizes, are water resistant and you could probably cover them in wire loom or heat shrink tubing for extra protection. 

ok, so how much volume of each do we need? 
 
As I understand it, we can raise the o marina off of paste.  These feed the pods.  Will 1g of dino culture feed 1g of culture pods?
 
just trying to undestand the ratio of volume need for each culture.

So many good ideas in this thread.  Looking around for suitable culture vessels, I spotted my cereal container on the counter.  It's about 2 quarts, plastic, and has a lid that seals most of the top but I could leave the pour spout open to get an airline in.
 
They are narrow, and could stack quite a few across a shelf.  Has anyone tried using them before?  I assume I'd have to increase the air flow through them to make up for the lack of surface area, but does anyone think that is going to be too much of a detriment?

actually intersting idea.  they just cost more than say an average 5 or 2g bucket

few ideas here... can translate to multiple species fairly simple... and it's sorta what I use...
 
The arrowhead 3 liter water jars have a dimple in the bottom that helps with flow, can be used three times before fouling and either cleaned and re-used or discarded... 1$ each.
 
For zooplankters I prefer my sterilite snapware containers
http://www.usphome.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=74733&catid=963
 
the vent makes it a handy hole for the airline, which keeps the open tops a little more sealed... helps a lot.

Pelagically yours,
~J      

And yet, those buckets sure are cheap....
 
I may need to try a closed-top system when I try Parvocalanus again but the Apocyclops truly are vigorous enough not to really need them.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

I have iso and nanno and some rotifers coming now.

RLTW

180 Gallon Mixed Reef

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8

Very cool. Good luck with them. I hope you have better luck with Iso than I've ever had.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

FWIW, I keep several backup cultures of Apocyclops in simple, 500ml and 1000ml Erlenmeyer flasks with no aeration.  Of course, I am feeding them live ISO, which probably helps with the DO.

I have access to a lot of 1,000, 2,000 and 3,000 ml hanging bags
http://www.johnpreston.co...6/EVA%20TPN%20Bags.pdf
Could these be used for this project?
thx-Jim

I have a "standard" arrangement of containers I use for different things. For my Berghia
And small/starter cultures I use the 1G square with like 6" round lid Tupperware containers. They are easy to handle and clean. For Rotifers I use a 5G bucket and I also have some 10G buckets to use. Same footprint as 5G but taller. For all of them I drill a hole right in the center just big enough for a rigid airline to freely drop in. This allows me to secure the lids since I have a young child and prevents excessive evaporation.

My thinking for this project is a 10G For the O. Marina and 5G for the Apocyclops.

hrmm... reading through the spacial concerns in this thread has hit me with an idea for a new culture rack... similar to the slide out DVD racking I built in the bedroom closet for my wife.  Think slide rails at top and bottom of a shelving unit that allow them to slide *out* of a cabinet....
 
More to come, I still have at least one set of the slide rails in the man-shed and a second set is a HD trip away.. maybe I'll do a proof of concept.

Pelagically yours,
~J