Motivation

Here's what it's all about:
 

 
This is a later-stage Apocyclops sp. naup. Perfect for fish bellies.
 
And some motivational video:
 



 
Each of those videos is one day's harvest of copepods. Every day I siphon about 2 gallons of copepods, concentrate them down, and feed them to something. One of the wonderful things about Apocyclops is that they naturally occur in much greater densities in nature than some of the other pelagic copepods (such as A. tonsa), which translates to the fact that you don't need 55 gallon drums (and enough algae to fill them) to culture them in your basement. I'm running about 13 gallons of cultures right now.

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

pic is showing, but no video.

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

Sorry. Somewhere in editing they got stripped. Are those working better?

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

yea, this forum always stripe the video if you use the YouTube button to embed video.

Nice. They look tasty.

Rook

And I was going back through some old photos and found this:
 

 
So, that's a sixline wrasse embryo, the tiny thing a little out-of-focus in the middle is probably a copepod nauplii, and an adult copepod on the right.

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

wow. what are you using to take the photos? I'm thinking about getting a microscope with a camera. Is that what you're doing there?

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

Well, actually that last shot was just kind of lucky. I handheld a macro lens (at about 2x life) and just pointed it into my sixline hatch jar. The flash was detached and coming up from below and to one side. The first photo was a microscope. The video was just with my vid camera or maybe just my phone. I can't remember.

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

Any recommendations for an affordable microscope?

Rook

Sorry. I meant to answer you all day. It really depends on what you need it for. For all intents and purposes (unless you want to spend boatloads of money), there are two main types: Dissection scopes and compound scopes.
 
Dissection scopes offer little magnification and are usually binocular. You get a lot more working distance, too, so you can put whole rocks under there if you want to. Depending on how much magnification you get, they are great for big stuff like copepod counts.
 
Compound scopes are the ones from high school biology. They offer little working distance but really high magnification. If you are trying to ID phyto, you need one of these (probably). Their magnification typically starts at 40x life size and goes up from there (that's a lot of magnification for a copepod, BTW).
 
I have an el cheapo Russian dissection scope. I hardly use it, though, because the focus for the camera is different than the focus for the eyepiece and it just drives me crazy. My camera can give me 5x life size, so I typically just use that instead of the dissection scope. I use a Celestron LCD as a compound scope most of the time: http://www.amazon.com/Celestron-44340-Digital-Biological-Microscope/dp/B0014YNGCK The optics are only passable and the lighting is a joke (I supplement the lighting with a gooseneck halide microscope light), but the LCD makes my eyes happy and makes taking photos and videos easy. It has a really nice, solid stage, which is really pretty surprising.
 
I also have an old Bausch & Lomb compound that has lovely optics but needs a good cleaning and a hookup for my camera.

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

Andy hit the nail on the head with a lot of this!!
 
I use a cheapo compound (40-100x) that I picked up at hobby lobby that has a usb camera attachment that well.. eh sucks.  But it works to do my algal cell counts (I'll tackle that subject later on time providing) with it and it does it's job.  Since I'm not as huge on photographing (yet) I dont much mind that the camera sucks and it's impossible to get good shots.
 
My gem however, is my Konus opal 20x Dissection scope!  If you shop around you can find this baby in the sub $200 range I think (dont remember what I paid for it).  The working area is massive, the lighting is good (features a flippable stage plate for both black or white) and with the stereo eyepeice it is very comfortable for long sessions.  I spend on average a half hour to two hours a day looking through this scope to examine various large plankters (copepods especially) as well as snail shells, and do my rotifer counts.  While the magnification is not strong enough for intensive identification of smaller copepod nauplii or algal cells (thats what I use the compound for) this is my daily use scope!  Very happy with it for the price to be sure, and to be brutally honest the larger working area has proven more useful than the higher magnification of the compound.
 
I've seen the celestion that Andy mentions and know of several people using it, while the optics and lighting are horrible for a starter scope it really is a good bargain.  It is actually on my list of things to pick up just for photodocumentation purposes.

Pelagically yours,
~J      

That is the scope I have been looking at the one that fish has listed...is on my xmas list already..but I am not sure if I want to wait to get (if I get..of course).  I am going to look into the konus too.

Yall do know you gonna run me broke. =)
 
 I am still recovering from my over spending getting into this entire hobby.  Shh..don't tell my wife but I am over 25K in 18 months.
At least I am finding breeding far more sensible than keeping reefs. 
 
#1 it makes enough money to pay for itself. 
#2 I feel I have alot better grasp with this than the reefs.  I have not dumped my reefs simply because I feel it keeps me learning more about water chemistry and reactions by marine animals.  Not to mention I can hold pairs in there =)

You may want to check your math on #1.  Not many people in this are breaking even, let alone making money.

Rook

labor of love for sure!!  For the record the plankton geeks dont get any cash payout lol

Pelagically yours,
~J