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Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Thursday, July 28, 2011 12:52 AM
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This one's really pretty easy: You need the same stuff--plus one other thing--to culture O. marina that you do to culture the copepods. They need a place to live. (Buckets rock!) They need aeration and water movement. They need to be carted around, so you need a ~50 micron screen. This time it's different, though. The O. marina goes through the screen and all the bad stuff gets trapped on the mesh. So, you pour the O. marina culture right through the screen into their new homes. By the way, I'd highly recommend getting a different sieve for the O. marina than you use for the copepods. It's not necessary, but it's good practice. While we're at it, here's the new thing: I'd also recommend getting a 27 or so micron screen at some point. You won't use it everyday (it clogs way too easily), but you'll sometimes get contaminants in your cultures (I'm looking at you, ciliates) that are small enough to fit through the 50 micron sieve, but are still big enough to eat the O. marina. A 27 micron screen just gets more of those out. That's one that you'll probably have to make yourself because I've never seen one for sale. And they need food. O. marina can be raised on a diet of T-Iso (from what I've heard). I wouldn't know. I started out raising them on a monodiet of RotiGrow+. That works okay. But I _really_ got phytoplankton-like culture densities when I started giving them a mix of RotiGrow+ and Nrich PL (both from Reed's). That's the good stuff. Like I say, 10 gals. of O. marina is plenty for me to culture 13 gals. of Apocyclops. For a while I just had 8 gals. going and I thought that was pushing it a little. I could still harvest 2 gals. of O. marina per day, but if anything happened to one of the cultures then I was looking at some trouble. I feel more comfortable with 10 gals. And, in fact, I gave up on one of my O. marina cultures today and poured it down the drain. It wasn't a big deal since I had the extra culture going. The really good thing about O. marina is that they reproduce really, really quickly. That's why it works to have less of the food culture than you have copepods going. I'm pretty confident that you could do hefty harvests on the O. marina cultures a couple of times a day if you really had to. (As an aside, sorry I wasn't around much today. I'm just slammed, work-wise. Maybe not the best week to start this project, but it's not like we're really ramping this up yet, right?  )
--Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Friday, July 29, 2011 10:31 PM
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bahahaha....now tell me where to get some?
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Friday, July 29, 2011 10:37 PM
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--Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Saturday, July 30, 2011 12:37 AM
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he he.... mine are well.. for the most part gone unless you count my remaining co-cultures... even CCMP doesnt have them available so your stuck with Utex or waiting (though Utex is not a bad option... they have always treated me right!!) If your itching to get your hands on a dino for experience Carolina Biological Supply www.carolina.com has an indefinate species of gymnodinium which I've had a lot of fun with!! Bear in mind this is a toxic species for human consumption so I wouldnt go drinking it in large quantities...
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Saturday, July 30, 2011 3:32 PM
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Andy, when you say to use a 27 micron mesh to sieve out certain ciliates, are the O marina still passing through the mesh? I've been trying to find a reference of how large O marina is and the best I could find was "8-24mm (L), 6-20mm (W)" ( http://www.red-tide.org/new_site/om.htm). That can't be millimeters though (1mm = 1,000 microns). What measurement are they using?
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Saturday, July 30, 2011 3:43 PM
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Yes, O. marina does pass through 27 micron, but it's sllllloooooooowwwwww. I just started a new culture today by passing about a half-gallon from a previous culture through 27 microns. It took my entire fishroom time this morning to get that half gallon through (and I had passed it through 54 microns twice before I tried it). My estimates, inaccurate as they may be, look like they are about 15 microns wide and about 25 microns long. Jim? I think you took more accurate measurements at one point?
--Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Saturday, July 30, 2011 7:32 PM
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So based on this conversation, for the purposes of filtering the o marina for the pods, a cofee filter should be fine? As I understand it the average coffee filter is 23 microns.
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Saturday, July 30, 2011 7:41 PM
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Think backwards here, we are straining everything else out of the marina culture so a coffee filter will just capture the marina along with the contaminates! That is, providing that the average is on the high side which I generally assume... we'll want something above 25um but not much larger than 30 as the larger mesh the more chance of cilates getting through
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Saturday, July 30, 2011 7:59 PM
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ok, so you really feel we need to hit between 25 and 30. got it. just trying to avoid having to order mesh, but makes sense.
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Saturday, July 30, 2011 8:08 PM
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eh who knows really, I'm basing my recommendation off of the *estimated* size of the diatom. We might be pleasantly surprised to find out coffee filters do in fact work great! I'm usually excited for an excuse to pick up another size of mesh and I have no sieves handy in this range so it's an added tool need for myself as well. I've got 10um but after that it's 40 (which I use for my Gymnodinium) then on up the chain. I'm wondering if the 40 might be sufficient to screen out most of the competing cilates.. I'll have to give that one a shot when I get my cultures! Maybe we can nudge Jim or Andy to give the coffee filter a try and let us know the results??
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Saturday, July 30, 2011 8:13 PM
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Ya, I have my 'fish money' and I just gave it away to someone who needed it, so I gotta shoe string for a little while..I think I am going to give the cofee filter a try. Worst that happens is it doesn't work.
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Sunday, July 31, 2011 8:40 AM
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I think coffee filters would work fine (he says without having tried it). It'll be a pretty tight fit, so some of the O. marina might get stuck, but what comes through should be really clean. And, their population doubling size is really, really fast, so it's not like you need every one of them to make it through. For example, I started a culture around noon yesterday with 0.5 gallons of strained O. marina. I immediately doubled the water volume to 1 gal. and gave them food. By evening, the gallon of culture was full. I added another gallon of water. I fully intend to harvest from that 2 gallon culture just like all the rest of them when I head down to the fish room. Their population doubling speed helps make up for a lot of mistakes.
--Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Sunday, July 31, 2011 11:30 AM
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 Originally Posted by Caesra
ok, so you really feel we need to hit between 25 and 30. got it. just trying to avoid having to order mesh, but makes sense.
Polyester Mesh Sheet, 27 Micron $8.68 for a 12"x12" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FMUL9I eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Sunday, July 31, 2011 11:55 AM
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I seem to remember hearing someone talk about polyester versus nylon mesh. I can't remember which one we're supposed to avoid though.
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Sunday, July 31, 2011 12:55 PM
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I think that Andy Rhyne says that polyester stands up to bleaching better than nylon.
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Sunday, July 31, 2011 9:21 PM
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Nylon degrades over time with bleaching but not vinegar baths, I can attest to this one. Though the reality is the average hobbyist will not notice degradation of either unless they use it on a constant basis. Unless your using it constantly there really is no major difference IMHO.
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Sunday, August 14, 2011 10:03 AM
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so for the project should we be getting this going, or still wait till the fall for the main project? I'm just trying to stay ahead of the game.
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
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Sunday, August 14, 2011 11:18 AM
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Well, Jim tells me that I'm being over-cautious on shipping. I was trying to make it as cheap as possible on people and wait 'til the weather could support two-day. But I think if you get overnight packages reasonably early and it's not getting so very hot where you are, then we could probably do overnight. Remember that afternoon temps in the trucks will still run in the 100s.
--Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Sunday, August 14, 2011 11:30 AM
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Let me do an experiment with a styro shipper, a bag of 70F water, a thermometer, and a 100F+ place for it to sit for the afternoon. I have a place that should get nice and hot today, so let me get back to you in a few hours.
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Re:Supplies you need to culture O. marina
Sunday, August 14, 2011 3:24 PM
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uhm... *raises hand* can I just drive over there and pick some up? maybe actually make good on that pizza I owe you.....
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