Culture Journal, Species: Tigriopus californicus

General
Species: Tigriopus californicus          
Species description:  orange harpacticoid that is often free swimming.
Culture source (link if possible):  Reed mariculture purchase
If algae, CCMP # (Optional): 
http://ccmp.bigelow.edu/
Culture Establishment Date:  11/16/2010
Continuation Date:  8/20/2011 and on from here.

Culturing Vessel Details
Salinity:  20 ppt 
Temperature:    ambient room temp: ranges 62 in winter, to 78 in summer.
pH:  7 to 8 ish

Vessel description:  5 gallon bucket filled to 4 gallons
Lighting description:  ambient room compact fluorescents.
Lighting cycle:  14 day, 10 night
Aeration description:  rapid but not boiling.

Methodologies
Split methodology: casual. Culture is thinned every few weeks, as well as partial water changes. Very low maintainance.

Culture medium description: 
20ppt water from water changes on broodstock systems.  Food is mostly roti-grow+ with occational N-rich.  Food is also occasional rotifer addition, as excess occurs.
Cell count:
I've never counted.
Reference links:  

Additional Information
(No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please)
Notes: 
Can be kept for months in an open bottle in the fridge with periodic additions of food and chloramX.  These pods do better in the cooler temperatures.  Summer is harder on them but I had a nice outdoor culture until the weather got too hot.


You will be required to provide photographic evidence and as much detail as possible about your project in this thread.
If your thread does not contain detailed enough photos  and information the MBI Council will not be able to approve your reports.

Here's some pix:
Here's the outdoor culture while it lived:

Here's the indoor culture:

 

microscope pix.  I stopped them with some isopropanol:

Here is a video of the tiggers  on a dish:

there are other critters in there as well.  I grow these as a mixed culture.
 

Here's a bottle from the fridge:

And the little twitchers that have lived in it for over a month, with small additions of food:

 
CLICK ON THE VIDEO

i still have the bottles in the fridge. Recently topped them off with fresh water, and I'm feeding them a couple drops of rotigrow+ every 2 weeks or so. 
 
The poly-culture in the basement has some in there as well as the outdoor tub.  Temperature at the water surface of the outdoor tube was 62, bottom outside of the tub was 64, and the patio concrete was 64.  Temperature of the basement was 75.  All temps in Farenheit.

I had a tigger population explosion since the cool weather started here.  Just gobs of them in the outdoor tub.

Outdoor tubs seem to be all T. californicus now.  They adhere to the sides of the tubs in a ring about 2 inches below the water surface, very densely.  Then there are lots of them in the water column.  Whereas M. salina was the major pod a week or so ago, the weather has gotten quite chilly here, and Tiggers are the only ones visible to the naked eye.

Also, I still have these pods in the refrigerator. They continue living in open bottles with only periodic additions of food and chloramX.  So if you are culturing these guys, put some in the fridge in case of a crash, and you will never run out!
 

i cleared out one of the tubs this past weekend.  It was full of tigger pods. I got most of them as they were sitting on the sides of the tubs, not so much in the cold water. I left my filter in the bucket with the pods, and the next day the tiggers were grasping at the filter cloth and snuggled into every edge and crevice. I guess they really get benthic when cold.
 

I wish I would have read this when you got me that start. I lost them all. Hopefully I'll be able to start up another culture soon.

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

The get far less active below 60 F. but more so due to metabolism and less so to "being benthic".  Their splash pools are very cold in winter and they do just fine.  The only thing that really effects their wild population numbers is the tidal and storm activity.  Our tides are greater on the west coast in the winter and when you add storms onto that, the splash pools can get a lot of action.  In the summer the pools can go days to weeks seeing no wave action.  Amazingly hardy creatures!!!
 
Funny, the urban legend is they need to be cold to breed :lol:  We've found to get the greatest culture density, it's best to keep them at reef tank temps!

RGR, I still have gobs of them. Call me.
 

awesome will do! I'm going to try to head up that way soon. I may be able to talk the gf into doing it Sunday lol

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

I finally cleared out the fridge cultures, since I have about 5 containers already that are full of T. cali. There were still some twitchers in there, alive for 6 months at 4C.
 
Santa brought me a microscope, so there are some new pix:
40x.  This one has eggs:
Head portion

Tail portion with eggs:  

 
RGRKing: did you get some new tigers? Ihave plenty to share.
 
 
 
 
 

no, I'll hit you up next time I'm up if it's ok. Everything else is looking great!
 
I can't believe they stayed alive for so long in the fridge. That's great!

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

and what kind of microscope did you get?

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

The ever popular Celestron!

I still have a bucket with about 1-2 gallons of the outdoor cuture in my basement now.  They are orange tiggriopus, but I thnk that there are some M. salina in there. Not sure. I've been feeding them to my clownfish larvae, and its fun to see them while the clownfish are so tiny, and the pods are so big, and then one day those pods are all gone...
I also have a couple of jars of tiggers mixed with M. salina. They definately boom and bust.  It seems like they take turns populating the jars, and then crashing. Then the other species comes back.

Are you still running these? I'm about to place an order for some but was just curious if you were still feeding your clowns these?