Just a bit confused

I've been looking over the class stuff again as I've been a bit behind. Are we culturing the OM to feed the Apocyclops? What do we feed the Ap while the OM is ramping up, or do they reproduce that quickly? Trying to get this straight in my head before tomorrow. 

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Yes, the OM is food for the Apocyclops. The copepods will take a week or two of starvation (though it'll be better if you can feed them, of course). The OM can be doubled in water volume at least every twelve hours (8 is probably fine, too), so you can ramp them up to full cultures in just a couple of days. In the meantime, if you have any live algae you can give it to the copepods. Or, you can just wait 'til the dinos are going well.

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

I might be wrong but I'm thinking if you've got Iso the 'pods will happily munch that to tide them over?
 

Thanks, I did a little digging around and found what I needed. I don't have any Iso but I'll figure it out.

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Mine did not do so well over 3 days of MACNA non feeding.  A panamensis, i mean. It may have been related to ammonia production, but I am not sure. The culture may have just consumed all the ciliates and then crashed because i am not giving it enough O marina.
 
I am trying to restart the culture, but I may just separate some out of my multi pod culture outside.
 

I was surprised when I saw that, Kathy.  I've cleaned up rotifers out of an Apocyclops culture using about 1-2 weeks of starvation before!  Truth be told, my stock cultures of Apocyclops consist of several Erlenmeyer flasks of various sizes (250 ml, 500 ml, and 1000 ml) sitting on a shelf with no aeration, usually filled almost to the top.  I do tend to feed them live C-Iso regularly, but have gotten sloppy and left them for days before with no ill effects.  In fact, when we went on vacation in July, we were gone for a whole week, and I didn't have the house/dog/fish sitter do anything with those cultures -- I just fed them well before leaving.
 
Perhaps the fact that I'm feeding mine live phyto makes them better able to endure starvation?

How'd things go, Kathy?

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

 
 
It had been a very robust culture, pretty dense.  I could see the copepods with a flashlight pretty well. I also know that there were ciliates mixed in.  I was trying to culture the ciliates seperately, and they crashed just before MACNA. I suspect that the ciliates in the panamensis culture crashed as well.  I suspect that the panamensis were eating ciliates, and when the ciliates went away, they all starved and died, or else the ammonia level from the dead ciliate bodies killed the panamensis.
 
I think the ciliates were eating a bacterial bloom in both jars.  The jars were noticably cloudy when everything was growing strong, clear after the crash. Lots of detritus.
 
There are still some twitchers in there.  I've been feeding them O. marina and Andy's mix. Trying to keep the water reasonably clean. I think panamensis will recover. No ciliates, though.
 
Meanwhile I have an outdoor culture that's doing OK and an indoor bucket on the floor with every pod in it, and brine shrimp, too.  Actually, brine shrimp survived the intense summer heat, when nothing else did!
 

I had a question, figured I'd put it in Tal's confusion thread.
 
In the O. marina culture manual, the bucket boy, I mean Andy advises to
 
What do I do with the bits that get captured in the sieve?  Flush them or put them back into the O. marina culture?

like Jish said... deposit... NO refunds  -thejrc

I flush them out into the sink. It's just detritus and gunk you don't really want in the culture anyway.

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

That was my thought as well....

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Thanks Andy, I flushed it but wasn't sure if I should have.

like Jish said... deposit... NO refunds  -thejrc

Next question: When doing periodic straining through a 27 micron sieve will the O. marina pass through that as well? I'm assuming so. What micron mesh would be needed to sieve for the O. marina?

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

O. marina are typically about 15 microns wide x 30 microns long. 
 

Yes, and I don't ever sieve for O. marina.
 
Or even the Irish version: O'Marina (which was how I typed it the first time for some reason). I need to go to sleep. Unfortunately, the entire house (not me, yet) is puking right now. Sigh.

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