Culture Journal, Species: Brachionus plicatilis

General
Species:  Brachionus plicatilis
Species description:  L species rotifer
Culture source (link if possible):  Reef Nutrition (Reed Mariculture)
If algae, CCMP # (Optional): 
http://ccmp.bigelow.edu/
Culture Establishment Date:  7 Nov 2012
Continuation Date: 05 Apr 2013

Culturing Vessel Details
Salinity:  1.020 S.G.
Temperature:    65*F
pH:  8.4

Vessel description:  2 gallon ice cream tub
Lighting description:  ambient from nanno culture
Lighting cycle:  12 hr on 12  hr off
Aeration description:  rigid airline  moderate

Methodologies
Split methodology: at this point harvesting for fry and topping up for evaporation
10 Jan 2013 culture was split by taking approx 2 liters of old culture and sieving a further 2 liters.  1 liter of fresh live nannochloropsus was then added.
Culture medium description:  2-3 ml of RotigrowComplete 2x per day
  or 250- 500 ml of live nanno culture.

Cell count: unknown
 

Reference links:  

Additional Information
(No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please)
Notes: 



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.

Some attempts at pictures of rotifers

Attached Image(s)

Here are some slightly better pic of the rotifers

Attached Image(s)

Culture continuation.
Jan 10; Culture appeared to be crashing.(few fast moving rotifer observed by microscope)  My phyto/phyto paste was running short.  So I did a thorough split, 8 liters down to 1 liter, and added the seived rotifers from a further 2-3 liters.  I added 1 liter of fresh live Nannochloropsus and 2 days later the culture appears to be recovering.(via microscope)
 
 
 
edit: disregard date on photo.  the date needs to reset on my microscope the pictures were taken Jan 12 2013.

Attached Image(s)

Nice looking rotifers!  The culture does appear to be doing well now.

After a collapse of both cultures, probably from over population, I've finally got the cultures back to what looks like a healthy state. The cultures cleared enough to require feeding for the first time in about 2 weeks.

When I needed to revive my culture I split it and sieved the waste, adding them to the remaining culture.  (This seems to be my mistake.) When this tactic didn't work, I retrieved the waste that was sitting on the floor (still very green) and checked it for live rotifers. They were present in both cultures.  I cleaned both vessels and floss and refilled them (no new food added)  No improvement. I tested the salinity- it was very high. I diluted both cultures with about 2 liters of RO, doubling the volume. Still no improvement.
Yesterday I harvested 4-6 scoops (4" sieve) out of each culture and today I could see progress.  I fed each culture about 2/3 of a liter of live nanno.
 
edit: my notes from another thread
http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?m=79188

Culture is still alive but I am continuing to have problems getting the density of phyto/RGComplete right.  I am getting too much and then not enough and the tank clears while I am out.  I made the mistake of putting a heater in the tank and most of the water evaporated out before I noticed what was happening.( the house is very dry at this time of year).  The salinity was incredibly high.  Fortunately I have a second tank running as a back up so I have restarted the first tank.