Culture Journal, Species: Tisbe biminiensis

General
Species:  Tisbe biminiensis
Species description:  Small harpacticoid copepod
Culture source (link if possible):  http://www.seahorsesource...p/detail.cgi?id=201220
If algae, CCMP # (Optional): 
http://ccmp.bigelow.edu/
Culture Establishment Date:  12/28/2012
Continuation Date:  2/17/2013

Culturing Vessel Details
Salinity:  1.025
Temperature:    Ambient, around 70 ° F
pH:  Not Measured

Vessel description:  5 Gallon Bucket
Lighting description:  None
Lighting cycle:  None
Aeration description:  A bubbler set at max

Methodologies
Split methodology:
Every day, ranging from 1q on Sunday through Friday, and 10q + on Saturdays
Culture medium description: 
1:6 drop ratio per gallon with RGComplete (1) and N-Rich PL Plus (6) once per day
Cell count:
 (if known)

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.

Might as well update this after a LONG time, so I ended up keeping the ratio for 3 months. I have raised and produced a decent sized culture with the RGComplete and the N-Rich +. Now the N-Rich isn't necessary, I use it to make the pods "more healthier" and give them supplements in a way to make them more nutritious.

As for measuring the density of the culture, I use a test tube, stick it in the culture and then shine a flashlight underneath the test tube, and try and estimate the amount of copepods in it. Like, "I believe there are around 100 adults in here, so I can guestamate that there is around 100 pods per 30ml of culture water", etc.

Thanks for updating the journal, appreciate it.   Do you mind a couple questions?  You indicated that you have the bubbler on max, I take it its a fairly high boil?  Would you be willing to take a pic and post it?
 
How dark do you make the culture when you add the algae?
 
You indicated the n-rich isn't necessary, do you think it was in the beginning?
 
Has it ever crashed on you, or has it been consistent?
 
Thanks again, appreciate it.
 
john

So I've changed a few things throughout my process, instead of bubbling at the max, it's now 1-2 bubbles per second. It hasn't crashed on me. I don't usually do a color when I add the RGComplete, I use a ratio of one drop per gallon. I don't believe the n-rich was necessary in the beginning, I just used it for enriching them.

Thanks, appreciate all the help.
 
John

 
I'm just wondering if you do anything special to get your sample numbers.  There seem to be way more of my tisbe hanging on the sides/bottom of my culture vessel that freely swimming.  So if I just took a sample by dipping in a test tube, I would get a false number.  Am I not catching something?
 
Thanks!

Ah yes, I made a brainfart and forgot that tisbe is a dimersal species of copepod. Just give me a few hours to get back to you so I can explain it better

Wow, guess I never got back to you sorry! So what I do is I stir up the culture first, then I use the density method. Now this is NOT accurate 100%, but it's helpful when you have a bunch of these guys sitting at the bottom!

Do you still have these guys in culture using the methods outlined? Have you changed anything?

Yes and no, I realized that A.) They took over my tigger culture (My Fault) and B.) I used the same container for my tiggers, as seen here: http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?m=851824
Another thing is that that container, it did not work well with dimersal
copepods, so I moved to a 6 gallon plastic container. Also, I ran out of n-rich and am just using a mix of RG, isochrysis, and tetraselmis now

Another update, so before I said that they "took over my trigger culture," well that turns out to be false. They are actually coinciding each other without a dominant pod for some reason, perhaps an abundance of food/space size did the trick? Here is a video of a sample I took for all of you better familiar copepod guys that can help me, is there trigger's and tisbe's I see? or is it just one or the other? Also the video was taken with a celestron 4430 for size reference. My belief as to them coinciding in the culture is look at the antennae of the adults, one is short while the other is long, Tisbe and Trigger
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIpsogaie0M&feature=youtu.be[/video]