Culture Journal, Species: Tigriopus californicus

General
Species:  Tigriopus californicus
Species description:  Harpacticoid copepod
Culture source (link if possible):  Reed Mariculture
If algae, CCMP # (Optional): 
http://ccmp.bigelow.edu/
Culture Establishment Date:  5/29/13, reestablished 5/10/14
Continuation Date: 

Culturing Vessel Details
Salinity:  1.023
Temperature:    ambient room temp, approx 70-73 degrees F
pH:  not measured

Vessel description:  1 gallon plastic basin
Lighting description:  Ambient lighting from adjacent tank & overhead room lights
Lighting cycle:  Tank lights on about 12 hours, off 12 hours
Aeration description:  none

Methodologies
Split methodology:

Culture medium description: 
Cutlure started with new salt water, and tinted light green with some RotiGrow Complete, and live nanno that I culture.
Cell count:
 (if known)

Reference links:  

Additional Information
(No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please)
Notes:  few small pieces of live rock in the basin, one holding the airline tube down with rubberband



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Just received my shipment from Reed Mariculture today.  Here's the open box (with the bag of rotifers removed).

 
And the culture basin

 
Having never raised copepods, I need some imput on my green tint...  too much, too little?
 

 
Here's a short video of the pods straight out of the shipping box.... very active even cold!
http://www.youtube.com/embed/U3D8dZr1v4c
(I can't recall how to insert Youtube videos    )
 

 
***  Video embedding seems to be working now 

tint is fine, but clear we've found to be the worst "color" of culture vessel, most likely due to their flight mechanism
 
For the video, in the reply box, look to the top of it and all the way to the last right infographic (youtube graphic).
 
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U3D8dZr1v4c[/video] (bursts of light make them scatter)
 
Ugh, guess I fail at the video embedding as well :lol:
 

Unfortunately I think my tigger pods have died out. I haven't seen any signs of life in their bucket for about a week now. I had moved them to a simple 2 gallon gray bucket so they weren't in a clear container anymore. Seemed like they did ok for about 3 weeks them took a nose dive.... Any suggestions to sieve the water, etc, and try a restart from the sediment?

That is odd. I leave a culture in my garage for months during the winter with no feeding at all and I still have enough in the spring to start over.

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

Take two with the tigriopes, hopefully will have more success this time. Starter culture obtained today (thanks again Daniel!), and placed in small plastic container, about 3/4 gallon. Very small amount of live phyto added, almost no tint to the water. No direct aeration. Last time I may have fed and aerated too much, from what I have read and been told by others. Everyone still insists triggers are nearly indestructible.... Let's hope so! Once these have shown me they will live, I'll split into larger containers, maybe even an outdoor tub.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken

Been a long time since I've updated this journal. The new starter I got from Daniel sputtered along and I thought it died out. So I poured it into my brine shrimp bucket (a continuous culture). Over the ensuing months I noticed some really fast moving little critters in with the brine shrimp, and was able to catch some, which turned out to be the tiggers. So my brine shrimp bucket is like the waste can in my fish room for leftover phyto, and seldom gets much attention. Today I decided to clean the bucket, probably has been 4-5 months since last time. The amount of crud in the bottom was unbelievable (well, actually very believable given how long it's been neglected). The brine shrimp have been thriving. After letting the debris settle for a couple of hours, I poured of the water through a 250 micron mesh to place back in a clean bucket. After holding my breath, I closely looked at the sludge from the bottom, and found it to be crawling with life! Tons of tiggers, and the slower moving juvenile brine shrimp were everywhere. I decided to check the SG of the water (I hadn't been testing this for months) and found it to be 1.040!!! So now I'm starting to believe these trigger pods are pretty bulletproof, and that neglect suites them best (at least for me)! I separated out a ton of tiggers with a few brine shrimp, to start a "pure" culture (I'll remove theshrimp as they grow) and will titratevthe SG down to around 1.025 over the next week or two. I took a short video of a corner of the sludge showing the activity. Good thing the smell doesn't come across!  
 
https://www.youtube.com/w...Q&feature=youtu.be

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken

Cool to see. I had a milk jug of them that survived on the workbench in my garage from April to late October until it started getting too cold. They survived in the debris on the bottom which was the crud from a larger culture sieved down to the gallon size. Amazing little things!