Culture Journal, Species: Brachionus plicatilis (saltwater rotifer)

General
Species:  Brachionus plicatilis (saltwater rotifer)  
Species description:  saltwater zooplankton >53µ
Culture source (link if possible): 
If algae, CCMP # (Optional): 
http://ccmp.bigelow.edu/
Culture Establishment Date:  4/06/2013
Continuation Date:  90 days as of 7/4/2013

Culturing Vessel Details
Salinity:  1.021-1.024
Temperature:  76°F to 81° F
pH:  8.1 ± 0.2

Vessel description:  2 5g buckets one with a compact culture system (CCS) from Reed mariculture, and the second is a DIY make shift floss filter that works similar to the CCS. 
Lighting description: none, inside a cabinet.    
Lighting cycle:  none, inside a cabinet
Aeration description:  single rigid tubing, medium to rapid flow

Methodologies
Split methodology: 
3 sieves a night (fed to reef tank), roughly 2100 mL passed through a 53 micron sieve. 
Then once a week take down to 50% culture (freeze into cubes after 6-8 hrs enrichment in selco, for future use) 

Culture medium description:   RotigrowPlus as needed to keep water 'green' tinted. 


Cell count: Best guess is 15+ roti's per mL 

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.

Ok, well although this culture was started forever ago, I thought I would finally put a journal together and document it.  
 
I first received a starter of rotifer L strain from another hobbyist on April 6th, 2013... since then I have continued the culture. 
 
5g white bucket with rotifer starter along with Nanno paste for feeds as needed to keep the water tinted green (tend to keep rather dark). In the beginning I only used nanno paste from Brine Shrimp Direct...but found this to really mucky up the water a bunch. So I switched to growing my own...and in turn found that was 'cleaner' for the sake of the culture water. However in my limited space I have observed a continual shortage of sufficiently dense cultures to sustain the amount of rotifers needed for clownfish fry. 
 
So now I am trying Reed Maricultures Rotigrow Plus product line to see how well this does. (always heard good things, so I thought i'd give it a shot!)...
 
 
 

Here is the toy 'chest' they are grow in. Live Nanno cultures along the back, Live brine shrimp culture on the right, and live saltwater rotifer culture on the left.  

Attached Image(s)

 

Brachionus plicatilis (saltwater rotifer) under 100x magnification with an AmScope microscope with an SCMOS MD35 Microscope camera. 
 

here is a quick video shot... of a very nice active culture!
 
https://www.facebook.com/...0151754203126323 

does anybody know how to put  a video directly on this page... it's not working... I always have to put links to videos. 

Click the YouTube icon on the right and paste the url from the top or theYouTube page the video is on.

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

can you only do you tube video's though? surely there's another route...via my facebook video links?

You can try using the embed code...

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

Here is where I keep all my chicken scratch notes!  
 
You can see the rotifer info on the far left... starting up cultures, splits, new or different lighting... etc. 

Rotifers after a water change today... nice clean culture now! happy, happy, happy! This time I did a 100% water change because it had been a while.  yucky old water... whew! But we are all good now! Look how pretty that greenwater is! 

Did a 100% water change (actually switched buckets) and a culture density check today. They are looking good, still going strong. Since I have a back  2 back up cultures and 2 5g buckets, I am just installed 
 
Just installed a Reed Mariculture compact culture kit on one of my 5g bucket cultures to see how this goes. Will keep this updated. (Here is the link to their kit for a description of the product) http://apbreed.com/product_compact_culture_system.php so we will see how this does! (thank you for showing me this Chad) 
 

 

 

 

 
 
Let's see how dirty these filters get!?!!?!?!

LOVE LOVE LOVE these compact culture systems (CCS)... I will be ordering some for all my cultures to try them on. Not only do they look good but super easy to work with. Happy Happy Happy! 
 
This culture is going stronger than ever! I am harvesting nightly or up to 4-5 times a week. sometimes skipping a day every now and again. They are very vibrant fast young healthy clean looking population. Nothing like my old populations used to be when I did reef tank water exchange as part of their nightly harvest. This has been a huge difference in my opinion, totally worth it! 
 
 
 

Ok. Since I have no babies to feed roti's to right now I thought I would post my 'off-season' maintenance regimen. 
 
-Feed 1-2 mL of Nannochloropsis paste (glycerin free) from BSD, every 2-3 days as needed to keep bucket a nice green color! FOUND HERE!
-Floss filtration rinsed every daily (when remembered) but usually about every 2-3 days consistently! Still using the CCS for this. FOUND HERE!
-Pulling 3/4 gallon out (with rotifers) to keep population in check every few days (feed to 90g reef tank)
-Rotifers are sieved and given a 100% water change every 10-14 days.