Ciliates?

Has anyone ever tried culturing these/know a source to buy some? I plan on culturing them for my pelagic spawners, since ciliates were used, but don't know quite where to start a culture from....I plan on checking my sumps when I get back home and see if there are any in there that I could use, but any other help/information you guys could give me would be wonderful! Do they eat algae like other zooplankton? Or do I need a special "helper" along the way like diatoms do?
 
 
Thanks,
 
 
Amph

Have you checked your other cultures, especially a culture that has crashed or nearly crashed?  I found Euplotes in my not-so-well rotifer cultures.  You could let some of that completely crash out them, and take some of that water, put in a new container and try for just ciliates that way....

Hope this reply isn't too late.  If you want to get ciliates just take any type of junk from any aquarium and put it in a dark container with something like a few grains of wheat, some flour, a piece of cat food.  In a week or two you will have lots of ciliates.

I have a vacation planned to the outer banks of NC this summer (hooray!), and wonder if it worthwhile to collect some wild pods? Is there a reasonable chance that I could start a culture of something useful, or would it more likely be a mixed mess that eventually goes down th drain? If anyone has any experience doing this let me know.

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Endrio, I have a GREAT deal of experience collecting useful things from the coast, bringing them home to culture then watching them all die into a mass of stink.  In fact, I consider myself a leading expert.
 
Bring a pillowcase or a filter sock if you want to collect copepods.  It takes 15-20 minutes while up to your knees in the surf but I always get dozens to hundreds of copepods like that.  You'll get more calanoids during the day and more harpacticoids at night.  If you go to a brackish place like where a river empties into the ocean you'll get a lot of variety.
 
You can make a wire hoop and attach the pillowcase or filter sock to a broomstick.  My wife always has extra broomsticks lying around but don't tell her I said that.  Pillowcases are actually kind of bulky to handle and you'll get plenty of copepods with a filter sock.