Anyone culturing pods?

[Fryman]

I've been raising phyto for awhile (Nannochloropsis & tetraselmis) & dosing that into my tank. I know that I should be using T. Iso as well, but I couldn't get that phyto culture to work.

Since I have tons of phyto left over, recently I started trying to culture copepods as well. The reason is that I haven't seen as many copepods on the glass as I used to & don't see ANY amphipods anymore. I have a mandarin & while she still looks healthy I want to make sure she stays well fed. Also I make about a gallon of phyto a week, and that's too much for my 90gal display but I don't want to just throw it away

I started my initial copepod culture attempt w/ 3 diff species from ReefPods: Pseudodiaptomus, "Tangerine" & Tisbe. I put them in a 5 gal bucket with a heater & aeration, then fed w/ phyto every few days. I've been doing this for a few months now. I don't see the larger pods anymore, so I'm thinking only the Tisbe may be left? If I run a 120 micron sieve through the bucket I catch a bunch of "wiggly things", but the 250micron one gets nothing. I would think adult copepods should be captured by the 250micron sieve, but that doesn't seem to be the case. So maybe I somehow got contaminated w/ rotifers? Whatever it is definately eats the phyto & is reproducing.

Assuming I wound up w/ a rotifer culture somehow, I don't think it hurts to feed rotifers into my tank (extra food for my coral) but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble. Aren't rotifers too small for a mandarin? If it's Tisbe I don't think I'm getting many adults & don't know why.

Possibly I have Tisbe & just don't see the adults? There's a ton of crap in the bottom of the bucket, so maybe the adults just hide out there. I need a better system to filter out the crap left over at the bottom (maybe a bigger sieve?).

My goal is to make sure I have sufficient pods for my mandarin. Long term, I also want to get her a male companion, but I'm afraid my 90 gal won't be able to sustain 2 mandarins. A side benefit would be supplementary food for my coral (mostly LPS w/ a few SPS specimens).

Any suggestions? Basically I'm debating if a pod culture is worthwhile, and if so what species I should be using. Should I try culturing amphipods instead? I don't see any amphipods in my tank anymore. I have no idea why that is, I used to see them all the time.

Thanks for any input!

 

[Cirenus]

I culture amphipods and tigriopus C pods. My mandarin would eat both, when I went to feed him tigriopus C i had to use a turkey baster and baste them right in front of him. (They are hard for them to catch otherwise) Culturing both of these types of pods is extremely easy. Tisbe are also generally pretty easy if you meet there requirements ( small piece of LR, bubbler, food, tisbe don't really need light )

 

[dartier]

I am also very curious about culturing pods. I don't have any livestock that requires them, but it makes sense that a healthy food chain would be beneficial to the higher level organisms in the tank (fish, coral).

While surfing around, I ran across a video series from IPSF called "nano lagoon" on Youtube, which is a very simple DIY project for a nano tank for beginners using ultra cheap materials. After watching that, it gave me some ideas. A small pod only tank could be setup very cheaply, with the nutrient export being pods. Just like I use an ATS on my main tank to export nutrients bound in GHA, the nutrients from the pod tank would be the pods themselves. Instead of monitoring the PO4 and NO3 to make sure they are low enough, the pod tank would need monitoring to make sure they are high enough.

What I am thinking of would be very similar to the tank in this http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=21540337&postcount=10 post.

Dennis

 

[Cirenus]

Makes sense, and the setup would be easy. For mine i just put a small piece of LR (baseball sized) some chaeto, some filter floss pads, a heater, and some water movement. They reproduce like crazy in my tank with daily feedings.

 

[dartier]

Wow, I completely forgot about this thread and only found it while googling for info on Pod culturing.

As it turned out, I started culturing Nitokra lacustris shortly after posting this. I did not go with a nano lagoon like I mention above, though after stumbling on this thread it has me thinking, instead I went with plastic shoebox trays. I got the idea of using the trays from the The Big Fish Bang article by Adelaide Rhodes. I also used the Modified Moe's Media from the paper which is a DIY replacement food instead of live algae (though I did culture Nanno as well).

My trays are still growing with no crashes even though life has pulled my attention away for long periods of time (like weeks ).

Things have went so well that I added Tigiorpus californicus and Tisbe biminiensis cultures this week. Time will tell if they are as easy as N. lacustris.

Dennis

 

[Fail_sh3d]

My trays are still growing with no crashes even though life has pulled my attention away for long periods of time (like weeks ).

Things have went so well that I added Tigiorpus californicus and Tisbe biminiensis cultures this week. Time will tell if they are as easy as N. lacustris.

Dennis

Dennis, do you happen to have any pics of the setup? I would love to see what it all looks like, as I have been thinking of setting up something similar.

I'm glad to hear things went well!

 

[dartier]

Well I can post a photo, but it is not that impressive looking.

Here are the 4 cultures I have setup right now. For the moment arranged in a Jenga style. I will be moving them onto a wire shelf in the near future. The 2 bottom ones are Nitokra lacustris that have been running since early June. The upper front 1 is Tigiorpus californicus and the uppoer back is Tisbe biminiensis.

The bright light behind them is an 50W LED light box with phyto cultures. The light coming into the pod trays is just the reflection coming through the heatsinks.

I tried to take some photos of the actual pods for you, but it was futile. So I got out my $24.99 USB microscope to record some video. I am sure after watching the result you will agree that the quality makes you think I spent at least $30 on the microscope

These are the Tigiorpus californicus culture. They are quite large and easy to record.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J7x3BAScy8


These are one of the Nitokra lacustris cultures. They are quite a bit smaller than the Tigiorpus and to make matters worse, this culture has a lot of nauplii. In fact almost all the pods you see in the video are napulii about the size of a grain of sand with even smaller ones showing up as black dots. You can get an idea of their size when you see an adult go swimming by at 0:50.

The field of view is about the size of your baby finger nail.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvx-MUv8r9g

Anyway that is my Pod cultures in all their ... ahem ...glory

Dennis

 

[dartier]

Lets see if I can post a working video ...

These are the Tigiorpus

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/rvx-MUv8r9g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

... and these are the Nitokra..

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4J7x3BAScy8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Dennis

 

[SavingOurSeas]

This is great!! I'm planning on culturing several species of foods in the future when I have the time/less on my list of to do.
Thanks for sharing, it's always a pleasure to tag along with someone's experience.

 

[dkeller_nc]

By the way, guys - the filter material of choice for concentrating zooplankton and sorting it for size (if that's desired) is Nitex. Nitex is a precision-woven cloth made of nylon, and it is available in a very large number of mesh sizes. It's not particularly cheap, but it lasts a long, long time. I'm still using a 10" square piece that I started with about 6 months ago, and it sees at least weekly use. I simply wash it out with hand dishwashing soap, rinse it very thoroughly, and let it dry.

Nitex, by the way, is the material generally employed to make commercial/scientific plankton nets of very specific sizes.

I obtained mine through different means, but here's one source that sells most of the available mesh sizes (note the "ends and short pieces link):

http://www.dynamicaqua.com/nitex.html

 

[Fury165]

I've been raising phyto for awhile (Nannochloropsis & tetraselmis) & dosing that into my tank. I know that I should be using T. Iso as well, but I couldn't get that phyto culture to work.

Since I have tons of phyto left over, recently I started trying to culture copepods as well. The reason is that I haven't seen as many copepods on the glass as I used to & don't see ANY amphipods anymore. I have a mandarin & while she still looks healthy I want to make sure she stays well fed. Also I make about a gallon of phyto a week, and that's too much for my 90gal display but I don't want to just throw it away

I started my initial copepod culture attempt w/ 3 diff species from ReefPods: Pseudodiaptomus, "Tangerine" & Tisbe. I put them in a 5 gal bucket with a heater & aeration, then fed w/ phyto every few days. I've been doing this for a few months now. I don't see the larger pods anymore, so I'm thinking only the Tisbe may be left? If I run a 120 micron sieve through the bucket I catch a bunch of "wiggly things", but the 250micron one gets nothing. I would think adult copepods should be captured by the 250micron sieve, but that doesn't seem to be the case. So maybe I somehow got contaminated w/ rotifers? Whatever it is definately eats the phyto & is reproducing.

Assuming I wound up w/ a rotifer culture somehow, I don't think it hurts to feed rotifers into my tank (extra food for my coral) but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble. Aren't rotifers too small for a mandarin? If it's Tisbe I don't think I'm getting many adults & don't know why.

Possibly I have Tisbe & just don't see the adults? There's a ton of crap in the bottom of the bucket, so maybe the adults just hide out there. I need a better system to filter out the crap left over at the bottom (maybe a bigger sieve?).

My goal is to make sure I have sufficient pods for my mandarin. Long term, I also want to get her a male companion, but I'm afraid my 90 gal won't be able to sustain 2 mandarins. A side benefit would be supplementary food for my coral (mostly LPS w/ a few SPS specimens).

Any suggestions? Basically I'm debating if a pod culture is worthwhile, and if so what species I should be using. Should I try culturing amphipods instead? I don't see any amphipods in my tank anymore. I have no idea why that is, I used to see them all the time.

Thanks for any input!

I just started culturing Tisbe and Tigger pods (seperate culture containers) to provide my Mandarin with live food source. My research led me to some threads on other forums that indicate the pods really need brown phyto (Isochrysis)

..
They feed primarily on brown microalgae and can be fed products such as Phyto-Feast. They can also feed on green algae such as Nannochloropsis and Tetraselmis, however most of these algae will pass right through their digestive tracts and not provide any nutrition.

The home brew Phytoplankton i've been using is pretty much useless in the raw form but may still provide some nutrition when it breaks down and decomposes.

So I've switched to Phytofeast which has Isochrysis and people have had great sucess using it. You also only need a small amount to feed the cultures daily (drops!) I've only switched 5 days ago, but I swear that the population has exploded since then.

 

[MondoBongo]

this is awesome guys!

i've just started culturing greenwater and pods to supplement my mandy.

my main question is what salinity do you use? i used the article over at Melev's reef that suggested 2.5% salinity for my green water cultures, and i went with the same for my pods. gradually allowing it to drift a little over time with evaporation to be closer to my tank salinity.

my main concern now being shocking the pods if the salinity is too far off when i go to move them to my tank.