Copepod Culture
- Thread starter drawman
- Start date
I'm about to do this as well, I would love to see some set ups. What has worked what has not?
My plan is a ten GAL or smaller , no heater(room temp), A small wood air stone and pump. And lots of phyto.
On the tiger pods bottle it lays it out.
I was thinking about using some cheato and a clip on light as well?
I dont think the pods need light but the cheato may help the watter quality?
Any one else?
My plan is a ten GAL or smaller , no heater(room temp), A small wood air stone and pump. And lots of phyto.
On the tiger pods bottle it lays it out.
I was thinking about using some cheato and a clip on light as well?
I dont think the pods need light but the cheato may help the watter quality?
Any one else?
jglackin
New member
I have seen a professional operation for raising phyto, pods, and mysids.
Here's what Reed's says about how to culture copepods:
Directions for Culturing in a Stand Alone Container
Culture vessel. This can be anything such as a 5 or 10 gallon aquarium, Tupperware container, etc. that holds water. Deep containers or carboys are not suggested.
Culture water. You will need some freshly mixed clean seawater, or you can use a natural seawater product such as Catalina water. Do not use water from an existing aquarium or culture as this will contaminate your attempt to start a new culture of copepods. A specific gravity of 1.020 to 1.025 for this strain of copepod is suggested.
Small air pump, air stone, and airline tubing.
Cover to keep dust and contaminants out and evaporation down.
A food source, such as Phyto-Feastâ"žÂ¢ phytoplankton.
Fill your container half to two-thirds full with the clean seawater. Attach the airline and air stone to the air pump. Put the air stone in the culture vessel, and plug in the air pump. Make sure you use a drip loop and check valve to keep water from getting into your pump and electrical outlet. Add a small amount of Phyto-Feastâ"žÂ¢ to lightly color the culture water. Do not add too much, or the water will foul. Add your new copepod culture, put the lid on, and you are done!
Over the next few weeks, your copepods will reproduce. It may seem at first that they aren't reproducing as fast as you would like, but once they get to a certain population level you will see an "explosion" of copepods in your culture vessel. Feed with Phyto-Feastâ"žÂ¢ as necessary to keep the water lightly tinted, and monitor water quality. Crashes from overfeeding that leads to high ammonia and nitrite are possible, water changes can help if the water quality declines too much.
To harvest your copepods, a plankton collector/strainer of some sort is very helpful. You can siphon your copepods through the collector, insuring that when you feed them to your aquarium you are only adding copepods, not culture water. Make sure you do not dip your strainer in the copepod culture, and then in your aquarium, and then back in your culture vessel without cleaning it first. Likewise, keep siphon tubing and other equipment you use on your culture separate from equipment you use in your aquariums or larval tanks to avoid contamination. While you can always buy another batch of Tigger-Podsâ"žÂ¢ should your culture crash, you can avoid that frustration by not sharing equipment between different systems!
Here's what Reed's says about how to culture copepods:
Directions for Culturing in a Stand Alone Container
Culture vessel. This can be anything such as a 5 or 10 gallon aquarium, Tupperware container, etc. that holds water. Deep containers or carboys are not suggested.
Culture water. You will need some freshly mixed clean seawater, or you can use a natural seawater product such as Catalina water. Do not use water from an existing aquarium or culture as this will contaminate your attempt to start a new culture of copepods. A specific gravity of 1.020 to 1.025 for this strain of copepod is suggested.
Small air pump, air stone, and airline tubing.
Cover to keep dust and contaminants out and evaporation down.
A food source, such as Phyto-Feastâ"žÂ¢ phytoplankton.
Fill your container half to two-thirds full with the clean seawater. Attach the airline and air stone to the air pump. Put the air stone in the culture vessel, and plug in the air pump. Make sure you use a drip loop and check valve to keep water from getting into your pump and electrical outlet. Add a small amount of Phyto-Feastâ"žÂ¢ to lightly color the culture water. Do not add too much, or the water will foul. Add your new copepod culture, put the lid on, and you are done!
Over the next few weeks, your copepods will reproduce. It may seem at first that they aren't reproducing as fast as you would like, but once they get to a certain population level you will see an "explosion" of copepods in your culture vessel. Feed with Phyto-Feastâ"žÂ¢ as necessary to keep the water lightly tinted, and monitor water quality. Crashes from overfeeding that leads to high ammonia and nitrite are possible, water changes can help if the water quality declines too much.
To harvest your copepods, a plankton collector/strainer of some sort is very helpful. You can siphon your copepods through the collector, insuring that when you feed them to your aquarium you are only adding copepods, not culture water. Make sure you do not dip your strainer in the copepod culture, and then in your aquarium, and then back in your culture vessel without cleaning it first. Likewise, keep siphon tubing and other equipment you use on your culture separate from equipment you use in your aquariums or larval tanks to avoid contamination. While you can always buy another batch of Tigger-Podsâ"žÂ¢ should your culture crash, you can avoid that frustration by not sharing equipment between different systems!
"Umm fish?"
Premium Member
I use tupperware filled with bioballs. I feed IA every day and siphon off part of the water from each container once a week, replacing the water as a water change. Easy.
Heres an oldy but goodie article for making a 5-10gal copepod growout tank...."podpiles" anyone
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/feb2003/breeder2.htm
I will also agree w/ Andy and mention that cryopastes work well for 'pods, but IME higher density cultures can only be realized if live phytoplanktons are used.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/feb2003/breeder2.htm
I will also agree w/ Andy and mention that cryopastes work well for 'pods, but IME higher density cultures can only be realized if live phytoplanktons are used.
rcmike
Active member
I have a culture set up basically like that. It has been doing very well and I feed my dwarf seahorses almost exclusively with it. It is running a little low since I have had tons of fry in the last few weeks. I put in some phyto and a clamp on light on top and don't do anything special besides change the water every few weeks and add fresh phyto.
Why does my experience never seem to mirror yours? It always seems to boil down to different species have different methods that work best. For what we culture our pastes are what we found best for our commercial production levels.
FWIW "cryopaste" doesn't really apply to IA products any longer (not since 2001 have we offerred that) but rather the glycerine based ones like BSD sells, or like Liquid Life sells.
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Great link!
That is almost the same as what I read. Where are you folks getting your pods to start the culture? I have a bottle of tiger pods showing up tomorrow. One of the reasons I want to use cheato is that I could take some out of my sump and hopefully culture some of those pods as well?
So no air stone? Large bubbles are ideal?
The two cultures in one tank leads me to believe that they crash often? What do you folk think that are doing this?
(edit) Is it me or is there two different story's? One about "cross contamination is bad, And the other saying "No problems." This interests me very much, I want to culture more than one type of pod in the same tank. (Tiger pods+ what ever I can get out of my tank) I have read a diet of one type of pod is no good.
RC Mike Do you culture your own Phyto as well? What wattage light do you use?
I love your pick! What kit is that? I got a few as well, Evo 90, and Shuttle ZXX (trainer).
That is almost the same as what I read. Where are you folks getting your pods to start the culture? I have a bottle of tiger pods showing up tomorrow. One of the reasons I want to use cheato is that I could take some out of my sump and hopefully culture some of those pods as well?
So no air stone? Large bubbles are ideal?
The two cultures in one tank leads me to believe that they crash often? What do you folk think that are doing this?
(edit) Is it me or is there two different story's? One about "cross contamination is bad, And the other saying "No problems." This interests me very much, I want to culture more than one type of pod in the same tank. (Tiger pods+ what ever I can get out of my tank) I have read a diet of one type of pod is no good.
RC Mike Do you culture your own Phyto as well? What wattage light do you use?
I love your pick! What kit is that? I got a few as well, Evo 90, and Shuttle ZXX (trainer).
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We use very little aerition with the Tigger-Pods.
I've run Tiggers in with 'pods from my tank in co-culture situations and had great success while I ran the cultures(dense cultures). I also did a brine shrimp/Tigger co-culture that ran VERY dense for the several months I kept up with feeding it.
I've run Tiggers in with 'pods from my tank in co-culture situations and had great success while I ran the cultures(dense cultures). I also did a brine shrimp/Tigger co-culture that ran VERY dense for the several months I kept up with feeding it.
Cheato works great with them but we don't use it. I do know of several using cheato and they really like it for ammonia uptake and what not. Don't bubble throw it though and don't bubble off the bottom. Try to keep the bubbles free from hitting surfaces as IME it kicks in thier natural instinct to cling and crowd like they do in tidepools with a wave crashing in.
Our BPM won't help you, we use O2. For mine own cultures I used 1/16" rigid airline and had the bubbles going like 1 BPS (1 per second)
I all ready answerred the live vs. condensed....we use Instant Algae paste, and Phyto-Feast Concentrate..so condensed
Our BPM won't help you, we use O2. For mine own cultures I used 1/16" rigid airline and had the bubbles going like 1 BPS (1 per second)
I all ready answerred the live vs. condensed....we use Instant Algae paste, and Phyto-Feast Concentrate..so condensed
Thanks for the good info. That is along the lines of what I was thinking BPM/BPS wise.
What are your thoughts on cross contamination/ using cheato out of my DT fuge?
Thanks on the phyto question, I was not sure what those foods/ names were.
Light thoughts?
Why do you NOT use Cheato?
Sorry for all the questions, I'm just stoked about starting a new project!
Cant wait for my tiger pods to show up.
What are your thoughts on cross contamination/ using cheato out of my DT fuge?
Thanks on the phyto question, I was not sure what those foods/ names were.
Light thoughts?
Why do you NOT use Cheato?
Sorry for all the questions, I'm just stoked about starting a new project!
Cant wait for my tiger pods to show up.
We employee other methods of filtatrion with our water and since we have over 1.5+ million gallons of seawater in production at our facility; doing water changes isn't much of a chore 
Try to knock all the pods off the cheato and put it into a culture with out any pods for a while. If you don't see any running around you shuold be fine. Other copepods aren't any trouble but a mysid or amphipod could cause some problems. Another method I won't go into much detail as it's not something I would do is you could use a small dose of Interceptor in a seperate tank(heart worm medication - red bug treatment) for a couple hours and then do remove the cheato from that water all together. I wouldn't ad any pods to that cheato tank for a few days though just in case the cheato uptook some of the medication. I'm not a DVM, scientist or marine biologist and I don't play one of TV so I'm going to keep me answer to that.
Try to knock all the pods off the cheato and put it into a culture with out any pods for a while. If you don't see any running around you shuold be fine. Other copepods aren't any trouble but a mysid or amphipod could cause some problems. Another method I won't go into much detail as it's not something I would do is you could use a small dose of Interceptor in a seperate tank(heart worm medication - red bug treatment) for a couple hours and then do remove the cheato from that water all together. I wouldn't ad any pods to that cheato tank for a few days though just in case the cheato uptook some of the medication. I'm not a DVM, scientist or marine biologist and I don't play one of TV so I'm going to keep me answer to that.
jglackin
New member
I use the Reed's nanno paste for raising my rotifers, I plan to use the same for my pods. Raising phyto is far too involved. Especially when you can buy a bag of paste, that will last you a long time, for something like $70.
As far as brine shrimp and copepods in the same culture, I have been told that artemia will eat copepod larvae quite aggressively.
I am going to take a 20 long, divide it into 3 sections, and raise three different species of pods. 2 harpacticoid species and one calanoid species. The two harpacticoid species are already in my fuge. I will pick up the calanoid species from Inland Aquatics.
As far as brine shrimp and copepods in the same culture, I have been told that artemia will eat copepod larvae quite aggressively.
I am going to take a 20 long, divide it into 3 sections, and raise three different species of pods. 2 harpacticoid species and one calanoid species. The two harpacticoid species are already in my fuge. I will pick up the calanoid species from Inland Aquatics.
