Copepod Cultures

[GreshamH]

Mysids are NOT easy to culture, sorry. They take careful daily screening to separate sizes due to high rates cannibalism. They are one of the hardest feed creatures you could attempt to culture for marine aquaria. Do a web search and see how many actually offer truly cultured mysids. I'll save you the effort. There are only two commercial outfits that do it in the US. The only reason they actually can stay in business is most are used by the EPA. Every other company offering them wild collects them. Behind the EPA, we're the largest buyer of them. If they were so easy to deal with we'd be growing them ourselves and not buying them from others.

Your a biology student. Do you feel it's probable life evolves and acclimates to various conditions over time? With an animal with a 100 day or so life cycle do you think after 3 years of growing in a different environment then they naturally grow they might evolve/acclimate to it?

Why are nearly all my copepods in my tank and most I see not benthic but rather pelagic? I've had numerous samples from my tank ID by experts and the majority(2/3) was ID'd as calanoids. Some herpacs were found and even true marine rotifers amongst a few other odd things. FWIW Tigger-Pods are benthic.

Other then that I have little time tonight to continue to go around and around with you I'm no expert, but I work with them on a daily basis and have done so for the last 4 years. It's what I do

 

[jer77]

I never said Mysids are easy to culture, I said they can be but are hard to culture.

I agree with much that you are saying and acknowledge you do have more experience than me in the matter of culturing copepods. I know that copepods are very able to adapt to different environments. I can't say for me that most of the copepods in my tanks are calanoid. They are the smaller, benthic harpacitcoids.

Neverless, I still believe from experience, other people's experiences and from what I have read that Tigger-pods take a little more effort to establish in an aquarium than Tisbe sp. and smaller copepods.

It still can be done successfully, but for someone culturing copepods for the first time all I was saying is harpacticoids will prove to be easier and more successful in the end.

 

[GreshamH]

I apologize if I came off rude or harsh. It was the end of a long week and it got the better of me

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15149186#post15149186 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jer77
....Tigger-pods take a little more effort to establish in an aquarium than Tisbe sp. and smaller copepods.

I don't disagree there. Some report blazing success while others don't do so well with them.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15149186#post15149186 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jer77
It still can be done successfully, but for someone culturing copepods for the first time all I was saying is harpacticoids will prove to be easier and more successful in the end.

For culturing purposes I had to disagree. Most I've spoken with have pretty good success but I won't say there are not those that don't. What I find amazing is middle school kids culture these and have no problem but get them in reefers hands and some report they're really hard or finicky, go figure

I was culturing them at home with artemia. The culture lasted 6 months with about 10 minutes total a week spent on feeding some phyto and an occasional freshwater top off. The artemia boomed and busted while the tigriopus cal. kept gaining in density. Neither ever maxed out in density. I bet they'd have gone on longer but I needed the space for an "ss" rotifer strain I obtained.

 

[seahorsedreams]

We culture both Tigriopus and Tisbe pods (as well as pseudocyclops) All are excellent pods, but we feel the products have a different intended use. The Tigriopus we recommend for target feeding and the tisbes (and Pseudocyclops) for seeding refugiums. The the summer we could not keep the cultures going at the same density in the summer as we could in the winter. It was when we added a chiller to the cultures that the cultures produced consistent numbers.

Tigriopus are TSD (Temperature-dependent sex Determined/ation) and reef temperatures induce masculinization. Eventually more and more males are produced until there are no longer enough females to sustain the population. I'm not saying the next generation will be all male or even that all of the species is affected equally.... but a better choice of copepods are those that love reef temperatures and that would be Tisbe sp.and Pseudocyclops sp.

 

[GreshamH]

What papers I have brought up on that subject show a mere 2% - 5% shift which is not real impact on the population at the rates they breed.

I find it odd we produce tens of thousands and have so for 3 or so years and have not seen what our others claim. It could be how ours is set-up, the feed, culture source, etc. We've never employed chillers on the copepod cultures.

How long have you been working with the one culture and did you collect it yourself?

 

[WaterKeeper]

Yikes Random,

Wow! I hate to step in when the marine biologists are going strong but here is an article Let's Fatten Them Up on the basics of phytoplankton culture. It even delves into the area of growing rotifers that many pods love to eat. The article also gives some links to copepod and mysid culture.

Ok biologists; come out of your corners and resume the fight.

 

[GreshamH]

Mind if I pass that to one of our resident Phycologist (sure he'd peer review for you if you wanted)

I'm not a MB I just work with a load of them and Phycologists. So many post docs around me I don't think I need a degree :lol:

 

[WaterKeeper]

Sure you do; when the heat is on then get--

 

[GreshamH]

"protection for the ride of your life"

What a slogon :lol:

Thanks for the Degree®

 

[fonefone]

GreshamH ... do you ship to canada?

and is the shipping unfeasible? i'm just looking to add some cope life to my 29 biocube

 

[GreshamH]

I'm sorry, I can't answer such a question in an open forum as it is my understanding that is a violation of the UA and I respect RC's rules (I don't want to be banned)

Use my email link.