Harpactacoid copepods aren't very hard to culture, especially the T. californicus species that you can buy online. I use tupperware containers that I fill with bioballs since they live on a surface and the bioballs increases the surface area.
I start the culture with only a small amount of water in a largish container so that the algae and the few copepods in there are concentrated. For the first six weeks or so I don't do water changes, but just keep adding a little water to try to control ammonia. By the time I've filled the container, it's usually time that I can start harvesting. I place a 53 micron screen in another tupperware that fits around it pretty tightly. I then siphon copepod water into the screen. When I reach the top of the screen tube, I'm done. I replace the water lost in the culture as a water change and feed the tank off the screened-out pods. I take from each culture about once a week. My goal is to have seven cultures so I take from each once per week but I haven't gotten there yet, as mice keep drowning themselves in my secondary cultures. Never the original.
My current secondary is a couple weeks old now, though, so I have high hopes.
I try to culture them at 1.025 salinity, but I'm not very religious about it and they don't seem to be terribly particular.
I use a couple of different algae pastes to feed them, enough at each feeding so that it takes them about a day to clear the water.
On my original culture I used an airline for bubbles, but I don't think it's necessary and I don't use one any more.
I'm about 8-9 months into the culture as a continuous culture now without any real problems other than the mice. It's contaminated by a couple of ciliates neither of which seem to be screened out by the 53 micron sieve, so I could get rid of them pretty easily. But, they don't seem to be hurting anything and I hope that they'll help if I ever get any fish babies to try to raise.
So, good luck!
