for Auston..planktons.. pics and all

[gogo7]

hey auston
here's that thread i was promising you....
i've started this hobby, as you know, a long time ago. so what you see is through trial and error with my own schedule. you might get some other opinions about how to do things and why from other threads here.
but this is how it works for me.
i've got a reef fridge. three layers of lights.

you don't need it.
you just need that one light you've got under your dt.

the difference between phytoplankton and zooplankton is that phyto is a plant, a single celled algae, and zoos are the tiny animals that feed on them.
sorry if this sounds remedial...

you're gonna need a few things if you're gonna grow planktons...2litre pop bottles, clear ones. get about four... keep those 710 mls i gave you... don't let die out. i've got a few more for you with poly cultured rotifers, copepods and ciliates.
new bottles are nice for fresh phyto. even dried out zooplankton pop bottles are no good for phyto. especially with rotifers. roti cysts stick to everything.
with that in mind, lids on you phyto is a really good idea. the bad part about that is that no gas exchange. so i cut a little hole in the bottle at the top and slide the air line in there. i don't use air for dunaliella, but for nannochloropsis, it's a good idea to keep it in suspension.
i just stir the duna daily.
if you get a few fresh bottles setup with air line, i've got dunaliella and tetraselmis for you to cultivate.

so growing phyto....
growing phyto needs fresh saltwater and proper ferts. the ferts can send your test kits off the charts if you dose live phyto that is freshly fertilized.
ten day old culture is the rule for most times with me, but i often use under, as early as five days...
the lfs has phyto fetilizer. i use one drop per hundred mils of fresh sw.
try not to stretch your top ups passed fifty per cent. fifty percent ten day old culture, fifty percent fertilized fsw.
rules... pick a day... mon, tues weds....a day that you can always remember to fertilize and split your phytos. it helps when you're busy if you remember that your phyto cant go in the tank until weds...
fourteen day culture should be dense for roti culture.

the light... i just use the cfl... on for about twelve hours daily. i also use the window sill... put it as close to the 2litre pop bottles without melting them...

with live phyto, you can keep most everything that is dietary restricted.

i'll post copepod, brine shrimp rotifer and ciliate culture later tonight...


i've got a lot of pics to post..

 

[Auston]

wicked thank you so much

 

[Auston]

also check out the video on my tank page http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23405074

 

[gogo7]

cute video auston.

 

[gogo7]

so here's another bit about plankton culture...

artemia salina (sea monkeys)

brine shrimp... artemia... a big part of the hobby... a great all round live food for reef tanks.
culture them in 2 litre bottles with the tops cut off like this.

use a rigid air line or drinking straw to produce two or three bubbles a second in the water.
i'll give you a few cysts to start you off.

the eggs (cysts) need to be hydrated before being added to fresh saltwater. i soak a teaspoon of cysts in a 2oz container of fresh water. after an hour, i add it to a litre of fresh saltwater. this fresh saltwater can be used tankwater. i use used tank water because all my cultures are contaminated anyways... you might want to try keeping the culture pure...me i don't worry about it. i don't think you should either... you're gonna culture copepods as well..it's a good way to use old tank water. you can use straight tap water to mix your saltwater for your artemia culture. adding 50 mils of dense phyto to a fresh artemia culture give your nauplii an edge.

it takes a good 24 hrs for the shrimp to hatch out. live phyto gives a really good feeder brine shrimp. the bs get gut loaded with the best food they can get. live fresh phyto plankton.
something you should know about brine shrimp is that they're very piggy and not fussy at all. they can tolerate a whole wide range of stuff so don't worry about getting home to feed your seamonkeys.

now for the food i feed them other than live phyto. this food is a good rotifer food as well and i use it regularly now.
get some packet dry bakers yeast. add a 1/2 tsp to 2oz of dense phyto culture. place in a small squirt bottle and shake well... there you go. sea monkey food.
this is what i use to maintain daily feedings of my plankton cultures. two drops of this into a litre and a half culture and thats enough for a day or so. this mix should last you a while.

after the bs hatch they have yok sacs that they feed on for twelve hours before they need to be fed. being fed daily they reach adulthood in about two weeks.

i culture them with cyst shells and all in the container.... there's a reason for this... the empty shells that settle to the bottom of the container produce a bacteria that the copepods feed on....
we'll innoculate your artemia cultures with copepods and let nature do the rest. i also think the copepods feed on the yeast as well....
i'll post some more later....

 

[gogo7]

hey auston...

so you've got the crash course on phyto, sea monkeys and copepods.

the copepods are harpacticoid, they like to hug the substrate.... not sure if they're tigriops sp. or not, but my gobies love to eat them. i've got a couple of bottles for you.

i think if you poly culture these with some artemia, you should be able to maintain some stable cultures. your fish will be happy. we'll keep plugging copepods into your tank and hopefully the population stabilizes.
i'm not sure about using the canister filter. i've never used one before.. i think it might remove some of your plankton.

anyways.... rotifers...
rotifers are easy to keep. they just require daily maintenance.
i don't think you need to worry about culturing them, but if you're gonna culture pods, you might as well have some rotifers as well. adult gobies eat rotifers too.
rotifers can be maintained as an asexually reproducing population if you feed them at least once a day with the yeast mix.... i also keep them on phyto too.
in a 710 ml bottle they deplete the phyto fast. i find the yeast feed is easier than dosing phyto daily. but the key here is daily feeding... a drop of yeast feed in a 710 ml bottle per day is enough until the roti population gets too big for the bottle. to harvest rotifers, i just use a larger syringe with a straw attached to suck them up. straight into the display. you'll know if you've overfed...everything is dead and the water smells like rotten eggs.
if you neglect to feed your rotifers, they go into sexual reproduction mode, which is not good. quickly followed by a crash. no more rotifers.
so after harvesting a syringe or threes worth of rotis, top the culture up with fresh phyto.
you can keep rotifers, copepods and artemia all in the same culture, feeding them live phyto and the yeast feed. but one will run out before the other... it just depends on how hardcore you wanna go.
a couple notes about rotifers. they do not like clean containers. not at all. so keep your bottle 'dirty'. also, as i mentioned earlier, their cysts(eggs) end up everywhere.
so wash your hands when dealing with them and your phyto. you might end up with an unwanted rotifer culture in your favourite phyto culture... trust me, it happens.
empty bottles that once housed rotifers can be tried to raise new cultures.

here's some rotifers

as for ciliates, don't worry about culturing them... they're in everything.
they're smaller than rotifers and there are about a gazillion species. i think i've isolated a few, but without that digital scope, i'm just guessing.
here's a ciliate culture that i've split a few times. i'm hoping my gobies start breeding again so i can see if i've been wasting my time....

you don't need to worry about ciliate culture until you get something breeding... although i do dose a few ccs' of them to my display regularly.
you've got them in your copepods anyways...

i've left a lot of stuff out here....there's probably a lot of queestions that i could answer that i forgot to add, so feel free to ask.
whenever you need those pods, let me know.
i hope i whet your appetite for plankton culture.

 

[stefank]

How do you feed the ciliates?

 

[gogo7]

How do you feed the ciliates?

i use a syringe with a drinking straw attatched. i suck them up then target feed.
the ciliates are fed yeast and phyto. i've got a ciliate that is fed whole wheat flour slurry that i've poly cultured with rotifers. but that's an experiment for my gobie fry.

 

[janey]

Can you do a Video

 

[gogo7]

Can you do a Video

i might give it a try...anything in particular you think i should concentrate on?