LFS: frozen rotifers??

[kevin21]

One of my LFS sells a whole bunch of frozen rotifers, when my clowns decide there ready to start spawning i would really like to raise the fry.

instead of starting a liver culture of rot's, (i dont think my dad would let me start up a culture)

Could i use the frozen rotifer cubes from my LFS??

i would thaw them out in tank water first, then feed?

what do you think?

 

[NicoleC]

Maybe some will take it, but not many. They are wired to hunt down lie food. You might have the most luck with a combination of frozen rotifers and live decapsulated BBS -- some can take the live BBS from day one; some of the others might take the dead food.

Using dead rotifers, you will need to be very strict with your cleaning and water changes.

 

[kevin21]

bummer!

im not sure how to start a culture, say i got a 2.5g tank and very small heater...then order from reed mariculture a whole bunch of rot's. will this work?

what do i feed the rotifers...can i buy it from a LFS?

thanks

 

[CaptiveMarine]

I think the frozen rotifers would be better for feeding to your corals. If your serious about breeding clowns then live food cultures are the only way to go.

 

[NicoleC]

Forget the "tank." For basic rot culture, you need two buckets, two pieces of 1/8" rigid tubing that can reach the bottom, and air pump and gang valve (plus air tubing). Also something to feed the rots. Either phytoplankton (live or Reed Instant Algae), or a yeast-based diet (easier and cheaper), but then you need to enrich them before feeding.

You don't need a heater -- you will theoretically get better production when the water is warmer, but I stopped using them and haven't noticed any reduction. I don't do super-high densities, though.

When eggs are laid, ramp up your cultures to about 4 buckets so you will have enough by the time they hatch. You only need this much culture for a week or so, then you wil lneed to have lots of BBS instead.

I feed yeast only when I don't need production, then add a bit of algae when I do -- and then enrich the rotifers for feeding.

 

[Chicago]

brewers yeast or just plain old bread yeast?

 

[NicoleC]

Baker's yeast or preferrably Candida sp.. Pre-made yeast based foods are going to be a lot cheaper for most folks to acquire.

 

[jwreffner]

A couple of comments...

I have heard that someone looked at the Hikari frozen rots under a microscope and a large percentage of their bodies had burst during the freezing process. So when they were thawted you just got rot goo...nothing the clowns could ever eat.

Secondly, if rot cultures are a problem with your dad, you might want to try using decapsulated San Francisco strain BBS. They are the smaller of the two strains of BBS and you might have a decent chance feeding them those rather than the ones from Salt Lake.

Jay

 

[ediaz]

Since dad won't let you , I know the feeling...

use the 2.5 gal tank, keep the sg at around 1.012-14. Get the live culture and use the heather, in that small tank you will need high densities, about 50-100 rots/ml. I have one of my cultures in 2 gal. at 82 deg. with about 200rots/ml.

About 6 days after you get the culture start harvesting about 1 liter everyday and replace with new water.

To feed them I would use activated yeast very cheap, mix the package with a liter of water and feed about 3 ml if you start with the 600K rotifer starter culture, increase the feeding as the culture grows.

You can get htis from your local grocery store:

http://commerce24.pair.com/webstaff...D&Product_Code=00003&Category_Code=bakingaids


You don't mention what are you going to do for algae, you will need to enrich the rotifers before feeding the larvae.

Ed

 

[David M]

Kevin, you are in High School, right? High Schools have BIOLOGY labs Go and talk to the bio teacher, tell him/ her what you want to do. My guess is that even if the teacher is not willing to maintain a rot culture there is some nerdy over acheiver student who would love to do it. He/she gets extra credit, you get rotifers and the teacher gets to brag about his students.