Lots of live tisbe pods as sps food.

[larcat]

Hi all.

According to the sizes, tisbe should be a fine sps food source. They also generally hand out around rock, so should be in the reach of sps polyps.

Do you think regular additions of tisbe from culture would be a viable phyto food source for sps?

 

[larcat]

Bump!

There's all sorta of information on Artemis as sps food, but can't find a mention of tisbe. Tisbe seem to be a more suitable size, so...

Anyone?

Hi all.

According to the sizes, tisbe should be a fine sps food source. They also generally hand out around rock, so should be in the reach of sps polyps.

Do you think regular additions of tisbe from culture would be a viable phyto food source for sps?

 

[larcat]

Bumping again --

Really no one has tried culturing tisbe as sps food?

 

[larcat]

Buuump!

Anyone seen sps eating Tisbe?

 

[Mark426]

I think they are too large for most sps

 

[larcat]

Pretty sure this isn't the case -- There's a couple articles about SPS eating Artemia Nauplii, which are ~4 times the size of Tisbe.

For reference --

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/6/aafeature1

There's a couple other sources about this as well.

Example:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=18181078&postcount=15

Online sources put newly hatched Artemia at ~ 4-500. Not sure on adults.

Tisbe Nauplii are 55-100, adults under 1mm.

I think they are too large for most sps

 

[dkeller_nc]

Live copepods may well be a great food for many corals in your tank, though they're just "empty shells" unless they're artificially enriched with a diverse mixture of phytoplankton and amino acid/fatty acid supplementation.

The issue that you may find is that it's difficult and inconvenient to grow large amounts of any copepod. I've 4 different species under culture for several years, and the culture density is nowhere near what you can achieve with, for example, rotifers.

And for your average aquarist, buying a bottle or two of phytofeast and oysterfeast every once in a while is far cheaper and less work.

 

[larcat]

I'm setting up two (equipment wise) robust tisbe cultures regardless (redundancy) to open up pipe/dragonette keeping.

My curiosity is about sps feeding as a nice side benefit.

If I'm successful with the cultures using either Algagen or Reed's bottled products, I'll likely order rotigrow, which should work (I believe) for enrichment.

My thought process is that if live tisbes work as SPS food, I can feed relatively heavily from the two cultures without adding, effectively, rotting food to the tank only a small amount of which is uptook by SPS.

I agree with you about the PITA part of pods. I think I figured out a relatively inexpensive way to head off most of the pitfalls we had when we did it before. Long term viability for us, though, is somewhat dependent on freezable paste (the Roti Grow) being viable as a food source for the tisbes.

Live copepods may well be a great food for many corals in your tank, though they're just "empty shells" unless they're artificially enriched with a diverse mixture of phytoplankton and amino acid/fatty acid supplementation.

The issue that you may find is that it's difficult and inconvenient to grow large amounts of any copepod. I've 4 different species under culture for several years, and the culture density is nowhere near what you can achieve with, for example, rotifers.

And for your average aquarist, buying a bottle or two of phytofeast and oysterfeast every once in a while is far cheaper and less work.