non-harpacticoid copepods for mandarin, a waste of time?????

[beaniebeagle]

I had a question about wasting time on other copepod cultures which are not harpacticoid, such as moina salina and tangerine pods. The non-harpacticoid types just seem to just fly around in the bottles with the current while the Tisbe stick to the sides. I can't see my mandarin chasing those moving around with the current. Anyone with true experience with this please chime in. I had a recent crash of some moina cultures and don't want to waste time and money to order more if the main big bucket culture crashes.

 

[altolamprologus]

Yep, they're useless. I culture tisbes and tigger pods and have tried feeding the tiggers to my mandarins in the past with very little success. Even though they are harpacticoids, they spend too much time in the water column. Out of about 1,000 pods, my mandarins would actually get less than 50 in an hour. The other fish, and unfortunately the filtration, would eat them all. Even with all the pumps off, the mandarins were still able to catch only a few. They're great for other fish, but mandarins are just too slow. I can't imagine how much worse it would be with calanoids.

 

[beaniebeagle]

looks like it's time to increase the Tisbe culture bottles, I wanna fat mandarin. I think my wife is getting sick of all the plastic bottles drying in the kitchen

 

[altolamprologus]

looks like it's time to increase the Tisbe culture bottles, I wanna fat mandarin. I think my wife is getting sick of all the plastic bottles drying in the kitchen

Haha my mom hates all the plastic bottle too. I had to start hiding my cultures so I could keep expanding without her noticing.