Pod Cultures

[scooter413]

I have been culturing pods for about 4 months now and the Tigger pods and Tisbe pods had been doing well. But all of the sudden they are all dying and the water smells like rotten eggs. I have been adding new water once a week and doing water changes but it is getting worse. Changed one quart of water tonight and had a bazillion dead ones in the bottom. I am feeding them Nano and Tetraselmis live cultures but they are crashing very quickly as well. Any ideas of what could be going on.

I changed to Spirulina powder mixed with salt water this week due to the fact that I did not have a successfull phyto batch for two weeks now.

Water specs:

salinity 1.020
ph 7.8
low light
Use a rubber maid short tote for larger surface area
temp is 68-72

 

[scooter413]

I did test for ammonia just now and it is showing extremely high. How would you treat this if your not running a filter? Could you float a carbon bag to soak up some of the ammonia and water impurities?

 

[gogo7]

dead food will pollute your culture water without fifty percent daily water changes. using live phyto will reduce this immensely. i think your problem is the spirulina. have you tried a liquid yeast based feed? still messy, but less pollution than spirulina. one drop per liter, max. two times daily.

empty the culture jars out and start new... big tip... don't wash the jars. leave the crud on the sides of your jars. the biological buildup will help stabilize the cultures.
when you harvest, replace with fresh culture water.
hope this helps

 

[scooter413]

One drop of spirulina per liter?Then I have over fed them. I have been using about a cup of of mixed spirulina and water. (3tbsp per gallon) to 4 gallons of tigger pod cultures. The one drop a liter wouldn't turn the water green at all. What liquid bases yeast feed do you recommend.

 

[gogo7]

i use roti rich from florida aqua farms. to be honest, i cultivate my copepods with my brine shrimp. the pods live off of the bacteria of the cysts. i add roti rich and live phtyo to the lot. there's even rotifers in the culture. i'm constantly dumping artemia cysts in the culture jars and the copepods are quite numerous.
for your set up i would feed less food, more times a day. try a few different brands.
if you can get live phyto, try it. once you grow live phyto, you can cultivate alot of different live foods.