Reef Pods TISBE vs Tigger Pods

[mwilliams62]

Reef Pods TISBE vs Tigger Pods

I hope this helps:

Ok, the Tigger pods and Tisbe are a Harpacticoid copepod. By this I believe that they will feed off the substrate as well as in the water column. The following links are for further information on the feeding, culturing and general behaviour as well as the food benefits to these two copepods. From this information you can take that copepods do have specific foods which they will eat but they also can and will consume other types of food items. The Reef Nutrition link as well as the other referents state that the Tigger Pods prefer the Brown algaes but will consume the green algaes as well but will not achieve any value from it as a food item. However it should also be noted that in one of the papers I linked that copepods will "taste" several types of food items and either eat or reject them. I have experienced that given a greater choice in feeds copepods will consume more types of phyto, algae and other food particles then what is generally accepted as the species specific food type.

basic general info on Tigger pods - where they can be found
http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/eco/taxalab/2005/harpacticoid/harpacticoid.htm

Reef nutrition culture tips on tigger pods
http://reefnutrition.com/tigger_pods_care.html

Paper on feeding preferences of Tisbe
http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/7/m007p303.pdf

Good general paper on pods value as food
http://idosi.org/abr/4(2)/4.pdf

As for the Reef Pods Tisbe: This past Saturday I attended the Frights and Frags show here in Orlando. I was able to obtain a 8oz bag of the Tisbe copepods from the company rep. It was packed full of them. Every sample of the water I put under the scope had some copepods in evey stage of developement. With this sample of an identified copepod I was able to determine that the copepods I have in my tank are Tisbe. These things are hyper active. They are swimming and jumping all over the sides and water column of the culture vessel ( 1 gallon glass former pickle jar) I've added water with a salinity of 26 in small amounts to the original water over the past 4 days to bring the volumn up and will continue to do so over the next several days - no aeration yet as the water volumn is still limited. The size and development in just a few short days is as stated in the company lit. They will develope rapidly from nauplii to breeding adults quickly.

In addition to the Tisbe I also picked up a small bottle of the Phyco Pure Reef Blend. I doubled the volumn of a 2 ml sample with sterile water (26 salanity) and with the smallest drop I still couldn't count the number of algae cells present.View attachment 165942. I would have to say that they provide a good quality product(s)

With this experience I'm now interested in aquiring their Tangerine and Parvocalanus pods to culture as food. Both are a Calaniod copepod which I understand can be challanging to culture.

A note on culturing Tigger pods and other large copepods: Larger size shallow water vessels are what are needed for the larger copepods. A 30 gallon plastic tub filled initially with only 6-8" of water would be ideal. Include some forms of macro algae and other sterile items for additional surface area and to assist with water purity. Also use a slow aeration in the culture. You don't want to churn the water but provide a slow steady flow. You will get far better results in my opinion.

I was wandering about the Tangerine and Parvocalanus pods when I saw them on a website and was going to order them but I may not now if they are going to be a challenge. I have been having trouble finding any Tigger Pods in the stores here so I did not get to start my culture like I wanted to do this past weekend. I did find the ones called "Reef Pods TISBE" but could not remember if they are the easy ones to culture or not.

 

[fla2341]

When I restarted a 100gal tank up aprox 3 1/2 years ago( maybe 4 I lost track) I used 40 gallons of natural salt water I collected from the beach here in FLA. The Tisbe copepods I had before the show on sat date back to that time. So without any special effort on my part they have been happily multiplying in my tank for all that time.

The Tisbe I got on Sat are in the 1 gallon jar with about 2 1/2" of water now which I've been slowly adding. They seem happy and jumping around. Two weeks or so prior to that I set up a 10 gallon tank with aprox 5 gallons in it by syphoning out some off the sides of the established tank. Without any special efforts on my part they continue to establish themselves in that tank. I have a small air pump hooked up to riged tubing bubbling in the tank. Other then adding a small amount of algae that was it.

So I can state from my experience that the Tisbe are simple to establish if it's in a protected environment, ie refuguim or separate vessel. However just like anything else I wouldn't just dump them in (unless it's from/in an established volumn of water like I did). Take a few days to insure they are adjusted to the salinity/temp in your system before you add them. Provide some phyto/food for them and you should do just fine. It's takes about a week for them to develope from egg to adult so look for them to start showing up then.

 

[fla2341]

Try here for other types.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=2190+3058&pcatid=3058

Don't be afraid to experiment. I sometimes wonder if that's one of the main reasons why I got into saltwater over 20 years ago:rollface:.

 

[mwilliams62]

Thanks I have three of those items in my shopping cart over there. The Tangerine, ReefPods TISBE and the Rotifiers. I don't see the Tigger Pods by I think Reef Nutriation on Live Aquaria I was hoping I could get all of them in one place. Do you know of an online site that carries them all including the Tigger Pods?

 

[fla2341]

Let's see if this works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A4iJC5tPBw
I just took this video this am and it's my first attempt on youtube. The video is taken using the USB Microscope and the field of view is approx 1 1/2". My finger tip is in the end to give you a idea of scale. The video quality is poor due to the input being only 1.3 mp. There was very low magnification - there's not even a number on the scope for how low this was. It's less then the 20x's minimum they have on the adjustment. I only adjusted for focus and the lens was 6" away from the jar. If I bring it closer you will see every imperfection in the glass and a tiny field of view. The video was converted to a MP4 format from the original to reduce the size for youtube.

You can see several copepods in different sizes. The microscope displays live on the computer screen and in that I could clearly see the napuplii jumping, swimming and floating around. There are hundreds of them in the total volumn of the jar.

No I don't know of one single on line source for Tigger pods and Reef Pods. It seems to be either/or.

 

[mwilliams62]

Reef Pods TISBE vs Tigger Pods

Let me see if I can help

Culture container - anything that is long, wide, at least 2 inches high. Cake pans are a perfect example. If you get deeper than 2-3 inches you have to add an airstone.

Temperature - room temp. Anything from 60-85 is optimal.

Salinity - 30 ppt to 40 ppt. They are used to the tide pools evaporating during the day and the salinity going up.

Circulation - not needed, especially in a shallow system.

Lighting - ambient

Food - Phyto-Feast or Shellfish Diet, they like variety. Nanno is the least effective species for them.

When you have a good population going simply scoop some out and feed them to your tank. Then replace the water in the "tidepool". If you are replacing it with water from your aquarium I'd pour it through a coffee filter first to keep other organisms out.

Other then feeding the pods these foods "Phyto-Feast or Shellfish Diet, they like variety. Nanno is the least effective species for them." Is there anything else you can feed them while growing them in the cake pan?

 

[enb141]

This is an old post but I also would like to know if there's another sugestion for feeding them?

What about Dan's feed or algamac?

 

[mwilliams62]

Reef Pods TISBE vs Tigger Pods

This is an old post but I also would like to know if there's another sugestion for feeding them?

What about Dan's feed or algamac?

Don't know about other foods to feed them. Never heard of Dan's Feed or algamac before. I would stick with the foods that have been listed by those that have been culturing the pods.

 

[enb141]

Don't know about other foods to feed them. Never heard of Dan's Feed or algamac before. I would stick with the foods that have been listed by those that have been culturing the pods.

The problem is that those live foods don't last too long and buying them to my country is gonna be prohibitive expensive so I was thinking about something that can last about 6 months or 1 year as Dan's Feed or algamac does because is just a "dust" after all not liquid as the ones they mention.

 

[duganderson]

Great thread! Thank you very much.

I'm planning to buy a captive breed Mandarin.

What specific pods would be best to grow for a Mandarin?

Any suggestion for a phyto brand for the type of pod you're recommending?

When you're growing pods, you just scoop the pods out of the water? Are they generally free swimming in the water OR do you have to scrape them off the sides?

I'm assuming you get sludge/waste build up at the bottom of the container? How do you clean off the sludge/waste easily?

Thank you, Doug