Rot crash... Need advice...

[jbrinker]

Yesterday I decided to try to split my rot culture. I had it in a 2.5 gallon bucket with a heater. I decided to remove the heater, and let the culture return to room temp (about 70, from 80 with the heater).

Once this had happened, I seemed to still have swimming rots. So I split off 1/3 of the culture into another bucket, and added about an equal amount of fresh salt water (same sg). To this I added a good splash of nano (same sg) to make it a "Darkish light green".

Then, to the original bucket, I replaced the missing 1/3 water with fresh salt water, and again added some nano.

This morning nothing is swimming. The cultures are both still the same color, and even looking at them under a magnifier I see no swimming rots.

I took the original culture, and returned it to my "incubator" vessel along with all the slop in the bottom, and will allow it to slowly return to 80F.

I need some advice, beacuse this is EXACTLY what happened with the first batch of rots a month ago. (Except there was no heater involved in that one at all, it stayed at room temp the entire time). I must be doing something very wrong.

 

[jbrinker]

Sorry to reply to self, but I thought I should outline exactly what I did from the start this time, just in case I'm missing something.

- I started rots from cysts (FAF) in a petri dish. Used 1/2 strength aged synthetic seawater. After 3 days, no swimmers. So I moved the dish to float in a tank of heated water (80F). Within a day, I had swimmers.

- I moved this to a small tupperware container, still floating on 80F water. I added more water (now about a cup) and some nano. Things looked good, each day adding some water and nano.

- By day 7 I had moved to a larger container (about a gallon total vol) with about 1/2 full of very happy rots. I fed them 2x a day, just enough to turn it green. I started very slow bubble (1 a sec) to keep this moving, increased vol to close to a gallon. This container was still floating on the heated water.

- Day 8 I moved this to a large bucket, and added more water to have about 1.5 gallons. Still adding a splash of nano 2x a day. Put heater in bucket. Bubble a few bubbles a sec, just barely to circulate.

- Day 9/10 I tried the split as mentioned above... Everything stopped swimming. I put culture back in 1gal container floating in heated water, to see if I can restart.

 

[jbrinker]

My questions are:

1) How do I restart what I have? Should I sieve them, and return whatever I get in the sieve to some mostly-clean water? (I have read that you should use at least 10% used rot water due to beneficial bacteria). Or do I just leave the rot-nano water on the heater for a few days and see what happens?

2) What am I doing wrong? Seems like once I get to the point of trying to "split" a culture, it crashes. The water is all the same (same batch of salt water I started with).

3) What is the proper method to do this for raising clowns? I hope to have eggs again soon, and really need to understand how I can have enough rots for the larvae. I seem to have the nano thing down, but the rots are another story.

4) Smell. I noticed that the cultures smelled "different" when I transfered them to the buckets. The fresh rots I bought a month ago have a distinctive smell. So did mine (same smell) when growing up. But around the time of the bucket swap, the smell seems to have changed. It smells "peppery" like black pepper, and a little "spicy". Strange. But distinctive, and not the same as the batch I bought.

Advice appreciated, I really want to get this figured out.

 

[Evansbr]

As far as what you are doing wrong,, did you try and match the PH of the water or bring it down any? when cleaning my tanks I sieve out the rots... put in new SW and add lime juice to take the ph down. then feed with phyto and put the rots back. I don't think it is a temp issue as mine are in the basement with no heater.. probably around 70... if you made sure the water temp and salinity were exact, my guess is PH. I've never been able to hatch the cysts... congrats on that.

 

[jbrinker]

No, I did not try to match anything. Now that I think about it, perhaps that is the issue. Up until I "split" the culture, I had been simply adding water - about 10% a day - to grow the culture. I had not matched pH or anything.

But now that you say this, fresh salt water is probably around 7.6, and I don't know what the rot water is. I will check tonight.

Any ideas on how to "restart" rots? I have heard that term used, and am not sure how to proceed.

I do have more cysts if needed, but I'd rather try to rescue these. I have time....

 

[Evansbr]

Also live nanno can cause ph swings as it is higher than the rot water.. if you add a bunch. to restart I'd change out the water leaving the grunge on the bottom. lightly aerate and lightly feed nanno and see what happens. once you get it down you wont have rot issues as long as you do your maintenance. I have two 5 gallon tanks for rots. clean 1 every weekend, they run for months without problems.

 

[Zooid]

To restart your rots, try to scrape all the crud from the bottom of your rot tank and put that crud into clean saltwater and wait. It may take a while because you're hoping that some cysts are in that crud and as we all know, cysts take a long time to start back up. It took my cysts about a month before I saw any rotifers. It's worth a try though.
OOps Evans beat me to it. Don't forget to feed a little phyto as he said.

 

[jbrinker]

Well, I was going to test the pH of all the cultures last night, but I never made it home in time to do any work.

What are the pH that people are seeing? I keep heraring and reading "Higher" and lower, so what I am inferring is that:

- Rot culture naturally winds up at a "low" ph, let's say 6.0 for example.

- Fresh salt water is likely to be 7.6 - 8.0 somewhere, hence the possibility of shock when adding.

- What you are saying is that nano is also high, i.e. above 6.0. How high? You mentioned adding lime juice to match pH of salt water, what to do about nano (other than don't add a lot at one time).

I have set back up for restarting, tonight I will sieve the rot water, saving whatever gets stuck in the sieve. I will take the "crud" from the bottom, which clearly has some dead rots and probably cysts, and put it all in a shallow, warm tray. Hopefully within another week I will have restarted.

 

[jbrinker]

Evansbr

You mentioned using 2 5 gallon tanks for rots. So, you "grow" a culture until it is a happy 5-gallon culture. Then what do you do for maintenance?

Once a week (alternating) you clean one tank. So, you sieve the rots, clean the tank, add fresh salt water (pH adjusted) and put them back. That's it?

How much are you harvesting each day (and on what cycle?) How much are you feeding each day?

I seemed to have no problem getting from cysts to a nice 2-gallon culture. Then I blew it by trying to go to 2, 2-gallon cultures all at once. I should just grow it to 5 gallons, then start anther with a small culture (1l) and grow it.

I see the LFS has a ton of small tanks in this week, maybe I can get a deal on a couple more 5's.

Interesting note: I have read that rots do "better" in round containers. My experience so far has been exactly the opposite. They seem to to better for me in square or rectangular containers. I dont know why... and it may have nothing at all to do with shape...

 

[Evansbr]

I use 5 gallon tanks cause they fit on the shelf, and I can siphon from the tank thru a 53 micron screen into a bucket. When I harvest I put the water back in from the bucket to the 5 gal. tank. about half a 5 gallon tank alternating days harvest... feed the reef if no clowns to feed. On cleaning days I set aside some of the water from the tank so once all the rots are in the screen they can be submerged while they wait for me to clean the tank. match water temp, salinity, and ph (lime juice) innoculate with phyto... and put the rots back in. you want to feed enough phyto to keep the culture slightly green between feedings. that will depend on your density and will change as you go. I feed 2x a day. before work and after. also beauty of multiple tanks (buckets) going is if you do have a crash, you have another to restart from.

 

[jbrinker]

Alright. I'm back to a 1 gallon culture of very healthy rots. I think what I will do is split this into 2, 2 gallon containers and just continue to "grow" it by addition of about a pint of water and nano per day, until the containers are full. Then I will start harvesting.

Culture is still at half-strength seawater for now at least. Nano still going strong, time to split that again before it crashes (REALLY dark now).

I did test pH last night, and I see that there is some difference between the rots natural pH and the replacement water and nano. I will try to keep the additions small, and use a little vinegar or lime juice to acidify it a bit.

Thanks to all for help, this is really quite interesting - and somewhat frustrating. I have the utmost respect for those who are able to breed successfully any of these critters!

 

[Evansbr]

It took me several months to figure it all out..... once you get it down it really isn't that hard. soon you will have more rots than you can shake a stick at.. till you have baby clowns, you'd be amazed at what they can eat.. :eek1:

 

[jbrinker]

Things are going well now, I think. I have a solid one gallon culture going now. I'm feeding Roti-Rich and Nano 2x a day. I siphon off the crud from the bottom every few days. Last night there were so many rots that I felt I had to harvest some, so I strained about 1/3 of the culture and had a good pile of rots. I tossed them to the reef, Im sure the xenia and various filter feeders will enjoy them.

Next task is to start another culture from this one, I plan to take about 1/3 of it and expand it to another 2 gallons, while further expanding this one to 2 gallons.

At that point I think I need to enter a "maintenance" phase, where I try to just keep them steady state. I will probably lower the temp a bit from where it is now (77) and see if I can maintain them until I get some eggs again.

Thanks for all the help, and especially encouragement. On the surface this looks so simple, but can really be harder than it looks.

 

[Evansbr]

Nah, sounds like you have a good handle on it... I would still harvest on a regular basis whether they go to a reef tank, or eggs. the cultures will grow better. and splitting the culture is as easy as getting a tank ready to go, harvest your culture like you normally would but instead of going to the reef tank throw them in the new culture... gongrats..

 

[Atticus]

Watch the roti-rich. I have never had a batch last long term on that food...

 

[jbrinker]

I've been mixing roti-rich (which smells to be yeast) and nano. At each feeding Ive been adding enough nano to turn it light-med green, and a dozen drops or so of roti-rich.

I have noticed that the roti seems to foul the water faster. But the nano clumps to the bottom after a few days too, so I have to clean no matter what after about a week.