Rotifers

[printerdown01]

Hey all,

I was thinking about setting up a rotifer culture tank to provide a continuous supply of live food for my tank (along with the massive pod population the tank already has). In my quest for information I ran into someone who claims that once they started adding rotifers to their tank that the simply started breeding on their own within the tank (primarily in their fuge). I was wondering if anyone has heard of that happening before. I thought these guys really needed a ton of free floating algae to survive? Could it really be that they can get enough food from a normal reef tank? If it is common, is it simply a better idea to buy/bum a small quantity for the tank, and ditch the idea of using a culture tank?

Thanks for any and all input!

 

[nematode]

you won't manage to keep a large population of rotifers in a reef tank.
W e grow rotifers to feed to zebrafish larvae. It takes a thick soup of algae
Nannochloropsis ( from reed mariculture; 6 ml per day of concentrate a day) to keep a 20 liter culture of rotifers going. this is a thick green soup which the rotifers clear out in one day.

If you want to feed your tank rotifers grow them in a 10 gallon tank using the frozen nannocloropsis. Its the way that all the research labs that use rofiters to grow zebrafish fry do it. Last time I checked we could get a 1 liter of frozen nanno for ~ 70$. This lasts us ~6 months growing rotifers in a 10 gallon tank. We thaw and aliquot the nanno is small 50 ml ( 2 oz) containers and refreeze all, except one which we keep one in the fridge. We only rarely have the culture crash-once a year.

 

[printerdown01]

That's pretty much the impression I was under when I started looking for rotifer cultures. I have witnessed first hand the amount of green water they can go through, so I was surprised when I heard of someone who just had rotifers multiplying like crazy in their tank (they were in fact rotifers and not a tiny pod).

Thank you for confirming my thoughts.