Tigriopus californicus culturing questions

[Vauche]

First let me say I'm not using to feed a fry, I'm solely using for supplemental stocking of tank for my mandarins.

1) Currently I have been using only DT's phyto as food source. Is there and/or should I be using a secondary food as well (pellet or flake)? Is there a better option for phyto than DT's? Is there another acceptable option for phyto, maybe dry or frozen (the stuff gets expensive when you HAVE to order through the mail)? (NOT interested in culturing my own phyto)

2) For harvesting I was considering purchasing this:

PLANKTON COLLECTOR SEIVE SET

New 2006 product. Consists of a set of 4 seives that stack together for reducing raw product into 4 sizes. Polyester screens are 475u, 250u, 120u, and 53u. Diameter of collectors are 6".

Good item or over-kill for what I'm looking to do, which is basically just separate the pods from gunk siphoned out of the tank?

Now a little info. for those thinking about using Tigriopus californicus (AKA Tigger pods in this case) from my experience after 1mo:

10G tank filled 5G (temp kept around 76). Stock with whole bottle of tigger pods. Inital observation was most disappeared within a couple days. After that first 7-14 days there was what I would call a bloom in the tank, great increase in observable pods. Now at just over a month the 10G tank gave birth to a second 10G and still has a large visable population of variable sizes (I'm assuming the various life stages). I have not as of yet harvested any from either tank other than the seed for the second culture tank.

Thanks for any help you can give and hopefully my very elementary experience will be of some benefit for someone.

 

[flying_dutchman]

If it's for your mandarin, I have to say two words TRAIN IT!
Quote:
<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td class="alt2" style="border: 1px inset;"> In order for mandarins to thrive in a captive environment, they must be supplied with sufficient high-protein foods.
There are two commonly approached methods and one certainly produces better long term results. It has long been said that in order for mandarins to survive, a large, mature, rock-filled aquarium was needed. The idea being that harpacticoid copepod populations present on a large surface area of live rock would support the near-constant foraging behavior of this fish.
While this method can work to support the dietary demands of a mandarin, it is far too prone to failure in closed systems. (Aquarists often over-estimate the productivity of their reef systems or stock species that compete for the limited crops of microfauna.)
Refugiums help support copepod populations, but all too often mandarins slowly suffer from starvation in such settings. A much more realistic and successful approach involves weaning mandarins off a strictly live food diet and teaching them to accept frozen foods, such as mysis shrimp, that are readily available.
The best method in my opinion was developed by Matt Pedersen of MOFIB (see the links below). The idea is quite simple. Isolate new mandarins in suspended breeder baskets (or small quarantine tanks) and get them feeding on enriched live brine shrimp. Then, introduce frozen brine shrimp and mysis shrimp. After the fish begin sampling the frozen fare the live diet is slowly replaced. Once they are eating frozen fare with vigor they are released into the display tank where their "training" pays off. </td> </tr> </tbody></table> http://en.microcosmaquariumexplorer....Green_Mandarin

hth

 

[Vauche]

That's all good but the mandarin are already in the display and I work 10-12hr days and have 2 kids so training would consist of 1 meal a day. I'm not sure this will suffice or be of much benefit. I don't have any place local to pick up brine shrimp or any other live food for that matter or the equipment needed to raise them. I work all hrs of the day, minus midnights but I am on call some nights so even some nights I'm running into work, so hatching brine shrimp and getting to them when they are still at their peak nutrition would be a crap shoot. On top of that I haven't really looked into it so I have no clue what I would be doing or if anything above is even relevant.

So far the pod cultures are requiring little time and effort, not zero time/effort, just not a whole lot at least not necessarily on a nightly basis. I do feed the Nutramer Ova stuff (pumps low to decrease flow and let this fall to the bottom) and the mandarins seem to become more active and peck away. Are they eating it? I can't really say, they do come out and pound the rock when it goes in the tank though.

So well I won't rule out trying to catch the fish (not going to be an easy task) and try to train I will definitely have to look into it further to see how feasible/cost effective it would be (cold I know, but I need to be realistic as well). So for the time being my questions still stand as that is what I have started right now.

Sorry if I'm coming off rude that is not my intention

 

[clownfreak]

Currently I feed my DT pod cultures flake food. Sometimes I crumch it up, sometimes I leave it whole. I'm going to start culturing phyto too to be their primary food, but they've been fine for the last 1-2 weeks on flake. Phyto really isnt that hard or space consuming to culture, just add a liquid fertilizer once or twice a day. IMO culture phyto and feed flake, or just feed flake and give them so store bought phyto every now and then. HTH

 

[clownfreak]

Also, if you want to feed BBS you could buy an in tank "feeder" that the BBS hatch in then swim into the tank, I haven't personally used them (or cultured phyto yet for that matter) but it is another option.

 

[crooks]

I am done with buying DT's. I just ordered this hope it gets here soon.
http://www.reed-store.com/shop.cfm/Rotifer-Products/Rotifers-Live-and-Concentrate/RD-SM:1/

 

[Vauche]

I am done with buying DT's. I just ordered this hope it gets here soon.
http://www.reed-store.com/shop.cfm/Rotifer-Products/Rotifers-Live-and-Concentrate/RD-SM:1/

I see that this product is a single strain of microalgea (nannochlopsis) might this become a problem concerning nutritional value of the pods then? It seems I've read variety is a good thing, but then again, what do I know. Beyond that I like the price.

Thanks for all the info and help here. It is appreciated.

 

[geminianspark]

Meleeve also has a post/page on his site somewhere about a "mandarin diner"... depending on the number of small fish in your tank. He uses a small mouthed glass jar that mostly just the mandarin will fit into and puts pellet food into for his mandarins... of course, it was a series of different types of food for "training" but it's another idea you may be able to look into for feeding the mandarin.

if you're still interested in culturing some pods, there are quite a few posts on the mofib website on how to go about doing this and the different types of phyto they are using. There are two types of pods... on is free swimming and one stays on the glass/substrate... i believe that the one you're raising is in the "harp" family and goes to the glass/substrate and if i remember correctly they were using T-iso to feed them.

 

[Vauche]

Thanks geminian, I will take a lood at the mofib sight.

 

[clownfreak]

Even if you culture DT's, which is 3 strains, one strain will eventually dominate the others. If you want to feed multiple strains they have to be cultured seperately