Tips and tricks with Rotifiers, advice needed

[Amoo]

I'm about to order my first batch of rotifiers from Reed Mariculture as I hear that's the place, and I'm going to get some RGComplete to go with them. I think I'm supposed to get the S-Type Rotifiers? These will be for feeding newborn Picassos.

I constantly hear about people crashing their culture and I don't really understand how or why so I'm asking you guys who have it down to help me out with some infos. What goes wrong? What do you do to keep things from going wrong? The basics for a Rotifier noob so I can at least feel a little less newbish when it comes time to start using my roties.

My Plan:

Get 1 million S-Type Roties to be delivered the day I know my female will lay her next eggs.

Start that culture in a 5 gallon bucket.

Wait 3 days, only adding food to the bucket.

Use my first harvest to attempt to start a second culture in a second bucket.


That's all I got so far.

How do I go about doing water changes on these things? Is the daily harvest and refill enough?

How do I go about cleaning out the gunk from the bottom of the bucket without pulling out more roties then junk?

What temp and Salinity works well for these things to keep em going?

Thanks in advance.

 

[ichthyogeek]

The Plankton Culture Manual would do you well, it answers a lot of the questions you ask.

I'd get the rotifers a few days earlier, so if you crash, you have more time to get a lot of rotifers going, even with the extra 10 days required to hatch clown eggs.

The culture technique sounds good. I'm wondering if the rotifers will produce too much ammonia, and if so, if you should get something that will reduce ammonia levels in your buckets....

The daily harvest and refill is enough to make a water change. If you culture live phyto, then you can use that as the refill water and save on not having to feed the rotifers for a bit.

I think the PCM recommends that you restart cultures every so often, and you get the rotifers out using a sieve (53 microns), then drain the gunk out.

You keep the rotifers at the same temperature and salinity as that of your target animals (in this case, Picasso fry).

 

[hotelbravo]

following, i will soon be attempting this when my black ice ocellaris and fancy picasso percula spawn

 

[billsreef]

For clownfish, L-strain is what you want. It is also what Reed sells. Get those cultures going a couple of weeks before you plan on trying to raise the larvae. Gives you time to get the culturing down before it is critical. Once the culture is going strong, you can harvest 1/2 the culture every other day. Hoff's Plankton Culture Manual (mentioned above) is the "bible" of plankton culture. Well worth the read.

 

[Amoo]

$30 from Prime, sadly no digital version, but I enjoy paperbacks just as well. Looks like I may be skipping one more batch of clowns judging by the size of that book.

Keep the infos coming though folks, I picked up on a lot of things going through other breeder's threads, so it would be nice to get some of that info in one place.

 

[Amoo]

For clownfish, L-strain is what you want. It is also what Reed sells. Get those cultures going a couple of weeks before you plan on trying to raise the larvae. Gives you time to get the culturing down before it is critical. Once the culture is going strong, you can harvest 1/2 the culture every other day. Hoff's Plankton Culture Manual (mentioned above) is the "bible" of plankton culture. Well worth the read.

Bill would you mind explaining a little why the L-Type as opposed to the S-Type? I ASSumed S-Type since it's what Reed's lists for breeding.

 

[ichthyogeek]

Don't worry about the size of the book. About half of the 5th edition is dedicated to plankton and its role in the food web along with ID under a microscope, as well as basic culture techniques (keep everything clean). Only about 32 pages in the fifth edition are dedicated to rotifer culture/care.

As for size, S type is smaller than L type. Clown larvae are relatively large, and can eat L type rotifers right away. While they can eat S type rotifers, clown larvae can get more nutrition/rotifer with the L type than the S type, since the L type can ingest more food (which the larvae can then ingest).

 

[billsreef]

icthyogeek is correct about the difference. Reed sells both L and S strain. They used to only sell the L, as that is the most commonly used. The S is good for small larvae, such as some goby species. Clownfish larva are fairly large and well developed, so L strain is the standard for them.