who is culturing live foods, esp copepods and phyto?

aha! about how long should i wait after each micro grow application until tank dosage? is there a way to test the green water for no3/po4?
 
with 3ml/gal f/2 in the made up water after cutting it with a culture 3-1 about 7 days. you can adjust your ratio for the days you want to have between culture harvesting. if you want to split it every 3 days go with f/4, you get a less dense culture but you can split it sooner.

the only way to test is to get a fine enough filter that you filter out the algae cells and test the remaining water or keep an eye on your tanks parameters when you're dosing as well as keeping an eye on unwanted algae growth in the tank :)
 
I suppose it depends on how much fertilizer you add to the phyto bottle. I recommend that you follow the instruction on the fertilizer bottle (f/2 strength.)

I usually let the phyto mature for 5 days or so before splitting. I have not had any issue with residual nutrients.

Tomoko
 
i'm trying to dose @ f/2 and i thought we were 'hoping' to get algae growth--arent we hoping the phyto will consume the nutrients from not only the fertilizer but also the excess in the tank?
 
phyto can only consume the nutrients so fast, at the point all of them are consumed the culture quickly starts loosing nutritional value and crashes. if you dump it in the tank before it's consumed the majority of the nutrients, those nutrients are added to the tank as well, if your tank has elevated nutrients adding phyto will inoculate the tank and you'll get a bloom in the tank too (pea soup)
 
more aha.

any math majors/bio minors know the median rate of consumption of nutrients? just kidding...unless you really do know...

so they should stay in 'brew' at least 5 days, and if i am really 'over-nutriented' i'll get a bloom, but then they'll have consumed all the nutrients, my pods will feast like pigs, and they'll be gone, and i'll have to start over again?
 
Originally Written By Frank H. Hoff in Plankton Culture Manual

Dosage varies according to how dense the inoculant is and how long you are going to culture the algae. if you are using Micro Algae Grow, a modified Guillard's f/2 medium, add 1/3 to 1 ml per liter.
Click to expand...

he goes on to say:

If you use the standard f/2 dosage of 1 ml/L, a fairly dense culture will grow and survive for 10-14 days. however, if you plan to harvest algae after only 5 days growth, then the dosage should be half or less. If the fertilizers dose is not reduced, you could accumulate excess macro and trace nutrients in the zooplaknton and/or larval cultures which could be detrimental.
Click to expand...
 
again with the AHA. i have an idea for my f-stop now (if you will).

we dosed the tank today, about 20cc into a 50g system and 5-10cc into a 20g system. we stopped filtering/skimming on both for...five hours--can we turn those back on now?

it completely disappated--i dont know why, but i was expecting to see something :(

so now i just wait for my next culture to increase in strength and consume its fertilizer, while the nano in my DT consumes as much N and P it can before it...dies? gets eaten? or, more likely, gets skimmed out? and then next week i dose more, but maybe closer to 50cc?

if i can succesfully go three cycles with nano, i would like to either add another phyto or start with pods--which should i do next?
 
Tim,

You only had it for 2 days. You are three days too early. You really need to be more patient.

If your tank nutrient level is high, you are playing with fire.

Tomoko
 
funny how you can hardly wait on that first batch to 'ripen' but a few yrs later you're dumping a few gallon a week or just letting it crash out.
 
Haha, I guess you can only use so much.

Rotifers love nanochloropsis so much and they grow so fast on them.

I suppose you know that, JetCat. I read elsewhere that you have bred Banghai cardinals.

Tomoko
 
Yes, they are a very easy to breed fish and cute as they can be :), I'm working on getting my clowns back setup with all the remodeling going on. when i don't need the roti's it's less hassle for me to just keep them confined to two 2L containers at low densities and just give away or toss out the excess Nanno
 
Yes, their babies are so cute. When John Newby's male cardinal spitted out babies in his shop, I fed them with some of my rotifers and bbs. John did not pull his female out and the babies were gone pretty soon afterward.

I wish other cardinals held their babies till that size, too. My blue eye cardinals and yellow stripe cardinals spawn all the time like a clock work, but their microscopic babies always turn into reef food.

Tomoko
 
i had a pair of dusky damsels that used to spawn like clockwork but you could hardly make out the individual eggs they are so small, i pulled a few clutches out and into a larval tank but they couldn't even eat rotifers and i kept green water in the tank with them but never got more then 3 days out of them. the male was considerably older and he died a few yrs ago, the female started spawning again during the PO4 testing thread and she's continued doing so now in the 90g, she's VERY protective of the clutch too :) she'll give a MagFloat hell when it gets anywhere next to them. unfortunatly her buddy is my 9 yr old female tomato clown so the eggs aren't much good for anything
 
I see Sergent major at WEEC spawn all the time, too. Nothing comes of it, either. The pelagic phase of marine fish is really tough. I wish they tended to their babies like a lot of cichlids do. It's so wonderful to see mama fish parading babies up and down the tank to let them feed.

Tomoko
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10906082#post10906082 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JetCat USA
i had a pair of dusky damsels that used to spawn like clockwork but you could hardly make out the individual eggs they are so small, i pulled a few clutches out and into a larval tank but they couldn't even eat rotifers and i kept green water in the tank with them but never got more then 3 days out of them. the male was considerably older and he died a few yrs ago, the female started spawning again during the PO4 testing thread and she's continued doing so now in the 90g, she's VERY protective of the clutch too :) she'll give a MagFloat hell when it gets anywhere next to them. unfortunatly her buddy is my 9 yr old female tomato clown so the eggs aren't much good for anything
Click to expand...

B. rotundiformis might have been an option. They aren't THAT much smaller, but it might have been enough. It seems like only a few species are big enough for the L-strain rots. Fortunately, S and SS strain rots are becoming more common the US, which may help hobby breeders make some species breakthrough. Some species of damsels have been done in captivity, but I think it's just a case of the commercial viability being poor.

I think my eyes still haven't recovered from breeding C. cinctus; they are SO small for SO long. At first my C. cinctus were too small for even B. rotundiformis, but as my pair matured, eventually my first successful batch (>30 days) was actually on B. plicatilis. Although, the only regular successful breeder I know of starts on S-strain. Perhaps some larvae are big enough for a bigger food, like some clown larvae are big enough to start on BBS.

ORA did manage to get C. cintus to >30 days on L-strain, although I think they were straining the rots to get a smaller size.

I think, if I ever get my big lagoon going, I'll take a crack at Pterapogon kauderni. I know they are not commercially viable, but they are easy to do and we really need to get some more captive breeding going on.
 
I heard that Pterapogon kauderni/banghai cardinal is now on the endangered species list. There's even more reason to breed these guys if we want to keep them around in the hobby.

Tomoko
 
Nicole with the damsels i tried the sifting the smaller L's to get a population of S but it didn't seam to make any difference and there really isn't much profit in dusky damsels :) so it was just for my own enjoyment mostly to try.

Tomoko, they are on the red list not the endangered species, it's just a 'Hey They Are In Trouble' but i can't say i fully agree with that (while others here on the board do). there have been several broods relocated to other favorable locations outside the Bangaii Islands and those numbers have risen and contribute to the collection as well. if you figure in the number in the wild in their natural location it's a pair for every 32 sq/ft.
 
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