Adult apocyclops in a larval tank?

[User]

I'm not culturing them currently, but yes...that is the intention. Adult Apocyclops (and many other pods, for that matter) are similar in size or slightly larger than baby brine shrimp nauplii and thus are too large for most marine fish and invertebrate larvae at first; however, they produce nauplii that are often less than 100 microns long (significantly smaller than most rotifers) and these are the preferred prey of many marine larvae due to their sheer abundance and nutritional value. Sadly, culturing them en masse in captivity is not so easy...

Interesting- I though Rotifers were the preferred food source for eg larval clowns etc, but I guess I’ve got some reading to do.

Always more To put on the ‘in’ pile

 

[LordJoshaeus]

Interesting- I though Rotifers were the preferred food source for eg larval clowns etc, but I guess I’ve got some reading to do.

Always more To put on the ‘in’ pile

Rotifers are much easier to culture in captivity than copepods, but they are also nutritionally deficient compared to copepods, even when enriched, and many marine larvae do not eat them as readily as they do copepod nauplii. Most rotifer species are freshwater animals; even the 'saltwater' rotifers are euryhaline animals that are not often eaten by wild larval fishes.

 

[User]

Last question- sorry

on those UFL airlift harvesters- the bottom screen on the tube prevent adults getting into the trap, then the mesh on the sides of the bucket prevent nauplii escaping the trap when you lift it out of the culture?
Clever

has anyone here scaled that down to like a half gallon container format for use in a smaller culture, or is that pointless since the yield will be too low to be useful in a breeding situation?

 

[LordJoshaeus]

Last question- sorry

on those UFL airlift harvesters- the bottom screen on the tube prevent adults getting into the trap, then the mesh on the sides of the bucket prevent nauplii escaping the trap when you lift it out of the culture?
Clever

has anyone here scaled that down to like a half gallon container format for use in a smaller culture, or is that pointless since the yield will be too low to be useful in a breeding situation?

Something I have thought of doing is setting up a culture with a drain just above the normal water level, with the drain tube having 90 micron mesh on the end that is in the culture. After 90 minutes, a timer would turn a pump on that would pump saltwater into the culture for half an hour, flooding it and hopefully driving the nauplii through the drain into a collection container (obviously you would need to keep the nauplii from getting sucked into the pump). Reportedly Parvocalanus produces FAR more nauplii if the nauplii are harvested multiple times daily (I think I posted that abstract earlier on this thread? Maybe I'm thinking of another thread?), and that might be worth trying on other copepods as well...if that works with Apocyclops (which are far easier to culture than Parvocalanus but are not as prolific), that would be very helpful.

 

[Skydvr]

You could run the air driven harvester all day and continuously harvest, assuming it is nauplii density and not a chemically driven response. As long as the turnover rate is high enough to keep the food density up n the harvester, you should be alright. Probably empty the harvester in the morning and evening.

You would need to run a small grow out culture to keep a healthy population of adults as you would be pulling nearly all of the nauplii and wouldn't be replacing an appreciable number of adults.

 

[User]

Man, I’m late to this party but I’m loving these conversations.
Great info