Breeding Copepods Without Access to Any Company Selling Them (Due to Covid)

[livinlifeinBKK]

Hey everyone! I know the discussion of breeding copepods has been talked about a million times here, but I need help with something a little more complicated...I live in Thailand and due to Covid, importation of live copepods from any foreign company has become very, very difficult for an individual hobbyist. I want a male and female Ruby Red Dragonet (I will buy them paired) for my nano and am worried the copepod population will be depleted too quickly to be sustainable. This is why I want to breed the copepods currently living in my tank (small and presumably tisbe pods) but I'm not sure how to collect them from my tank to isolate them into a breeding container. Any ideas? Importation from a foreign source simply is not an option right now.

 

[Tired]

If you can see them on the glass, you should be able to catch them out with a pipette. If not, you may have some luck getting them to live on some rubble or in a "pod hotel", and then simply moving that to your culture container.

How large is your tank, and how is it set up? A big enough tank, especially with a fuge, could raise plenty of pods. If you don't already have a fuge, I would suggest adding one. You could stock it with macroalgae to help lower nutrients from supplemental feeding- it's good to feed mandarins prepared foods in addition to the pods you can give them, if you can get them to eat. Lowers the demand on the pod population.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

If you can see them on the glass, you should be able to catch them out with a pipette. If not, you may have some luck getting them to live on some rubble or in a "pod hotel", and then simply moving that to your culture container.

How large is your tank, and how is it set up? A big enough tank, especially with a fuge, could raise plenty of pods. If you don't already have a fuge, I would suggest adding one. You could stock it with macroalgae to help lower nutrients from supplemental feeding- it's good to feed mandarins prepared foods in addition to the pods you can give them, if you can get them to eat. Lowers the demand on the pod population.

Tank is only about 12 gallons without a fuge, although I wish I could add one. I can see them on the glass and would love to have the mandarins eat frozen foods but I've heard that can be pretty difficult.

 

[Tired]

I honestly wouldn't put two dragonets in a 12gal, pod culture or no. They eat a LOT of pods, which would be hard to provide with just one culture, and you wouldn't have much left for them to fall back on if the culture crashed. Do you have the ability to add a fuge? That would be a good start.

Mandarins can be trained to eat frozen foods, and captive-bred ones often do already. Don't expect wild-caught ones to eat frozen food, they may never do it. They need to be fed multiple times a day if given frozen, as their guts can't retain food in order to get the most out of it. And they need highly nutritious foods, like frozen copepods or BBS, to really thrive long-term on a largely prepared diet.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

I honestly wouldn't put two dragonets in a 12gal, pod culture or no. They eat a LOT of pods, which would be hard to provide with just one culture, and you wouldn't have much left for them to fall back on if the culture crashed. Do you have the ability to add a fuge? That would be a good start.

Mandarins can be trained to eat frozen foods, and captive-bred ones often do already. Don't expect wild-caught ones to eat frozen food, they may never do it. They need to be fed multiple times a day if given frozen, as their guts can't retain food in order to get the most out of it. And they need highly nutritious foods, like frozen copepods or BBS, to really thrive long-term on a largely prepared diet.

Well, I'm not opposed to adding a small fuge (I just have limited space for one)...as for the frozen food, they are wild caught almost certainly. How big of a fuge would be necessary in your opinion?

 

[Hugh Mann]

One thing that worked for me, though I don't have any mandarins, is I out a ball of chaeto in my display because I can't have a refugium (tempered glass tank and I don't trust HoB overflows). It's always full of big, juicy pods. I've noticed my population exploding since I added the chaeto in.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

One thing that worked for me, though I don't have any mandarins, is I out a ball of chaeto in my display because I can't have a refugium (tempered glass tank and I don't trust HoB overflows). It's always full of big, juicy pods. I've noticed my population exploding since I added the chaeto in.

That sounds like a good idea, I'm doubtful it would really solve the problem though...Maybe a good thing to add to a small fuge if I think up a way to add one...

 

[Tired]

You would probably want to ask around about how much fuge space would be required. Unfortunately, I would expect it to be fairly large. Dragonets really eat a lot. Macroalgae in your main tank may help as well.

If I were you, I would look around at what tanks people have kept ruby dragonets in. Look for people who have kept them long-term, for multiple years, and visibly have fat and healthy dragonets.

I think this might be possible, but it's going to be difficult. There's a reason people don't really keep dragonets in nano tanks. A pair is, of course, doubly difficult. You'll need to stack measures, with multiple cultures (to produce lots of pods, and for when one inevitably crashes), some amount of fuge space, and pod-encouragement measures in the main tank.

Do you have space entirely separately from the main tank, to put a fuge? I don't see any reason you couldn't have a separate fuge that you frequently transplant copepods from.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

You would probably want to ask around about how much fuge space would be required. Unfortunately, I would expect it to be fairly large. Dragonets really eat a lot. Macroalgae in your main tank may help as well.

If I were you, I would look around at what tanks people have kept ruby dragonets in. Look for people who have kept them long-term, for multiple years, and visibly have fat and healthy dragonets.

I think this might be possible, but it's going to be difficult. There's a reason people don't really keep dragonets in nano tanks. A pair is, of course, doubly difficult. You'll need to stack measures, with multiple cultures (to produce lots of pods, and for when one inevitably crashes), some amount of fuge space, and pod-encouragement measures in the main tank.

Do you have space entirely separately from the main tank, to put a fuge? I don't see any reason you couldn't have a separate fuge that you frequently transplant copepods from.

Yeah, I've got room for a non-connected fuge... (my tank is too far from this space to connect) Btw, I can get tigger pods from a local guy who breeds them but I know they're the worst kind of pod to supplement with which is why I'd rather use transplants from my tank

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

I have a big empty cabinet space under my sink that I have no real use for...honestly, I wouldn't mind breeding many more than I need myself and sell the extras to other hobbyists who want to keep mandarins here

 

[Tired]

That could be a good solution. I would still suggest a sort of non-connected fuge- if nothing else, as a backup source of pods in the event of multiple culture crashes. Both to keep the dragonets from starving, and so you can restart cultures. If you have somewhere to put a 5gal tank with a light, an airstone or other source of movement, and a wad of macroalgae, you could grow pods in there.

It might be worth trying to culture multiple species. IIRC, tigger pods can also be cultured pretty well. I think the problem with trying to establish them in an aquarium is that they're big and colorful and get eaten fast.