Copepod Cultures

[DanB84]

Hello! New to R2R officially and wanted to start off with a question about copepods culturing in jars. So just to fill you in on myself, I waited until I bought my first home before I dove in to saltwater, previously I was a freshwater guy. I currently have a mixed reef biocube 29 and use the middle sump area as a refugium for copepods and cheato. 2 clowns, mandarin, and 5 seahorse along with a peppermint shrimp and red sea star and the normal clean up crew. Keeping nitrates down is a full time job and keeping stabil parameters is needed with the horses and mixed reef.

My question is regarding copepod culturing. I currently have 2 phyto cultures and 2 copepod cultures (this was done to prevent total loss if there is a crash, I will have more phyto than I can use when this culture is ready for harvest). I am only in to this about 2 weeks now. I was thinking about doing “water changes” on the copepods every 2 days and just adding the “dirty water” (with tons of pods) to my DT and adding fresh 1.019 salinity salt water to the culture. I feel like this would drastically lower the need to strain the pods to clean out the container (maybe eliminate this task completely?). So looking for experience or thoughts on this. Other thought was to since up my top off requirements on DT with the amount of “dirty copepod water” to make this more streamlined as well. Plus the mandarin and horses will be happy with the steady supply of food and I would assume the mini refugium in the back of the tank will start producing its own culture or pods.

Thanks in advance for any and all advice! So happy to be part of R2R!

 

[Crabs McJones]

Welcome to R2R and thanks for signing up. I dont know the answer to your question but I'm sure a user who does will chime in soon

 

[Billldg]

Welcome to R2R!!! Thought about culturing pods myself.

 

[dbl]

Welcome to R2R and your new reefing family. I'm sorry I can't be much help with your question but at least wanted to say hello.

 

[crusso1993]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[KJ]

Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[Peace River]

Welcome to R2R!!! Other than just putting copepods in a refugium and letting them make their way into the main tank, I haven't worked with a specific culture of copepods in a while but I used a different approach that aligned more with this article on Raising Rotifers, Raising Copepods. Also know that you can get replacement starter cultures from @Reef Nutrition, @AlgaGen Direct, or others quickly. You seem to have a specific system that you are following - I am curious to know what it is based on (YouTube video, website article, etc.)? I am not sure how well that clear, glass containers will work for the copepods and I would be a little concerned about pulling eggs off the bottom based on where the container spigot is located (thereby limiting production). Please keep us informed on the process, whether or not it is successful, and what you learn along the way! Good luck!

 

[bluprntguy]

My copepod cultures tend to have pretty big boom and bust cycles. I try to time harvest when I notice a big upswing in the population since I know the downturn is likely around the corner. I also have found that it's best to just restart the cultures entirely every couple of months. I'm not sure how pulling a little bit of water out every couple of days will be, it certainly could work. I do a 25% - 50% siphon on each of my cultures every couple of weeks. I don't do any other water changes. You will want to keep an eye on ammonia, it can go pretty high in the culture (and doesn't seem to affect the copepods), but I wouldn't want to add that to my tank.

My best tisbe culture is a 10 gallon aquarium that housed my mandarin during quarantine. I just left it set up and figured I'd run it for the 76 day fallow period. I'll harvest that before I leave for vacation so the mandarin will have plenty to eat while I'm gone. I probably have millions of copepods in that tank. My smaller cultures seem a little less successful.

What kind of copepods are you culturing and are you trying to feed a particular fish in your tank?

 

[Doctorgori]

what species of pods are you raising?
I could be wrong but I've never seen adult fish actually eat those smaller pods that feed on phyto...
...,you can grow a bigger type with a co-culture of ulva or even chaeto,,,,
I use a 10g and daylight bulbs and sprinkle food in every other day of so

 

[Reef-junky]

Looks like a nice set up. Welcome to R2R!

 

[BeejReef]

Welcome!

I hate it when "new" people clearly know way more about reefing than me.. Lol. Welcome anyway

 

[DanB84]

My copepod cultures tend to have pretty big boom and bust cycles. I try to time harvest when I notice a big upswing in the population since I know the downturn is likely around the corner. I also have found that it's best to just restart the cultures entirely every couple of months. I'm not sure how pulling a little bit of water out every couple of days will be, it certainly could work. I do a 25% - 50% siphon on each of my cultures every couple of weeks. I don't do any other water changes. You will want to keep an eye on ammonia, it can go pretty high in the culture (and doesn't seem to affect the copepods), but I wouldn't want to add that to my tank.

My best tisbe culture is a 10 gallon aquarium that housed my mandarin during quarantine. I just left it set up and figured I'd run it for the 76 day fallow period. I'll harvest that before I leave for vacation so the mandarin will have plenty to eat while I'm gone. I probably have millions of copepods in that tank. My smaller cultures seem a little less successful.

What kind of copepods are you culturing and are you trying to feed a particular fish in your tank?

Thanks for the advice. I also plan on throwing some pods in a 10 gallon quarantine tank soon. I just used algae barns ocean magic for phyto and their 5280 pods to start my cultures so right now it’s a mix and I have no idea what I’ll end up with as I heard one phyto will eventually take over and I’m not sure what may happen with the pods species. So far I still have a mix of species. Thank you for the advice on the ammonia. I checked the levels in today’s “dose” of pods and it was at 2ppm. I’m going to stop adding that to my tank. I’m already battling nitrates in my DT and have detectable ammonia so I’m not adding more, even if it’s only 2ppm on 2 cups going in to my 29 gallon DT. The reason I set up the culture is for my mandarin. He has eaten live brine and frozen brine while I had him in a breeder tank. I caught him while he was sleeping and threw him in the breeder to see if I could fatten him up, and it worked! Unfortunately, he is looking thinner again so I’m trying to breed these pods to get him fattened up again.

 

[DanB84]

Welcome!

I hate it when "new" people clearly know way more about reefing than me.. Lol. Welcome anyway

My girlfriend came home with a biocube one day and I got mad because I knew what that meant for me, I’m about $2,000.00 in to my 29 gallon tank already... I’m addicted to reefing and the research is part of the fun! Thanks for the laugh and the warm welcome

 

[DanB84]

what species of pods are you raising?
I could be wrong but I've never seen adult fish actually eat those smaller pods that feed on phyto...
...,you can grow a bigger type with a co-culture of ulva or even chaeto,,,,
I use a 10g and daylight bulbs and sprinkle food in every other day of so

I’m raising pods from algae barns 5280 pods so it’s a mix of pods. I’m feeding a mandarin and whatever other critters want to eat them. What type of pods should I get for the mandarin? I just started with what I had, probably should have researched a bit more but I had a thin mandarin and quickly ordered the algae barn mandarin feeder pack in a panic. I may use my 10 gallon QT to start another copepod culture of the bigger pods.

 

[DanB84]

Welcome to R2R!!! Other than just putting copepods in a refugium and letting them make their way into the main tank, I haven't worked with a specific culture of copepods in a while but I used a different approach that aligned more with this article on Raising Rotifers, Raising Copepods. Also know that you can get replacement starter cultures from @Reef Nutrition, @AlgaGen Direct, or others quickly. You seem to have a specific system that you are following - I am curious to know what it is based on (YouTube video, website article, etc.)? I am not sure how well that clear, glass containers will work for the copepods and I would be a little concerned about pulling eggs off the bottom based on where the container spigot is located (thereby limiting production). Please keep us informed on the process, whether or not it is successful, and what you learn along the way! Good luck!

Thank you for the link. I will definitely not be pouring water from my pod culture directly in to my DT after reading this and will be keeping the pod culture in a darker area for sure!

 

[bluprntguy]

Thanks for the advice. I also plan on throwing some pods in a 10 gallon quarantine tank soon. I just used algae barns ocean magic for phyto and their 5280 pods to start my cultures so right now it’s a mix and I have no idea what I’ll end up with as I heard one phyto will eventually take over and I’m not sure what may happen with the pods species. So far I still have a mix of species. Thank you for the advice on the ammonia. I checked the levels in today’s “dose” of pods and it was at 2ppm. I’m going to stop adding that to my tank. I’m already battling nitrates in my DT and have detectable ammonia so I’m not adding more, even if it’s only 2ppm on 2 cups going in to my 29 gallon DT. The reason I set up the culture is for my mandarin. He has eaten live brine and frozen brine while I had him in a breeder tank. I caught him while he was sleeping and threw him in the breeder to see if I could fatten him up, and it worked! Unfortunately, he is looking thinner again so I’m trying to breed these pods to get him fattened up again.

My mandarin chows down on the decapsulated brine shrimp eggs (brine shrimp eggs with the hard shell removed). You may want to get some of those as an alternative food source. You don’t hatch them, you feed directly to the tank.

For your tank, you’ll want a mix of pods. The 5280 pods are pretty good for that. You’ll also want to dose your display with phyto at least every other day. That will allow the pods to eat and build up a good population. Remove your filter sock if you have one.

For cultures, you typically want a single species. Tisbe are best for mandarins since the adults scurry around on rocks and sand where the mandarin will be able to eat them. The apocylops pods are similar, but adults do swim a little more. Tigriopus pods are the largest pods, but the adults swim quite a bit and other fish tend to eat them before the mandarin can get to them.

 

[SPR1968]

Welcome to R2R Dan!

 

[LiveWire]

Welcome to the REEF!! Nice setup for the pods and plankton culture. I would also recommend culturing Tisbe pods for your Mandarin and Tigriopus californicus for the horses. I would also recommend feeding your horses other feeds as they don't have stomachs and will need to be fed more frequently than anything else in your system or they will not do well.There are some places that culture Misid shrimp and seahorses really enjoy them. So its possible to look into how to culture them also if that interest you.

 

[Emarley]

Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[ngoodermuth]

Welcome to R2R! I don’t have much to add for advice with the cultures, but I will +1 to finding a secondary food source for your mandarin. While the pods are great and should be the primary food source, even with cultures you’ll likely struggle to keep the pod population sufficient in a 29g tank. I’m speaking from experience, unfortunately.

The decapsulated brine shrimp eggs are a good idea. Any type of roe is generally a good bet- I’ve had good luck with shad roe but it’s hard to find this time of year and expensive. Baby brine shrimp, particularly fed daily with a feeder (PaulB style) is another option. My current mandarin also eats cyclops.