Copepod Maturation & Egg Laying time frame?

[CaptainNegatory]

@CaptainNegatory .

Here is how I fix and count copepods:
Equipment:

1. Microscope
   
2. Household vinegar or restaurant strength (30%)
   
3. Sedgewick-Rafter counting slide (https://www.2spi.com/item/01009-ab/)
   
4. Hand tally clicker for counting (https://www.amazon.com/MROCO-Counte...ons&keywords=hand+tally+counter+clicker&psc=1)
5. 1 ml pipette

Protocol:

1. One drop of vinegar on the counting slide.
   
2. Homogenize the harvest with a spoon or spatula.
   
3. Draw out a 1ml sample and place it on the slide.
   
4. Put the cover over the slide.
   
5. Allow the vinegar to fix the copepods - it usually takes a minute or so: depends on the strength of the vinegar.
   
6. Count all the animals.
   
7. Multiply the count by the entire volume. That number will give you total harvested animals.

Hope this is helpful!

Chad

Hey Chad @Reef Nutrition , thanks for the info! What do you mean by homogenize them?

 

[CaptainNegatory]

Just an update. It seems after I split my phyto it turns brown. I'm not sure why and this happened with the OceanMagik bottles after they were split too. The two far bottles look green from the photo but you can see the brown Tint in the closest one. Maybe from just splitting and topping off the water? That bottle is labeled number one so it was the original culture. Nothing else has come in this bottle. Maybe the plastic is am issue and the glass jars would be better but again I seriously doubt it. Would appreciate any info.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

Hey Chad @Reef Nutrition , thanks for the info! What do you mean by homogenize them?

Homogenizing the harvest ensures that the animals are evenly dispersed so that when you draw a sample, you get a good uniform representation of the entire volume. If you don't homogenize (stir up) the sample, the animals tend to either congregate at the surface or at the bottom, which will throw off your count.

-Chad

 

[Reef Nutrition]

Just an update. It seems after I split my phyto it turns brown. I'm not sure why and this happened with the OceanMagik bottles after they were split too. The two far bottles look green from the photo but you can see the brown Tint in the closest one. Maybe from just splitting and topping off the water? That bottle is labeled number one so it was the original culture. Nothing else has come in this bottle. Maybe the plastic is am issue and the glass jars would be better but again I seriously doubt it. Would appreciate any info.

Typically, a color change means the algae is contaminated. You would need a microscope to properly confirm this. Ocean Magik is a multiple species product, so you are likely seeing the diatom, Thalassiosira sp., taking over. You really need to start with single species cultures if you want to successfully culture microalgae. Also, if you don't filter your air with a HEPA filter, you can get contamination (blue green algae, diatoms, etc.)

 

[CaptainNegatory]

Typically, a color change means the algae is contaminated. You would need a microscope to properly confirm this. Ocean Magik is a multiple species product, so you are likely seeing the diatom, Thalassiosira sp., taking over. You really need to start with single species cultures if you want to successfully culture microalgae. Also, if you don't filter your air with a HEPA filter, you can get contamination (blue green algae, diatoms, etc.)

@Reef Nutrition
This second batch is just pure Nano that I started from a culture disk off Amazon. The first culture was incredibly green when it started. I thought there might have been an issue with the OceanMagik for that reason of the combinations, but now that it's happening to the pure Nano I'm not sure what else to try. How do you connect a HEPA filter to your air pumps? I've been so careful to avoid contamination. I wear sterile gloves and everything. I wonder if something I did rinsing out the 2L bottles caused contamination and I just got lucky with the first ones. I haven't even reused the airlines in the bottle.

I'm going to try and order a microscope today and remember how to use it and check the phyto lol.

Is there any Nano culture you recommended specifically for my purpose?

 

[CaptainNegatory]

Now it looks like I'm getting some sort of hair algae. Maybe I can try switching to pickle jars sooner than later. I need to find a few culture disks now though as Amazon says they are unavailable. Now I'm seeing this stuff. Is this hair algae? I've got no idea what's going on. To split the culture I simply poured 1/3 in one bottle, 1/3 in another bottle, filled all thee back up with new RODI salt water.

The tig pods however, which were made form the same stuff are doing great.

 

[CaptainNegatory]

Just to update everyone: I found a local supplier of rigid airline so as I move over to pickle jars I will be also adding rigid airline instead of the flexed stuff. Should keep everything cleaner. I'm going to dispose of the phyto I have since all pods are fed and re-start with a new culture as these have been contaminated obviously. I'll be adding the rigid airline but also a mini air filter to each individual airline (all 16) something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Hepa-Sanitar...=1530684880&sr=8-6&keywords=inline+air+filter.

In addition I will be following the container and culture water sterilizing procedure found here going forward.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/culturing-phytoplankton.59497/

Last but not least I am brainstorming the process of giving each culture some small chaeto and live rock and trying to figure out how to determine during splits if the rock or chaeto has been contaminated with anything that would be bad for the pods. I imagine a water sample under the scope would give me indication. At any indication of contamination in the water the rock and chaeto would be added to my main tank. Waste not want not. Eventually I'll put this all together into one big guide. Thanks everyone for following.

 

[CaptainNegatory]

@Reef Nutrition Hey Chad, sorry to bug ya again. I have one last question.

When you harvest your pods, what sieve sizes do you use for Tig Pods. Adults are visible but I imagine napulii are not and as such how do you know when you sieve them out that you are even backwashing them into a new culture? I am going to be harvesting soon and this part has me worried. Again, adults are the easy part. I've found mesh on Amazon as small as 50 micron but from my understanding even new hatchlings are around 200. So a 200 and 500 sieve should take care of everything.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

@Reef Nutrition Hey Chad, sorry to bug ya again. I have one last question.

When you harvest your pods, what sieve sizes do you use for Tig Pods. Adults are visible but I imagine napulii are not and as such how do you know when you sieve them out that you are even backwashing them into a new culture? I am going to be harvesting soon and this part has me worried. Again, adults are the easy part. I've found mesh on Amazon as small as 50 micron but from my understanding even new hatchlings are around 200. So a 200 and 500 sieve should take care of everything.

I use a 300 micron screen to separate out later stage copepodites (juveniles) and adults from all the small guys. 90micron will capture everyone. The stage 1 nauplii are about 100 micron.

Chad

 

[CaptainNegatory]

@Reef Nutrition I will stack them in that sort of order then, thank you! In other news, I did a density test and I didn't like the way it worked with the slide. I may try it with a petri dish instead and count them that way and use vinegar to immobilize them. I wasn't able to suck any up from the water column, 1 or 2 at most in 5 m/l and had to resort to sucking them off the bottom even right after homogenizing the culture. Next time I lm gonna look at a strong phyto culture under the scope.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

@Reef Nutrition I will stack them in that sort of order then, thank you! In other news, I did a density test and I didn't like the way it worked with the slide. I may try it with a petri dish instead and count them that way and use vinegar to immobilize them. I wasn't able to suck any up from the water column, 1 or 2 at most in 5 m/l and had to resort to sucking them off the bottom even right after homogenizing the culture. Next time I lm gonna look at a strong phyto culture under the scope.

The challenge with sampling is that you need an appropriate sample size to be confident. We always make sure that we have at least 100 animals on the 1ml counting chamber, that way we have more confidence that our density calculations are accurate. It also helps to perform 2 to 3 different population estimates so that you can average them out. When we do population estimates or harvest counts, we are typically sampling from a highly dense volume, so it's easier to get the number of animals needed in the sample for confidence. The lower the density in the culture, the harder it is to estimate density unless you harvest the entire culture down to like 100mls and then sample from that.

If you can't get the culture homogenized, sampling error will be magnified.

Best of luck with the cultures!
Chad

 

[Sir Chris]

OK I have purchased from them seven times and I won their ultimate refug package of marine pure, psidions feast that I always get, turbo fritz start and my algae choice. Has 3 specifies and all benefit 1 is a crawler on corals while the tisbys are idiots basically and the other eat detritus well. I have never once had any dead on arrival's It's fun to watch them flick around inside the bag and no settlement!!!! So all alive. I will stand behind #algaebarn and say that their products are the best and cleanest. It's getting them to you that when they die Where do u live? I'm in Florida. Also using my tablet but I will post a picture of my Fuge and pot hotel i DIY

 

[CaptainNegatory]

OK I have purchased from them seven times and I won their ultimate refug package of marine pure, psidions feast that I always get, turbo fritz start and my algae choice. Has 3 specifies and all benefit 1 is a crawler on corals while the tisbys are idiots basically and the other eat detritus well. I have never once had any dead on arrival's It's fun to watch them flick around inside the bag and no settlement!!!! So all alive. I will stand behind #algaebarn and say that their products are the best and cleanest. It's getting them to you that when they die Where do u live? I'm in Florida. Also using my tablet but I will post a picture of my Fuge and pot hotel i DIY

I am in Las Vegas, I think they are in Colorado which really isn't too far despite it being hot.

 

[CaptainNegatory]

The challenge with sampling is that you need an appropriate sample size to be confident. We always make sure that we have at least 100 animals on the 1ml counting chamber, that way we have more confidence that our density calculations are accurate. It also helps to perform 2 to 3 different population estimates so that you can average them out. When we do population estimates or harvest counts, we are typically sampling from a highly dense volume, so it's easier to get the number of animals needed in the sample for confidence. The lower the density in the culture, the harder it is to estimate density unless you harvest the entire culture down to like 100mls and then sample from that.

If you can't get the culture homogenized, sampling error will be magnified.

Best of luck with the cultures!
Chad

Are you able to see contaminants? I know rotifers, silicate, and brine are bad but I don't know what/how to look for them. I can't imagine how their could be any but you never know.

 

[40B Knasty]

Hey Captain, easy way I have found to keep pods is buy a 20g tank, a bottle off Reef Nutrition Tigger Pods, a bag of RAW spirulina from an organic store for $10, a Top Fin 5g pump, 24 feet of air line tubing, some kind of rock with a lot of caves that have low density, a ball of chaeto, a low micron fish net that you can find at Petsmart that comes with a sponge on a handle, and a I light to keep the chaeto alive. Here is my setup and 1 month of results. I did also other videos with two 5g tanks. One Algagen Tisbe pods and one Reef Nutrition Tigger Pods. The Tigger pods from Reef Nutrition are the best hands down. Where they are collected is the key factor. They can handle high salinity from evaporation up to 1.032. I accidentally let to much evaporation happen in a 5g. Also they can handle temps in the 90s.

 

[CaptainNegatory]

Hey Captain, easy way I have found to keep pods is buy a 20g tank, a bottle off Reef Nutrition Tigger Pods, a bag of RAW spirulina from an organic store for $10, a Top Fin 5g pump, 24 feet of air line tubing, some kind of rock with a lot of caves that have low density, a ball of chaeto, a low micron fish net that you can find at Petsmart that comes with a sponge on a handle, and a I light to keep the chaeto alive. Here is my setup and 1 month of results. I did also other videos with two 5g tanks. One Algagen Tisbe pods and one Reef Nutrition Tigger Pods. The Tigger pods from Reef Nutrition are the best hands down. Where they are collected is the key factor. They can handle high salinity from evaporation up to 1.032. I accidentally let to much evaporation happen in a 5g. Also they can handle temps in the 90s.

Holy **** dude that is a TON of pods! Did that all start from one bottle? How far along is that to get to that amount? I just setup a bit of a different setup. I now have a 2 liter Glass jar with a small live rock and chaeto in it. I'm going to have 8 so I can harvest em every 4 days and let em all cook for a month to get dense. I have a 10 gallon split into two fives with live rock and chaeto and I used algae barn but not a dang thing happened. I'm gonna drain it, scrub it, and start over with reef nutrition. I agree they are by far the best.

 

[40B Knasty]

Holy **** dude that is a TON of pods! Did that all start from one bottle? How far along is that to get to that amount? I just setup a bit of a different setup. I now have a 2 liter Glass jar with a small live rock and chaeto in it. I'm going to have 8 so I can harvest em every 4 days and let em all cook for a month to get dense. I have a 10 gallon split into two fives with live rock and chaeto and I used algae barn but not a dang thing happened. I'm gonna drain it, scrub it, and start over with reef nutrition. I agree they are by far the best.

1 month that tank has been running. I put 2 bottles in that were way past the expiration date and about 1/3 was left in bottle. Then I bought another new fresh bottle. So there was about 3k total. Now there is about 40k easy and I just pulled from it 3 days straight of about 750-1500 each time.
I did two 5 gallons for 9 months of doing trials and tribulations. The 20g setup runs like a well oiled machine, low maintenance, feed every 3 days a pinch of spirulina powder.
Look on YouTube 40B Knasty for other videos on the 20g.

 

[CaptainNegatory]

1 month that tank has been running. I put 2 bottles in that were way past the expiration date and about 1/3 was left in bottle. Then I bought another new fresh bottle. So there was about 3k total. Now there is about 40k easy and I just pulled from it 3 days straight of about 750-1500 each time.
I did two 5 gallons for 9 months of doing trials and tribulations. The 20g setup runs like a well oiled machine, low maintenance, feed every 3 days a pinch of spirulina powder.
Look on YouTube 40B Knasty for other videos on the 20g.

Do your videos cover this tank and doing water changes and all? I have a 10 gallon I could dump two bottles into that already has chaeto and live rock I could experiment with.

 

[databox]

Basically, I'm trying to use math to determine if a mandarin eats 1,000 pods a day, I need 7,000 pods a week. Based on half of all pods being female, how long it takes them to mature, how many eggs they will lay in their lifetime, and the repeated process what number I need to be sustainable.

Up all night reading every article on AlgaeBarn as well as scouring the internet. For the life of me I cannot find any numbers on pod life cycles and egg releasing for tigriopus californicus and Apocyclops panamensis. Anyone?

Thanks in Advance,
C. Negatory

I'm not sure your first premise is accurate. I don't think they eat 1,000 pods per day. I had read it's closer to 200 per day.

I've got a 65G with 25G sump. Live Rock was seeded with pods from previous tank. I've added pods one time when I set up the sump and that was it. My Blue mandarin has probably quadrupled in size in less than 1 year. He's easily the fattest fish in my tank.

I even spent the money on a ORA Mandarin raised on frozen food. He's not interested in any food other than pods , just does his mandarin thing...eats and grows.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

I'm not sure your first premise is accurate. I don't think they eat 1,000 pods per day. I had read it's closer to 200 per day.

I've got a 65G with 25G sump. Live Rock was seeded with pods from previous tank. I've added pods one time when I set up the sump and that was it. My Blue mandarin has probably quadrupled in size in less than 1 year. He's easily the fattest fish in my tank.

I even spent the money on a ORA Mandarin raised on frozen food. He's not interested in any food other than pods , just does his mandarin thing...eats and grows.

1,000 "pods", whether they are isopods, copepods or small amphipods, is well within reason. I know this because I quarantined a mandarin for 30 days, feeding it about 1,000 Tigriopus californicus per day. There was no habitat in the quarantine tank and no copepods leftover at the end of every day.

I think, that if given the chance and the ease of capture, mandarins will eat a lot of copepods in a 24hour period.

These are my observations and don't reflect everyone's experiences. I just thought I would add this.

-Chad