philosophile
Active Member
Just wanted to share how I’ve finally been successful at culturing Tigger-pods.
I had first started trying to culture them in a small vessel, which was prone to bacterial blooms and spillage. So I tried a 2 liter bottle, with similar results, a bacterial bloom killing off most of my pods.
It’s about then I discovered that people were culturing Tigger pods outside, in buckets. So, one last try, and I’ve finally found success!
So here’s how to do it:
First start with a water change from your main tank. Fill a 5g bucket with your water change. Don’t fill it to the top, leave some room for water displacement. Add to your bucket some rock and rubble. Don’t worry if it’s dry rock, or if it hasn’t been cycled. If there is still room in your bucket, throw in some tap water that has been dechlorinated. Don’t waste your RODI for this.
Now you can do one of a few things at this point: 1, add some fish food. 2. Add phyto. 3. Add F2 fertilizer. I did both 2 and 3. Take this bucket and leave it outside in the sun for about two weeks. It should look pretty grungy and have hair algae everywhere. This is good. If your outside temp is in excess of 95F, you might want to consider doing this in partial shade, or use a larger volume of water.
Replace evaporate with dechlorinated tap. If you have hair algae in your tank, grab some of it and throw it in your bucket.
Once you have a good amount of hair algae, throw in your tigger pods. Temperature acclimate them if you want, but I didn’t. Add some phyto to turn the water green, and you can barely see the bottom OR add some spirulina. Be frugal with the spirulina though. A little goes a long way. If you go the spirulina route, it’s cheaper. But you’ll probably want to feed sparingly daily, and supplement the feed with a drop of selcon every few days. If you go phyto, you can feed when the water gets clear enough to see the bottom. You can also supplement with pellet or flake food.
In about 10-15 days you should notice an increase in your population. Harvest when you have a population that you’re happy with, or split your culture and have a few backups in case of a crash.
Water changes: You don’t really need to do them very frequently if at all. But if you want to, pour some of your bucket out through a seive and return the pods back to the culture and refresh with some water change water. Try to keep salinity on the lower side to account for evaporation. They can handle salinity from 1.03-1.015 maybe even lower.
Aeration isn’t needed, that’s what the hair algae is for.
Tide pools in CA (where the pods come from) can get pretty cold. Air temps can be down to 40F, and as high as 100F. So if your weather is in those ranges, you might be able to keep your culture outside year round.
Harvesting: you’ll need a seive, or a ton of patience and a baster. A 475 um sieve will easily catch most of the adults. But I would suggest that you get a 1000 um sieve that stacks with it, so that you can filter out things like insects that land and die in the culture. You don’t need to remove them, I just don’t want them going into the DT.
I had first started trying to culture them in a small vessel, which was prone to bacterial blooms and spillage. So I tried a 2 liter bottle, with similar results, a bacterial bloom killing off most of my pods.
It’s about then I discovered that people were culturing Tigger pods outside, in buckets. So, one last try, and I’ve finally found success!
So here’s how to do it:
First start with a water change from your main tank. Fill a 5g bucket with your water change. Don’t fill it to the top, leave some room for water displacement. Add to your bucket some rock and rubble. Don’t worry if it’s dry rock, or if it hasn’t been cycled. If there is still room in your bucket, throw in some tap water that has been dechlorinated. Don’t waste your RODI for this.
Now you can do one of a few things at this point: 1, add some fish food. 2. Add phyto. 3. Add F2 fertilizer. I did both 2 and 3. Take this bucket and leave it outside in the sun for about two weeks. It should look pretty grungy and have hair algae everywhere. This is good. If your outside temp is in excess of 95F, you might want to consider doing this in partial shade, or use a larger volume of water.
Replace evaporate with dechlorinated tap. If you have hair algae in your tank, grab some of it and throw it in your bucket.
Once you have a good amount of hair algae, throw in your tigger pods. Temperature acclimate them if you want, but I didn’t. Add some phyto to turn the water green, and you can barely see the bottom OR add some spirulina. Be frugal with the spirulina though. A little goes a long way. If you go the spirulina route, it’s cheaper. But you’ll probably want to feed sparingly daily, and supplement the feed with a drop of selcon every few days. If you go phyto, you can feed when the water gets clear enough to see the bottom. You can also supplement with pellet or flake food.
In about 10-15 days you should notice an increase in your population. Harvest when you have a population that you’re happy with, or split your culture and have a few backups in case of a crash.
Water changes: You don’t really need to do them very frequently if at all. But if you want to, pour some of your bucket out through a seive and return the pods back to the culture and refresh with some water change water. Try to keep salinity on the lower side to account for evaporation. They can handle salinity from 1.03-1.015 maybe even lower.
Aeration isn’t needed, that’s what the hair algae is for.
Tide pools in CA (where the pods come from) can get pretty cold. Air temps can be down to 40F, and as high as 100F. So if your weather is in those ranges, you might be able to keep your culture outside year round.
Harvesting: you’ll need a seive, or a ton of patience and a baster. A 475 um sieve will easily catch most of the adults. But I would suggest that you get a 1000 um sieve that stacks with it, so that you can filter out things like insects that land and die in the culture. You don’t need to remove them, I just don’t want them going into the DT.
