Farming Tigrio pods

[fishdaddy911]

Am I doing it right?
In my efforts to keep my mandarin goby well fed, I am attempting to culture a sustainable source of copepods. Its a five gallon bucket, with three gallons of water from a water change of my DT. Bucket is kept open, next to a window & under a led light strip for plants. I threw in a small piece of rock from my tank for nitrogen filtration and an airline that makes a bubble every five seconds. Seeded with three bottles of nutramar live tigrio pods. No heater, room temp is approximately 75 degrees with water temp at 71.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Yes you have the right idea. It doesn't need light though, ambient light is fine, and it doesn't need any biofiltration. The culture takes about 3 weeks and then its ready to harvest, the water will be waste water once your done, we don't re-use the water.

I would turn the air line up a bit more, the purpose of the airline is subtle surface agitation and slight water movement.

You did not need to seed with 3 bottles of pods, in fact, an ounce or two from one bottle is plenty. I just use a little bit to start my culture and pour the rest into the tank.

For future cultures consider either tisbe or apo cyclpops, they are smaller and stick to the rocks, whereas tigers are larger (sometimes too large for fish to eat) and they are free swimming. Tisbe and apo cyclops is more suitable for mandarins IMO.

 

[fishdaddy911]

Yes you have the right idea. It doesn't need light though, ambient light is fine, and it doesn't need any biofiltration. The culture takes about 3 weeks and then its ready to harvest, the water will be waste water once your done, we don't re-use the water.

I would turn the air line up a bit more, the purpose of the airline is subtle surface agitation and slight water movement.

You did not need to seed with 3 bottles of pods, in fact, an ounce or two from one bottle is plenty. I just use a little bit to start my culture and pour the rest into the tank.

For future cultures consider either tisbe or apo cyclpops, they are smaller and stick to the rocks, whereas tigers are larger (sometimes too large for fish to eat) and they are free swimming. Tisbe and apo cyclops is more suitable for mandarins IMO.

I got the tigers because thats what was in stock at petco. When harvesting, do you scoop the pods out of the bucket with a net and add directly to your tank? Then start a new batch with fresh water using some pods you saved?

 

[fishdaddy911]

You did not need to seed with 3 bottles of pods, in fact, an ounce or two from one bottle is plenty. I just use a little bit to start my culture and pour the rest into the tank.

Ok I see I missed that the first time I read it. Thank you.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I got the tigers because thats what was in stock at petco. When harvesting, do you scoop the pods out of the bucket with a net and add directly to your tank? Then start a new batch with fresh water using some pods you saved?

When harvesting, I pour the whole culture (or siphon) through a sieve, then add the pods into new saltwater at the same temperature. Again, I add majority to the tank, and just keep a little to start the new culture in new saltwater. Never tank water because something in the tank might contaminate the culture.

For tiggers, 100 micron sieve is fine, but for tisbe and apo cyclops you will want 50 or even 25 micron, Its hard to find this type of sieve so diy is easier. I bought mesh baggies of different micron sizes from amazon and fashioned them into sieves.

 

[afboundguy]

It should take a few weeks to get going if the culture was viable. Also have to agree that tisbe and apo pods would be better.

Are you feeding the buckets phyto? That would help in the beginning until the bucket gets full of algae from the light.

I would also recommend spending a little bit extra from one of the sponsors instead of getting copepods from Petco. I know there are some decent ones sprinkled around very sparsely but who knows how long the bottle was sitting before you purchased it.

 

[fishdaddy911]

It should take a few weeks to get going if the culture was viable. Also have to agree that tisbe and apo pods would be better.

Are you feeding the buckets phyto? That would help in the beginning until the bucket gets full of algae from the light.

I would also recommend spending a little bit extra from one of the sponsors instead of getting copepods from Petco. I know there are some decent ones sprinkled around very sparsely but who knows how long the bottle was sitting before you purchased it.

Yes I fed phyto. Can I raise tisbe and apo together in the same bucket or is that not advisable?

 

[fishdaddy911]

I would turn the air line up a bit more, the purpose of the airline is subtle surface agitation and slight water movement.

Whats a good amount of airflow to aim for?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Whats a good amount of airflow to aim for?

I like a bubble a second.
And no we shouldn't mix cultures, keep the tisbe and apo and tiggers seperate from each other and be careful not to cross-contaminate.

 

[fishdaddy911]

I like a bubble a second.
And no we shouldn't mix cultures, keep the tisbe and apo and tiggers seperate from each other and be careful not to cross-contaminate.

Thank you for being so helpful!

I am curious why they cannot be raised together. Does one of the species tend to outcompete the others?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Thank you for being so helpful!

I am curious why they cannot be raised together. Does one of the species tend to outcompete the others?

Yes thats right, the "theory" is that one will eventually outcompete others. I never tried it myself though.

 

[slingfox]

Yes you have the right idea. It doesn't need light though, ambient light is fine, and it doesn't need any biofiltration. The culture takes about 3 weeks and then its ready to harvest, the water will be waste water once your done, we don't re-use the water.

I would turn the air line up a bit more, the purpose of the airline is subtle surface agitation and slight water movement.

You did not need to seed with 3 bottles of pods, in fact, an ounce or two from one bottle is plenty. I just use a little bit to start my culture and pour the rest into the tank.

For future cultures consider either tisbe or apo cyclpops, they are smaller and stick to the rocks, whereas tigers are larger (sometimes too large for fish to eat) and they are free swimming. Tisbe and apo cyclops is more suitable for mandarins IMO.

@Mr. Mojo Rising How do you collect your pods and reset the culture? I just setup a small pod filtering tank with a refugium light overhead since it sits in my garage. I put in a piece of banana peel to feed the culture. I assume I am a few weeks out from harvesting.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

@Mr. Mojo Rising How do you collect your pods and reset the culture? I just setup a small pod filtering tank with a refugium light overhead since it sits in my garage. I put in a piece of banana peel to feed the culture. I assume I am a few weeks out from harvesting.

Hi, I just siphon the entire culture through a sieve. I flush all the water and start again with new water.

But you are doing the banana peel technique, thats cool I never tried it myself but seems very interesting.

 

[slingfox]

Hi, I just siphon the entire culture through a sieve. I flush all the water and start again with new water.

But you are doing the banana peel technique, thats cool I never tried it myself but seems very interesting.

What micron sieves do you use and what do you feed the culture with? I previously cultured phyto so I could go that route but I am trying to see if I can culture pods without culturing phyto. More lazy the better!

This my my setup. I subsequently added an airstone and a clear acrylic sheet on top to reduce evaporation. This is as all spare equipment I had around. May try some buckets of saltwater outside but the wife may not like the look of that . . .

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I feed them phyto, nannochlorsis is the easiest to find and also the easiest to culture, but any will do. But I don't believe you need to feed them with the banana peel method, but I'm not sure.... For tiggers, I use 10o micron, but for tisbe and apo cyclops I use 25 micron, its important to catch the young ones, they are the ones that will reproduce, the adults stop reproducing at a certain point.

Your set up looks very nice, I'm very interested to know the results of banana method.

My set up is very simple, simple as possible actually, pics are below of my pod culture and phyto culture.

 

[slingfox]

I feed them phyto, nannochlorsis is the easiest to find and also the easiest to culture, but any will do. But I don't believe you need to feed them with the banana peel method, but I'm not sure.... For tiggers, I use 10o micron, but for tisbe and apo cyclops I use 25 micron, its important to catch the young ones, they are the ones that will reproduce, the adults stop reproducing at a certain point.

Your set up looks very nice, I'm very interested to know the results of banana method.

My set up is very simple, simple as possible actually, pics are below of my pod culture and phyto culture.

Alright looks like I should pick up a 25 micron sieve. I currently have 50 and 100 microns so I may as well add to the collection! I believe the banana peel method requires no feeding but I won’t know until I test it out. Worst comes to worse I can start culturing phyto again but hope to avoid doing that mostly because that will be less maintenance.

 

[afboundguy]

Yes I fed phyto. Can I raise tisbe and apo together in the same bucket or is that not advisable?

Thank you for being so helpful!

I am curious why they cannot be raised together. Does one of the species tend to outcompete the others?

I wouldn't culture them together. As others have said one will eventually out compete the other.

What micron sieves do you use and what do you feed the culture with? I previously cultured phyto so I could go that route but I am trying to see if I can culture pods without culturing phyto. More lazy the better!

For tisbe I use a 90 micron to catch adults and 53 to catch nauplii. For Apo pods I use 120/90 micron and 53 micron for nauplii. I mix it up and sometimes dose the tank with nauplii and adults and just adults and put the nauplii back in the culture.

This my my setup. I subsequently added an airstone and a clear acrylic sheet on top to reduce evaporation. This is as all spare equipment I had around. May try some buckets of saltwater outside but the wife may not like the look of that . . .

I would ditch the air stone and just keep a rigid airline tube or RODI tubing. I have read that air stones can actually hurt pods as they could get caught in it and it can create too much turbulence.

 

[fishdaddy911]

I added some tigrio to the tank to see how my dragonet would react. They are too fast for the goby to sneak up on, and zoomed away to the surface of the water and are staying there. I think I’ll collect what I have from the bucket and add it to the tank, the goby will hopefully catch some of them. Then I’ll start with a clean slate with some tisbe.

 

[afboundguy]

I added some tigrio to the tank to see how my dragonet would react. They are too fast for the goby to sneak up on, and zoomed away to the surface of the water and are staying there. I think I’ll collect what I have from the bucket and add it to the tank, the goby will hopefully catch some of them. Then I’ll start with a clean slate with some tisbe.

Tisbe pods are better for mandarins as they stay on the substrate and rockwork where "tigger" pods either swim in the open or crawl around.