Rotifers and Ciliates Euplotes sp.

[californiarob]

I am sure this has come up on the forums but wanted to see if any research has been done on this within the hobbyist.
I have been rearing clownfish since the late 80's and got out of it in the late 90's and recently started again, back in the day I had many types of containers for rots, from 2 liter bottles, 5 gallon buckets, 5-10 gallon tanks to the 25 gallon trash cans, I had always used Nannochloris micro algae (green water) that I cultured from disks with additions of a yeast based food Roti-Rich that I purchased from Florida Aqua Farms, I never really had a crash of rots but contamination to my the green water was an issue at times.
So here I am in 2020 and recently having rot crashes, I suspect with the help of Chad at Reed Mariculture its Euplotes, back in the day I always had brine in my rot tanks and they would flourish, I never minded as I would screen them out when adding to my fry tanks, I recently dusted off my old "Plankton Culture Manual's" circa 1987 &1993 by: Frank Hoff and was reading that brine will actually feed on ciliates especially Euplotes sp.,
So the question here has anyone had experience with rotifers & brine polycultured with a decrease or complete removal of Euplotes, or polycultured all three (rots, brine, Euplotes) to create a ecosystem that keeps the rot culture thriving and growing.

 

[WIReefer]

Let me give this a bump for you!

 

[ichthyogeek]

I have not. But, if you try to do this, I want to know how things work out!

I can see this working, since there's not really any competition for brine shrimp, which don't eat the rotifers, but do eat their competition which is euplotes...

 

[Lybia]

Interesting, I have been thinking about somehow utilizing ciliates for feeding zoeae in the future. But unfortunately I am not aware of anyone who actually sells ciliates intentionally though.

 

[Larry L]

Interesting idea to co-culture the rotifers and brine shrimp. You mentioned you used to use a combination of microalgae and yeast-based food - I wonder if the brine shrimp would survive as well using only microalgae, like in RG Complete, or if they would also need something yeast based?

 

[ichthyogeek]

Interesting idea to co-culture the rotifers and brine shrimp. You mentioned you used to use a combination of microalgae and yeast-based food - I wonder if the brine shrimp would survive as well using only microalgae, like in RG Complete, or if they would also need something yeast based?

I've had success with growing artemia out to adulthood (visible egg sacks) using only microalgae (PhytoFeast Live).