Copepod Maturation & Egg Laying time frame?

[CaptainNegatory]

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

 

[Brew12]

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

Not exactly fun reading, but here is some good info on T. Californicus.
http://humboldt-dspace.calstate.edu...5/Hawkins_Bernard_thesis_ot_fr.pdf;sequence=1

 

[CaptainNegatory]

Not exactly fun reading, but here is some good info on T. Californicus.
http://humboldt-dspace.calstate.edu...5/Hawkins_Bernard_thesis_ot_fr.pdf;sequence=1

Wait, so am I reading this right in that it takes one month for a Tig pod to go from birth to mature adult? Everything I've been reading has talked about harvesting your pods after ten days! This erases all of that! Apocyclops Panamensis to be determined, but supposedly they re-produce much faster and I hope they do so I can get them brewing quicker.

 

[CaptainNegatory]

Wait, so am I reading this right in that it takes one month for a Tig pod to go from birth to mature adult? Everything I've been reading has talked about harvesting your pods after ten days! This erases all of that! Apocyclops Panamensis to be determined, but supposedly they re-produce much faster and I hope they do so I can get them brewing quicker.

I stand corrected. About three weeks to be sexually mature.

"There appear to be five copepodid stages with the mature individuals occurring between twenty-three and thirty days after birth at 20° C." From the text itself. But still quite longer than 10 days to harvest. I wouldn't harvest until a culture has been brewing for at least a month then. I'm hoping I can achieve this in an empty two liter as opposed to having to use 5/10 gallon tanks I could culture them in empty 2 liters as easily as the phyto.

 

[Brew12]

Everything I've been reading has talked about harvesting your pods after ten days!

This may be an option if you are starting with adult copepods.

 

[CaptainNegatory]

This may be an option if you are starting with adult copepods.

I have a mixture of adults and newly born that I can't even see yet. I'm just trying to think mathematically how I should setup and cultivation and harvesting system. Considering that some should be pregnant and egg laying, maturing, etc. Nobody talks about the intricacies of maintaining a cultivation setup!

 

[Brew12]

I have a mixture of adults and newly born that I can't even see yet. I'm just trying to think mathematically how I should setup and cultivation and harvesting system. Considering that some should be pregnant and egg laying, maturing, etc. Nobody talks about the intricacies of maintaining a cultivation setup!

I've never even considered cultivating mine separately. I just dump them in my system and let them do their thing.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

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

Hey @CaptainNegatory ! I have been working with copepods for about 13 years now. We, Reed Mariculture (makers of Reef Nutrition), have been culturing and selling copepods into aquaculture and the hobby for over 12 years. You can find information here: https://reefnutrition.com/. You may have heard of our Tigger-Pods (Tigriopus californicus).

Anyway, at 78F, it takes about 14 days for Apocyclops panamensis stage 1 nauplii to mature into terminal molt adults. After that, the adults live for about 40-60 days, but only reproduce well within the first 30 days after they have sexually matured. Not sure how many eggs one female can produce in her lifetime though. It all depends on temperature, feed type and availability and water quality. A. panamensis matures faster and produces more offspring than T. californicus, but are about 1/4 to 1/3 the size of T. californicus.

Here is a link to a PDF I created on this animal for best culture practices and other information: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9249q0g7yuedmnt/product_apocyclops_panamensis_2017.pdf?raw=1

Let me know what you think!

Best,
Chad

 

[Reef Nutrition]

Wait, so am I reading this right in that it takes one month for a Tig pod to go from birth to mature adult? Everything I've been reading has talked about harvesting your pods after ten days! This erases all of that! Apocyclops Panamensis to be determined, but supposedly they re-produce much faster and I hope they do so I can get them brewing quicker.

It does indeed take 3-4 weeks for Tigriopus californicus to achieve maturity. It all depends on food availability, food type and water quality. Population density also has an effect on reproductive behavior.

Chad

 

[Kyl]

I've never even considered cultivating mine separately. I just dump them in my system and let them do their thing.

I think for tigger, culturing them separately is the best way to go. There's a thread on that right here with some very low tech / effort setups. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tigger-tisbe-pods.339906/

 

[Reef Nutrition]

I have a mixture of adults and newly born that I can't even see yet. I'm just trying to think mathematically how I should setup and cultivation and harvesting system. Considering that some should be pregnant and egg laying, maturing, etc. Nobody talks about the intricacies of maintaining a cultivation setup!

Regarding Tigriopus californicus fecundity and reproduction, here is some information:

• Vittor (1971) found that T. californicus females produced an average of approximately 300 progeny each over the course of their reproductive period, following a single insemination. (Burton, R.S. Mar. Biol. (1985) 86: 247. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00397511)
  • So if they are carrying, on average, 30 embryos at a time, they can fertilize 10 clutches.
• While females can mate anytime after their terminal molt, experiments using electrophoretically-detected genetic markers indicate that each mates only once in her lifetime (Burton, R.S. Mar. Biol. (1985) 86: 247. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00397511)
  • So, females only need to mate once and store the sperm long term.

So if you have 1,000, newly inseminated females, it's likely that they will all produce a total of 300,000 offspring over the course of their reproductive period! Not too bad.

 

[CaptainNegatory]

It does indeed take 3-4 weeks for Tigriopus californicus to achieve maturity. It all depends on food availability, food type and water quality. Population density also has an effect on reproductive behavior.

Chad

Chad, first off I cannot thank you enough for chiming in here. It's a H-U-G-E relief. I haven't slept in 27 hours now as I insist to have a plan of action in place to sustain a culturing operation. I have split a 10G in half with a piece of acrylic. I have 3,000+ of AlgaeBarn's Tig pods in each side with a clump of chaeto and I've dumped in some Nano that I've been culturing. We'll see how that turns out.

I actually purchased a bottle of your pods from the LFS recently and since I could visibly see that these were adults I decided to get experimental. I took the entire bottle and put them into a 2L bottle with an airline and an airstone in the bottom with a slight bubble. I filled half with new saltwater @ 1.025SG and the other half with my nano. They look good. I have yet to get a any Apocyclops but I wanted some simply for the reason of building a big population faster. I was thinking about splitting the 10G into tigs and apocyclops. Harvest the 2L and dump them into the respective part of the 10 gallon accordingly. Then harvest 5,000 or so at a time and throw into biocube fuge.

I'm trying to contain it all in 2L bottles. Check out my setup and let me know if that's feasible? I was gonna throw em in, wait 10 days, use my 53 micron sieve to split half/half and put each half in a new 2L with new water and nano and wait ten more days. Repeat. Would love to hear your thoughts. I'm exhausted chasing this around but trying to keep it a small homegrown operation in my closet (lol) as much as possible.

Images Attached:

 

[CaptainNegatory]

I should probably put the most important one. The fed phyto with Reed Mariculture Tigpods!

 

[CaptainNegatory]

@Reef Nutrition I guess what I'm getting at is trying to make the most sustainable setup possible. I loved your write up but I don't have room for 5 plus large tubs, lol. Nor the resources locally to buy all that mesh. It took me forever just to find a 53 micron sieve that was in my budget.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

@Reef Nutrition I guess what I'm getting at is trying to make the most sustainable setup possible. I loved your write up but I don't have room for 5 plus large tubs, lol. Nor the resources locally to buy all that mesh. It took me forever just to find a 53 micron sieve that was in my budget.

I totally understand! The way I'm doing it is optimal for large-scale production, but not the only way. There are plenty of ways to "skin a copepod", so to speak. LOL

I will take a look at your system and get back to you next week. Thanks so much for sharing this! I think you will be able to grow copepods with what you've shown me. Whether it's reliable or not remains to be seen. When working with a live feed organism that has different life stages and needs, consistency can be tricky. But kudos for getting things going!

Chad

 

[CaptainNegatory]

I totally understand! The way I'm doing it is optimal for large-scale production, but not the only way. There are plenty of ways to "skin a copepod", so to speak. LOL

I will take a look at your system and get back to you next week. Thanks so much for sharing this! I think you will be able to grow copepods with what you've shown me. Whether it's reliable or not remains to be seen. When working with a live feed organism that has different life stages and needs, consistency can be tricky. But kudos for getting things going!

Chad

@Reef Nutrition
Thank you. Sincerely. In the middle of the Vegas desert it's hard to find anyone with experience with pods. I may try your setup later down the road in like February after I've moved and have more space!

In the interim, may I ask where you find affordable sieves or even just the mesh? These have been difficult to source. As of not I have no way to harvest and I'm panicking.

 

[Clownfish2]

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

Egg laying and days to maturing will depend on the species of copepod, there are thousands of species, temperature, food type, water quality, etc. I'd say on average 30 days to reach maturity. For harvesting, I made a 200 micron sieve by purchasing a Nut Milk Bag from Amazon for $10. I cut out 4 inch squares out of the bag and sandwiched a square between 2 PVC couplers (3 inch diameter) with CA glue. Then cut off the excess cloth around the PVC coupler. Now I got a homemade sieve.

I also picked up a 50 micron sieve from Florida Aqua Farms. I think it was less than $20. You could also use disposable coffee filters to catch the zooplankton that are smaller than 50 microns.

For food, everywhere I read, copepods prefer mixed diets, particularly brown algae such as Isochrysis Galbana or diatom algae. Brown algae or diatom algae makes sense because every time I have started a new reef tank, when I get a diatom bloom, out of nowhere I get significant copepods everywhere and then when the diatom algae disappears, the copepods disappear in my reef tank. For right now, I am feeding live nannochloropsis from Florida Aqua Farms, spirulina powder from Amazon, and BRS reef chili because I already has these on hand.

Another thing to watch out for is contamination. In the past I introduced live rock and chaeto from my reef tank into the copepod cultures and I ended up getting a crash due to microworms and another time from rotifers. So recently when I wanted to add chaeto to the copepod culture to stabilize the pH, I soaked the chaeto in RODI water for 30 minutes. I figured that could possibly eliminate any nuisance pests. So far I haven't seen any worms or rotifers in my copepod containers. I also use BiroSpira bacteria and ClorAmX to cycle the copepod water and reduce future ammonia. In past times, I didn't, and the copepods died from ammonia spike.

 

[CaptainNegatory]

Just wanted to update everyone on some info. I found usable sieves. Someone at my LFS advised to check Amazon for hash bags and low and behold for 50 dollars I got six stackable sieves from 60 microns all the way up to 200+. I also ordered the bags they have. There's 8 bags all in different micron sizes and they are on gallon bags. Figured I'd give it a shot. Last but not least I ordered the five back of the 25 Micron sheets just in case. I can't remember off the top of my head what size tog pod eggs were but figured one of these would ensure I didn't lose a bunch of eggs. Here are the links for that if anyone is interested:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014TMQTIG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_6gwoBbCJ2W0D6

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KV7THPU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_1iwoBbXPYSAE4

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075DTVYHX/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_jkwoBb21XXEQR

I also upgraded my phytoplankton culturing rig and double its size to 16 bottles. 8 for phyto (only Nano for now) and 8 for pods. I'm awaiting the new air pump for the pods so right now they are on the phyto side. I anticipate the extra light from the phyto for 16 hours a day will be sufficient for them but I may drop a curtain to separate the two because it seems that in the first bottle I started the phyto is actually growing faster than the pods are consuming (for now anyways) Here's a photo of the new rig and the first bottle of pods.

1 Hours After Feeding

3 Days Later

I have added two more bottles (each containing at least 1,000 pods) from @Reef Nutrition that I picked up at my LFS for $25/bottle. So there is now 3,000 total in theory and I will have a full 8 by end of this week. I did the math and here's my breakdown.

1. A Tig Pod takes 30 days (at most) to mature and is pregnant shortly after.
2. 8 bottles (new rig) over 30 days (30/8), means I can stagger them and every 4 days I can harvest a bottle.
3. Harvesting, means emptying the bottle and filtering out debris, eggs, and adults.
4. After harvesting, I will take half of the harvest, and put it back into the bottle with new water and new phyto to feed off of left to keep growing. The other half will be fed directly into my tanks fuge OR a holding (and experimental) ten gallon tank (divided into two fives) with live rock and chaeto to try and explode the population (depending on the needs of the main tank pod wise).
5. This process will be repeated every four days and by the time I get back to bottle 1 it will have been populating for 30 days again and ready to harvest.
6. NOTE: My biocube also has a fuge in it so pods fed to the tank my also contribute to their own population Growth as I do small doses of phyto to the fuge and consequently the tank.

I purchased awhile ago 6,000+ pods from @AlgaeBarn for this experiment and the first shipment didn't look alive at all. I filed their alive on arrival guarantee and upgraded to second day air. I admire that they stood by their commitment and sent me another 6,000. I decided to dump the dead 6,000 into the fuge just in case but nothing came of it. The new shipment arrived, I put them half and half (3,000 and 3,000) into the holding tank I mentioned earlier, fed them OceanMagik, gave them chaeto, and a live rock. After almost 5 days this is what the tank looks like and I'm pretty sure everything is dead and I have no idea why or whats going on. I sent them an email and hopefully they'll have some advice.

I can't see anything on the glass, no movement, nothing. It's the same water as what is in the 2L bottles so I've determined that not to be the reason. I'm going to wait a few more days before I just drain and sieve the whole thing and chalk it off as a loss. Meanwhile I'm proceeding with the tig pods from Reef Nutrition. After I have filled the 8 bottles for the rig, I may start from scratch with the above tank and put 1,000 on each side and see what happens. The chaeto and live rock on both sides is new and was sterilized so should not have any contaminants. Certainly not that could kill everything so fast. The benefit of the 2L is that.i use antibacterial soap to wash them and dry them and with no other additives there's no worry of contamination. I use a check flow valve on the rig that is hidden in the PVC elbow so that when I start a new culture I can use fresh airline and just wipe down the check valve with alcohol.

All tig bottles are numbered so I know which trip it was to the store and then have a date which marks their 30 day mark from being added to my bottles.

Additionally, all phyto bottles are marked by the specific type of phyto, a number which represents which number split it is from the original culture that I got off Amazon, and the date that marks 7 days on the bubbles.

Last but not least, I hate buying and drinking massive amounts of soda so the 2L bottles are exhausting to keep up with. So, I was looking for a better alternative near the same size and more reusable. I found these pickle jars at Walmart for $3 a piece and they are 2.3L with a metal top that's much larger of an opening and thus much easier to clean and being glass sterilize and reuse. What I'm going to do with 16 jars of pickles I have no idea.

The benefit of the larger opening also means that should I decide later down the road I can actually add small pieces of live rock, in addition to a small handful of chaeto, into each individual culture. First, I need to determine if this will cause cultures to crash, overcrowd the tank and cause issues, be a source for contaminants like brine shrimp or rotifers, or actually increase reproduction and spawning and increase culture life. I'm leaning towards the latter of the two but will do a test once I have some numbers recorded for starting population densities, and density at certain period intervals for each bottle without chaeto and live rock. Then, I can try a few bottles with some chaeto and live rock (the man made kind that is seeded with bacteria and dry at the LFS so there should be no contaminants) and check starting density of the population and then the density at the same periods as the control (empty bottles).

All that remains is to get a microscope in the next week or so (they're pricey) and some slides to go with it so I can do population counts and estimate the density or if they're crashing or are contaminated etc. I need to find out how to immobilize (kill basically) the pods on the slide so I can count them and if there's a special slide or tools I need to do so. I recall reading something about a count slide. If anyone knows how to do this or lives in the Las Vegas area and has a microscope I could borrow please let me know. I'll post more updates as I have them. Big thanks to @AlgaeBarn for the awesome customer service and excellent blogs and Chad at @Reef Nutrition for jumping on this post and sharing his valuable knowledge to help me brainstorm and get this project flowing. I'll upload a cost and savings analysis at he very end when I've fine tuned my culturing system and determined it to be stable and reliable. Until next time...

Happy Reefin',
CaptainNegatory

 

[CaptainNegatory]

Note: FWIW I feel like the pickle jar will be a MUCH better option with the live rock and chaeto. I won't start off with it just so I can check density and compare empty bottle density and keep this as scientific and un-anecdotal as possible but since the main things I would think would crash a culture would be ammonia and nitrate (so long as it's kept sterile) I think live rock and chaeto would be significant in helping keep those down for a 30 day period until the water and phyto is replaced and the harvest split. I will start the test once I have moved everything over to pickle jars just so that there is no variance in the environment i.e. (Glass vs. Plastic).

Best,
C. Negatory

 

[Reef Nutrition]

@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