Copepod Maturation & Egg Laying time frame?

[Reef Nutrition]

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.

At the right magnification, you can easily see larger contaminants like ciliates or rotifers. Brine shrimp and rotifers can be seen with the trained, naked eye.

Chad

 

[CaptainNegatory]

Hey All,

Just an update! I put all four bottles I had into a glass pickle jar that's 2.3L. I ran all the pod cultures into a sieve and into their respective jars. Each has at least some rock, none are perfectly equal, and two have chaeto simply because I ran out. I'll get some for them later. I also read an article that said 24/7 air isn't necessary and sometimes you get better results without air. That being said, they get air 10 hours a day with light and it's quiet the rest of the time for the last 14. I don't think this will be an issue or make that significant of a difference other than that the pods really enjoy the dark.

When I sieved them I took some out to do a scope check. Saw what I believed to be phyto, a female, a juvenile, and the eggs that (were) attached to the female prior to me pressing to hard. There were ten times as many pods as the original volume in at least 4 times the water volume of the 6oz bottle. Still 3 weeks to go on all the bottles before I do a harvest.

I also only filled the containers halfway so that as harmful levels raise I can dilute by adding water. So in two weeks I'll top off the water to dilute any toxins that may harm the pods.

Unfortunately, my phyto cultures crashed but I learned the lesson there. I'll have a new culture this week but in the mean time I'm feeding dried spirulina powder.

Only hangup I have is that when I do harvest I'm not sure at all how to get the pods out of the chaeto and live rock. I may just blast with the air to shake them up and then shake up (in the jar) the chaeto to shake off as many as possible and pour them out. Whatever stays on the rock and chaeto stays with that culture. I should still be able to get a sufficient amount out to split and subsequently feed to the tank.

For entertainment I put under a scope some pods and found a female with eggs and a juvenile and what I think is phytoplankton. Probably no updates for a couple weeks but time will tell.

 

[CaptainNegatory]

For what it's worth, here's a photo of all four jars of pods now. I'll be getting a fifth bottle of pods (sticking to the every 4 days rule) tomorrow or Tuesday. I'll get some Spirulina powder tomorrow to feed them while I await my new culture and the bottle I am ordering from a friend with the purpose of using for feeding only.

Also, although it's totally unrelated to Copepods I have built a baby brine shrimp feeder and hatchery so in addition to pods and those my Mandarin is eating about 10 black worms twice a day for 20 total. Sooner than later I will order white worms to start a culture and I may culture black worms as well but for now they're so plentiful and cheap it's easier to just buy and focus on all the other projects this comes with as I'm already brainstorming larger pod cultures for Apocyclops and T. Californicus. I have a bedroom in the house now that'll just be dedicated to my marine science projects. I plan to have a massive culture of pods going before I get my 55 gallon cycled so I can seed that tank with thousands of pods and sell the rest to try and recoup my costs and at least break even on all of this, maybe even selling phyto too.

The small station that I've shared pictures of will continue to operate for personal uses only.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

Hey All,

Just an update! I put all four bottles I had into a glass pickle jar that's 2.3L. I ran all the pod cultures into a sieve and into their respective jars. Each has at least some rock, none are perfectly equal, and two have chaeto simply because I ran out. I'll get some for them later. I also read an article that said 24/7 air isn't necessary and sometimes you get better results without air. That being said, they get air 10 hours a day with light and it's quiet the rest of the time for the last 14. I don't think this will be an issue or make that significant of a difference other than that the pods really enjoy the dark.

When I sieved them I took some out to do a scope check. Saw what I believed to be phyto, a female, a juvenile, and the eggs that (were) attached to the female prior to me pressing to hard. There were ten times as many pods as the original volume in at least 4 times the water volume of the 6oz bottle. Still 3 weeks to go on all the bottles before I do a harvest.

I also only filled the containers halfway so that as harmful levels raise I can dilute by adding water. So in two weeks I'll top off the water to dilute any toxins that may harm the pods.

Unfortunately, my phyto cultures crashed but I learned the lesson there. I'll have a new culture this week but in the mean time I'm feeding dried spirulina powder.

Only hangup I have is that when I do harvest I'm not sure at all how to get the pods out of the chaeto and live rock. I may just blast with the air to shake them up and then shake up (in the jar) the chaeto to shake off as many as possible and pour them out. Whatever stays on the rock and chaeto stays with that culture. I should still be able to get a sufficient amount out to split and subsequently feed to the tank.

For entertainment I put under a scope some pods and found a female with eggs and a juvenile and what I think is phytoplankton. Probably no updates for a couple weeks but time will tell.

This a nice shot of "copepoo"! Copepods excrete a fecal slug that is coated. Planktonic crustaceans have a peritrophic membrane, which is a thin tubular sheet secreted in the midgut as a means of preventing abrasion of the gut wall. This acts as a distinct wrapper for feces (Lautenschlager et al. 1978, Lampitt et al. 1990, Gonzalez 1992). Finding feces means they are being well fed! The teeny, tiny specks next to the turd are phytoplankton.

 

[CaptainNegatory]

This a nice shot of "copepoo"! Copepods excrete a fecal slug that is coated. Planktonic crustaceans have a peritrophic membrane, which is a thin tubular sheet secreted in the midgut as a means of preventing abrasion of the gut wall. This acts as a distinct wrapper for feces (Lautenschlager et al. 1978, Lampitt et al. 1990, Gonzalez 1992). Finding feces means they are being well fed! The teeny, tiny specks next to the turd are phytoplankton.

Thank you so much for following along with my thread and sharing the good info! I have a max of 1,000 times zoom maybe I will see a phytoplankton with that! I recall this being 100-250x zoom but I'm not completely sure. This was all filtered out with 53 microns so I will continue to look for poo going forward! Glad I didn't put it back thinking it was phyto, haha!

 

[CaptainNegatory]

@Reef Nutrition I just checked a side culture I had going and noticed it's 99% rotifer. Not sure how I pulled that off. Will tig pods way rotifers? Thanks in advance!

 

[Reef Nutrition]

@Reef Nutrition I just checked a side culture I had going and noticed it's 99% rotifer. Not sure how I pulled that off. Will tig pods way rotifers? Thanks in advance!

That's great to hear! Rotifers are such a great live feed organism!

Not sure I understand your question. "Will tig pods way rotifers?" If you meant "eat", then the answer is: not sure. I have had rotifer contamination in my Tigger-Pods cultures. When this happens, I drain the tank, disinfect and start it over. Rotifers wreak havoc on a culture. They reproduce asexually and mature rapidly, as opposed to Tigriopus californicus which reproduces sexually and takes weeks to sexually mature, so they over populate a culture rapidly, reducing food and increasing waste. They are akin to a plague in the right circumstances. With all that being said, I have heard from people that co-culture rotifers with Tigger-Pods, but not sure about long term success. For me and others in aquaculture, we keep single species cultures so that we have more control.

-Chad

 

[CaptainNegatory]

Just wanted to update everyone. All my jars of pods have some live rock. The two that had the chaeto have pretty much crashed with only a few left. Since I lost the phyto I fed them spirulina powder. Well, that stuff makes a mess of the bottom of the jar and since I know pods can go at least a month without food I will not be using that anymore I will just wait until the phyto can be cultured again.

The chaeto I think was bad and would explain why I didn't see anything cultivate from AlgaeBarn pods. A photo is below. That is a week after being in my tank fuge. The rest of the chaeto is thick and dark green, this stuff was pale white in some areas. Yuck.

Anyways, I've now decided all culture will be bare bottom and no chaeto or live rock It makes it easier to see populations, density, etc. There's no benefit and maybe even harm and added difficulty to harvest with all the extras in the tank. However, following advice from an article on Brine Shrimp Direct I am starting the cultures in only half a jar of water and then after a couple weeks I will fill it up to dilute the pollutants and keep the culture healthy, with a full water change done every 30 days. The other cultures seem to be doing well and one from 06/28 looks healthy but I'm still waiting to see the huge population "boom". The crashed ones I will harvest what I can and reseed the entire thing so it will be a complete harvesst at the 30 day mark and an acid wash for everything else. I bought an awesome RODI unit that I will share a review on at a later time to make my own saltwater. With a 30 gallon and 55 in the works plus phyto and pods it just made sense to make my own water and not haul jugs back and forth to the LFS.

Plans already in the works to start cultures (also 8) in 5 gallon buckets. Will post more updates as they come along. Until next time reefers!

 

[Zephrant]

I've read that Tigs self-limit reproduction when they get too dense, does anyone know how dense that is? Is it in the range of 1 adult/ml?
Trying to figure out how to tell a culture is maxed out and needs to be split or harvested.

 

[Danny_M5]

THATS THE WAY TO GO....

 

[CaptainNegatory]

I've read that Tigs self-limit reproduction when they get too dense, does anyone know how dense that is? Is it in the range of 1 adult/ml?
Trying to figure out how to tell a culture is maxed out and needs to be split or harvested.

Eyeballing it is probably the best way to go. If it looks to dense, it probably is.

 

[Zephrant]

I've seen density go up and down, so was looking for more a metric of "x beasties per ml" is a good target.

 

[Hermie]

Hey @CaptainNegatory have you kept working on copepod production? I was super grateful to find this thread, mainly because it has the lifecycle for A. Paramensis. I was worried mine weren't maturing fast enough, but now I see it takes 2 weeks based on Chad's information.

 

[Sir Chris]

For what it's worth, here's a photo of all four jars of pods now. I'll be getting a fifth bottle of pods (sticking to the every 4 days rule) tomorrow or Tuesday. I'll get some Spirulina powder tomorrow to feed them while I await my new culture and the bottle I am ordering from a friend with the purpose of using for feeding only.

Also, although it's totally unrelated to Copepods I have built a baby brine shrimp feeder and hatchery so in addition to pods and those my Mandarin is eating about 10 black worms twice a day for 20 total. Sooner than later I will order white worms to start a culture and I may culture black worms as well but for now they're so plentiful and cheap it's easier to just buy and focus on all the other projects this comes with as I'm already brainstorming larger pod cultures for Apocyclops and T. Californicus. I have a bedroom in the house now that'll just be dedicated to my marine science projects. I plan to have a massive culture of pods going before I get my 55 gallon cycled so I can seed that tank with thousands of pods and sell the rest to try and recoup my costs and at least break even on all of this, maybe even selling phyto too.

The small station that I've shared pictures of will continue to operate for personal uses only.

These white worms your speaking of. Do you have a photo. Are they to small to see burn just enough of you squint?