Culturing Pods question

[TheStrangler]

Ahoy! Sorry if this isn't quite the right section, but I felt it was appropriate. I have a question regarding using a bit of live rock and chaeto in Copepod culture tanks. While I'm aware that the main concern is with potential for contamination, I'm wondering if you start with sterile or sterlized chaeto and dry rock + bacteria starter, would chaeto and live rock help give copepod cultures a bit of flexibility in preventing crashes from ammonia spikes? Has anyone had any success with something like that? I've got a mylar grow tent and high performance grow lights marketed towards *cough* growing tomatoes indoors, that I am actually using to grow tomatoes/peppers/herbs and have a bit of spare room for cultures, so temperature and light shouldn't be an issue.

If it matters, I'm starting cultures for Tiger, Tisbe, and Apocylops and I'm feeding Nanno and Tetraselmis phytoplankton to feed them.

 

[Shon]

"Honestly Officer, it's legal reefer. I swear."

What about a DIY upflow algae scrubber instead of chaeto? Aerate the water and absorb excess nutrients.

 

[TheStrangler]

"Honestly Officer, it's legal reefer. I swear."

What about a DIY upflow algae scrubber instead of chaeto? Aerate the water and absorb excess nutrients.

That is also an option I suppose, but wouldn't there still be the same issue with potential contamination though? What I have available to me at the moment is clean Chaeto, Ulva, and Gracilaria. I've never studied algae scrubbers too intensely but I'll go read up on them.

 

[lapin]

Since pods live on and in rock and in macro alage in fuges, I dont see why this would be an issue.

 

[Shon]

Hair algae will grow in just about any body of water exposed to light and air, given time. It takes a while for the algae to start, as mentioned in nearly every ATS post. So clean macro would win out in the right now vs later scenario. It was only a suggestion.

If rock is cheap or free, sure use it. I plan on ebay/amazon bulk buying some ceramic rings for mine. Little eggcrate boxes, swap it into the sump, shake it after a day or so, rinse, return to the pod culture. Like a "pod condo". Since your doing multiple species, might cross contaminate unless you rinse well. Wont work well for swimming pods I assume. Might be a good idea to have a second setup of pods in case the main one does crash.

What are you culturing for? How do you plan to do your setup? 2 liters for phyto? 5.5/10g tanks for pods?

 

[TheStrangler]

Hair algae will grow in just about any body of water exposed to light and air, given time. It takes a while for the algae to start, as mentioned in nearly every ATS post. So clean macro would win out in the right now vs later scenario. It was only a suggestion.

If rock is cheap or free, sure use it. I plan on ebay/amazon bulk buying some ceramic rings for mine. Little eggcrate boxes, swap it into the sump, shake it after a day or so, rinse, return to the pod culture. Like a "pod condo". Since your doing multiple species, might cross contaminate unless you rinse well. Wont work well for swimming pods I assume. Might be a good idea to have a second setup of pods in case the main one does crash.

What are you culturing for? How do you plan to do your setup? 2 liters for phyto? 5.5/10g tanks for pods?

I'm still looking at tanks for the pods, somewhere around 5 gallons for each tank with their own dedicated rock/algae and nothing shared between them to reduce the risk of crossing the cultures. I currently have two 1 gallon containers for phytoplankton, and I'm going to add another two in the short term. Im thinking about looking around for a few pounds of dry rock rubble, adding a bottle of Dr.Tims or something to that effect, adding a bit of clean algae to each tank to grow and help clean the water a bit. I figured a coffee filter or a strainer for each tank could be used to scoop and sift pods. I'm still researching all of the options based on what people have had success with in the past, ie filter or no filter, airstone or no airstone on the air pump, etc.

I'll then add them to my 50 gallon tank's sump and let them populate there and move up top as well. I don't have any predators for them yet, but I plan on keeping zoas and LPS as well as maybe a pod picking fish here and there. If I get the process down well and reliable, maybe I'll be able to trade some excess phyto/pods for other fish foods, but I'd want to make sure quality is on point and I'm doing everything correctly. I've got a lot of laboratory experience so I likely have all of the good habits required to do this properly.

*edit* I'm thinking three five gallon buckets would be a lot lower maintenance than a tank. Easier to pick up and clean out.

 

[TheStrangler]

For those culturing phytoplankton, have you had better success with larger culture containers versus smaller ones? My phyto seems to be growing much faster than I expected, getting dark green and ready to split or add more water in 3-4 days in 1 gallon containers. Im starting to consider upping it to 2 gallon containers instead so I can keep a culture going a little longer just by topping off the water volume before splitting.

I'm considering adding rotifers to the mix as well, but I'm not sure yet. I could either go with another culture vessel or I've read that you can culture rotifers/copepods together without any issue. I dont really have a need for rotifers right now, but it'd be something to do.