Frog fish ownership

[chair]

A couple of things I'm hoping the r2r community can help me answer...

1. A reputable source for buying frogfish online

2. The most ideal water parameters or unique things I should be doing for my frogfish tank (Temp lighting MG etc)

3. Feeding amount, diet variation and supplementing

4. Can I pair my frogfish, and if so which species of frogfish should I go for...

5.Any helpful tips from previous or current owners would be greatly appreciated

I am currently new to this hobby with a newly cycled tank (32.5 fluval curved tank with 2 Ai 16 reef lights with 2 clowns at the moment and frag of frogspawn)

 

[ace007]

It is the 80 day larval period combined with the requirement for Parvocalanus pods that why they are so difficult to raise in captivity - at least in the UK.

 

[Chrisv.]

It is the 80 day larval period combined with the requirement for Parvocalanus pods that why they are so difficult to raise in captivity - at least in the UK.

Can Parvocalanus be cultured?

 

[ace007]

My guy thinks he was the last person in the UK to produce Parvocalanus unless anyone knows different.

 

[Chrisv.]

My guy thinks he was the last person in the UK to produce Parvocalanus unless anyone knows different.

Is the issue the lack of availability of a source culture?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Can Parvocalanus be cultured?

It can be, yes, but pod cultures are very difficult to come by in the UK.

My guy thinks he was the last person in the UK to produce Parvocalanus unless anyone knows different.

I'm not sure of all the laws in the UK, but you might be able to harvest some wild copepods (such as with a plankton net or something) of a comparable size and try feeding them - no guarantees it would work, but it'd give you a chance:

catch a bunch of plankton in the ocean, sieve them to get into the right size range, use a microscope and pipette to hand select the rights pods to move them into their own container (removing any strays of other kinds of pods that get into the mix), and use those in the container to start your own culture.

Ideally, they'd come with some wild phytoplankton you can culture as well to ensure you can culture the pods (the phyto would sieve through with the tiny pod nauplii; you could sieve some of it out with a smaller sieve into a separate culture container as well, and you could use the microscope and pipette to ensure pure cultures if you wanted).