I make plankton sieves if anyone needs. If you don’t know what that is, it’s like a sized strainer. I have sizes 40,55,60,150,260,320. I use pvc and a polyester aquaculture mesh and have various diameters, plus customized as well. They’re pretty cheap, only 10$ plus ship. If you buy the whole set only 40$. I use these for a lot of things, mainly harvesting brine shrimp, rotifers and copepods. They’re very handy when changing water. When the water fouls on your copepod cultures, which frequently happens, it makes doing a 100% water change a snap. There’s I don’t make any money from this, it just buys the materials and allows me to make some for myself. I also use the sheets of mesh to make copepod nauplii harvesters as well as something that I’m working on to feed mandarin fish called the “Pod Pad” for amphipods and copepods. You stuff chaeto inside, the copepods or amphipods use as a refuge and they’ll crawl on the outside of the basket where the mandarin can peck at it. If anyone needs sieves, custom project or even just the aquaculture mesh, I can provide. Send me a PM.
Help growing copepods in refugium
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I have. It’s somewhere in the R2R. Is there anything specific you’d like to know about? I only repeat what I’ve learned. I’m still learning, but have been doing so full time as I’m sick off and on. I started growing my own live food (pods and rotifers) out of boredom. That led to breeding shrimp , then fish. I’ve been inviting everyone to take a look at my Facebook page, @PaulsPodsAZ, where I have some pretty cool pics and video you won’t see elsewhere unless you really look hard.
I get decapped from them and have not had a prob.
Make that we are the only 2 left
They put some banner over 1/2 the screen so its hard to really see much on some ones FB page.
Will talk about the sizes I need. lost some stuff in the move or gave it away.
Will pm about the sheets.
LBReefer
Well-Known Member
I had the same question. I’m too lazy to try and maintain a phyto culture and a separate container for pods. I tried growing pods, but I had limited success and ultimately ended up with a mess.
Well yes and no. The larger Amphipods are about 1/8th of an inch long. They can be seen nesting in the ulva or other macro algae. They will eat the dead macro algae and some of the micro alage ( green slime) Copepods are filter feeders. Larger types will eat some slime algae but the smaller ones will not. If you scrape the glass and let the slime stuff float they can eat that if the particle size is small enough.
The question becomes what fish / coral are you trying to feed ?
The question becomes what fish / coral are you trying to feed ?
Im going to try the Apex pods. I ordered 2 bottles. One for the fuge and one to put in a bucket for culturing. I also noticed the clowns spawning. Im going to start the L and S type roti buckets going again. This time I ordered the dosing pump and will dose RG Onestep a few times a day in both the roti buckets and the pod bucket. I scored a small fridge from child and women's protective services after their remodel. This way I can mix up a batch of the green stuff that will last a few days.
I can help. It’s super easy once you know the right stuff to feed, according to the species you’re culturing. I’m having everyone who wants PDFs to send me a PM with their email and I can get you set up and going if you need me to. There is a book if u read the above post I listed it there. It’s cheap and has a ton of info in it to grow your own plankton. Feel free to get ahold of me, I’ve been able to do a lot of aquaculture projects very cheaply, including breeding fish and shrimp. I’ve learned a lot from others and now I get to pass it to whom ever is interested. I ind that with some people though, the eyes start to gloss over lol. Too much information.
This is the kind of yield from Apex pods (apocyclopse panamensis) that I can get by growing it out for about a month and a half. It’s one method I use, called a batch culture. It’s where you let a culture go for only a certain amount of time, then terminate it, harvesting the copepods. This is from one of my 2.5 gallon cultures.
You won’t need S-type Rotifers for feeding clownfish larvae. In fact it could be detrimental. The L types have more biomass, so by chasing after a tiny S type Rotifer, they’re expending too many calories with little to show for it. They’ll soon weaken and die. S types are for unusually small mouth gapes (~50micron). They’re only used for the first few days, then L type after that. I only order S rotifers because of the yellow clown goby eggs. I’m trying to raise those next. Here’s the eggs from this morning and the momma goby. The larvae are about 1mm. Tiny!
I have used it before and have some coming along with the roti and pods. I wanted to try the new
https://reedmariculture.com/product_rotigrow_onestep.php
That’s what I’ve been trying to tell u. It’s not new. It’s been around for awhile actually. RG Complete has all the good stuff that u need. Take a look at the label, then compare.
So it’s a liter or 32oz, as you can see. It’s 35$ for this size. Doesn’t a liter of RotiGrow onestep cost about 70$ plus ship? They have smaller sizes of RG Complete, but not worth buying a small bottle and pay the same shipping. You’ll be fine with either one, so no worries. It’s just nice having the ammonia in it. I actually just like the price. I use it in my larval rearing tub for “green-water”.
I’m going to make my own compact culture system. The instructions and parts list are on the Reef website
Saltyanimals
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That’s what I’ve been trying to tell u. It’s not new. It’s been around for awhile actually. RG Complete has all the good stuff that u need. Take a look at the label, then compare.
So it’s a liter or 32oz, as you can see. It’s 35$ for this size. Doesn’t a liter of RotiGrow onestep cost about 70$ plus ship? They have smaller sizes of RG Complete, but not worth buying a small bottle and pay the same shipping. You’ll be fine with either one, so no worries. It’s just nice having the ammonia in it. I actually just like the price. I use it in my larval rearing tub for “green-water”.
I’m going to make my own compact culture system. The instructions and parts list are on the Reef website
Dusting this old thread up. Great discussion.
Going back to the initial discussion I was looking for basically tips and whatnot to growing pods in a healthy fuge. I have no issues growing macro and harvest plenty regularly. I however now have a 2nd Manny and we all know how much one eats. So because of the 2 hungry mouths, I'm researching ways to improve pod supply which brings me to this fine discussion.
Question to pod and reproduction. Assuming they have enough to eat in whatever is in the fuge now, is there a light condition that is ideal for their reproduction? I used to run fuge light 12 hrs a day.. moved to 24.. and now back to 12 since I was getting some GHA in the chaeto.
Is it healthier for pod population to have certain light off periods in darkness?
Thanks,
