Help needed for Culturing Rotifers for clownfish fry

[Ms. Mermaid]

Okay I am in need of some help here….. I am in the process of culturing some Rotifers for my future clownfish fry and need to know what I am doing wrong…..So I can get it corrected before my female lays her second batch.. I lost the first batch my fault…
They are sinking to the bottom of the bucket I have my air flow kind of a slow but when I would scope the top of the water there is no rotifers in there..
When I stir it up and scope again then I have some in there..

My question is if I have it on slow flow which is way more than what you are supposed to have in the fry tank so how do I keep them afloat so the fry will find them and eat them? The fry tank has to have one bubble per second and that is way slower than what I have going on now in the buckets…
And if I have to scope from the bottom of the bucket then I will be getting all the detritus in the mix of rotifers and I don’t think that is supposed to go into the fry tank.

Please any advice will be greatly appreciated….

 

[JasonPG]

Rotifers don't sink unless they are dead. Dead rotifers = dead clownfish fry.

What is the salinity in your rotifer culture and how are you measuring that?

 

[Acrokeeper3729]

He's right, if your Rotifers are sinking they are dead.

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

Measure it with the Hydrometer and it is very close to what the LFS measures when they use the refractionater. So what do I need to do to keep them alive? I have put in the exact amount of the RGcomplete as instructed with my starter kit.

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

Opps forgot to add for the ones that are still alive and how do I seperate them dead ones from the live ones?

 

[JasonPG]

Measure it with the Hydrometer and it is very close to what the LFS measures when they use the refractionater. So what do I need to do to keep them alive? I have put in the exact amount of the RGcomplete as instructed with my starter kit.

Again if you don't mind, what is the salinity of your Rotifer culture? :wink:

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

Oh sorry it came in at 1.015 and I made my water to be 1.018. On the instructions it said they can tolorate a small difference and I had the water mixing for several days before I got my rotifers.

 

[JasonPG]

Oh sorry it came in at 1.015 and I made my water to be 1.018. On the instructions it said they can tolorate a small difference and I had the water mixing for several days before I got my rotifers.

That sounds pretty good. If you are only bubbling 1 bubble every second I'd say you can turn it up pretty significantly. It could be a gas exchange issue that is causing PH swings.

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

And I followed the instructions that I printed out from Reed Nutrution for my Rotifer Starter Kit and have been following to a tee....

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

They are not dead just so tiny. A lot of debris at the bottom of the bucket. Does the sieve work better than the coffee filter when filtering? It for some reason seem to take a long time to drain when I use the coffee filters.

 

[Just Clownin Around]

yes alot better. i used the coffee filters at one point and it was a royal pain

 

[oceancube]

the coffee filters stink to collect rotifers, what you really want is a sieve kit that will include 3 sieves that way you can drain your rotifer water through all 3 sieves and itll clean your rotifer water and strain the rotifers all at the same time.. 3 sieve kit runs about $45.00 depending where you get them and sizes, they make 4inch and 8 inch sieves i believe...

 

[Ms. Mermaid]

the coffee filters stink to collect rotifers, what you really want is a sieve kit that will include 3 sieves that way you can drain your rotifer water through all 3 sieves and itll clean your rotifer water and strain the rotifers all at the same time.. 3 sieve kit runs about $45.00 depending where you get them and sizes, they make 4inch and 8 inch sieves i believe...

Were have you bought the sieve kits from?

Also when I went into the room were they are kept at and the water temp said 70.1 do I need to put a heater in the water are will they still multiply?