Lets talk culturing copepods

[canadianeh]

@Reef Nutrition I notice that many of the phyto has settled in bottom in my apex pod culture. I do have air bubbles going on. Is it important to stir it once in a while?

 

[NS Mike D]

my tigger culture is crashing, I think due to some large temp swings with the erratic spring temps. i have my nanno phyto and my tigger culture near a window. Sunlight and the cheap heater i added when temps were dropping down the low 60s at night sent the culture to 85°.

it could also be other missteps, but I plan on switching to arcti pods in a week or two as I understand these are easier to culture and my sumps have exploded with the tiggers. My primary purpose is to keep my mandarin in my 29 gal happy, so now I'll be dosing the harvested arcti pods directly to the DT while the sumps send a steady flow of tiggers in.

 

[ThRoewer]

my tigger culture is crashing, I think due to some large temp swings with the erratic spring temps. i have my nanno phyto and my tigger culture near a window. Sunlight and the cheap heater i added when temps were dropping down the low 60s at night sent the culture to 85°.

it could also be other missteps, but I plan on switching to arcti pods in a week or two as I understand these are easier to culture and my sumps have exploded with the tiggers. My primary purpose is to keep my mandarin in my 29 gal happy, so now I'll be dosing the harvested arcti pods directly to the DT while the sumps send a steady flow of tiggers in.

There has been quite a bit of research done on Tigriopus californicus and one of the findings was that they generally do better in at elevated salinities and actually need the salinity to be higher to be able to handle higher temperatures (counter-intuitive but makes sense if you consider the California weather cycle). I haven't read all of the papers yet but it also seems that they need a generation or two to switch from summer temperatures to winter temperatures. During that transition, especially if temperatures change quickly, you may experience something looking like a crash but in most cases, they recover.
This may not be of much concern for indoor cultures but I keep my Tigriopus cultures in the backyard exposed to the elements. I just feel they do better that way and are more nutritious.

 

[User]

Of all those pods Tisbe is the smallest and Tigriopus the largest. Apocyclops is on the smaller side. Tisbe and Apocyclops are for me primarily larvae feeds due to them needing a decent amount of TLC to stay productive and alive.
Tigriopus is the one most suitable as a mass grow-out food as it gets pretty large and can be cultured out in the backyard (at least here in CA) and fed cheaply - no need for expensive feeds.
I still need to figure out how to maximize the yield and how to achieve better supply stability so that I will always have enough of it at all times.

My mistake- I was thinking of Arcti-pods given they are up to 3mm

you’ve got some great information going here- appreciated.

you don’t think nanno is a particularly useful food source for Tigs?

 

[Aqua Man]

The Tigger pods from Reef Nutrition I bought at a local shop came out of the fridge! I was kinda surprised. Looked in the bottle and saw them swimming around!

On the bottle it says 35ppt salinity, so that’s what I went with.

Thought mine was crashing too. Started to separate out the adults from what I thought was detritus on the bottom. Luckily I was using a glass pitcher to help in the separation because I noticed that the detritus was swimming! Lol

 

[Aqua Man]

Thought I read from reef nutrition that Artic pods were not alive.
Apex pods are the ones I’d like to try next.

you don’t think nanno is a particularly useful food source for Tigs?

Maybe not, but it’s the only thing I’ve put with mine and they are still alive.

 

[User]

Thought I read from reef nutrition that Artic pods were not alive.
Apex pods are the ones I’d like to try next.


Maybe not, but it’s the only thing I’ve put with mine and they are still alive.

I’ve been doing tigs for 8 months and nanno has been doing fine. It also clears up 3 times a week and needs replenishing, but I don’t have any direct light on it since it’s in my basement Fishroom. So the nanno doesn’t grow in my tig culture. From an RN bottle of tigs, I was at one point able to harvest 20-25000 a week for about a 6 week period before I dialed it back.

i actually stopped culturing for the past couple months due to reasons, but I plan to go back to my original set up again in a few weeks in anticipation of finally getting my mandarins andruby red scooters

 

[NS Mike D]

correction, I typed arcti pods, when I meant Apex pods. @Reef Nutrition had recommended culturing them as their reproduction cycle is better and they are big enough for fish to easily see.

The following are shared thoughts from someone who has yet to sustain steady harvesting, so please do not hesitate to point out different opinions or incorrect facts.

@ThRoewer Thanks. I make my salt water a hair under 35ppt for my pods and use RODI . I am getting another temp controller for this. I recall ReefNutrition while they can live is a pretty wide range up to 85° they do best (fastest metabolism) about 78° give or take. The tiggers are still there, just not near the numbers, so I do think they will recover. Given that the tiggers are well established in my DT, once I have a temp controller and my hands on a bottle of apex pods, my plans is to transfer the tigger culture to my sump as start a new culture of apex, BUT I may keep the tigger culture going and make the apex a second culture.


@Aqua Man 35ppt is perfect, but I do mix slight below so I don't have to thread the needle so tight between topping off evaporation Pods do like to hang out in the sludge at the bottom. I assume that if I am doing a 1/3 water change I can put that sludge back in the tank. If I get concerned the water might be fouling but my pods culture is strong in numbers I can sacrifice the ones in the sludge in a water change. Anyone have thoughts on the bottom sludge and separating pods from it? maybe throwing it in the sump? Can't be enough to affect NO3/PO4.

@neilp2006 While I can't claim success, nanno is very easy to culture, pods will consume them and live cells will help to keep the water from fouling quickly, so, IMO it makes a great base food for pods, and you can supplement with a little PhytoFeast as it contains the other strains (especially the brown algae) that round out a pod diet. From a $$$ perspective, the PhytoFeast can last months keeping overall costs down while your now free nanno culture does the heavy lifting.


One note, right now my culture is in critter crate I had on hand and only half full (I think 1.5 gals) that I will raise the water level as the colony expands and likely will move to a 5 gal fish tank at some point, although I like the idea of keeping two cultures in two critter cages.

 

[canadianeh]

@Reef Nutrition will UV sterilizer kill Apex pods or other pods?

 

[Aqua Man]

Anyone have thoughts on the bottom sludge and separating pods from it?

What I took as sludge was actually napulii !! I just used a brine shrimp net to catch the adults.

 

[User]

@Reef Nutrition : i found some earlier online forums detailing culturing on the Marine Breeding Initiative, that’s states Reed mariculture found that Tigriopus don’t do well cultured in clear containers. What’s the info on this? I’ve been using clear sterilize containers and been getting great yields (10-15000 adults/ week) but if I can optimize those numbers that’s worth looking into

thanks!

 

[SMSREEF]

Does anyone know of any copepod that I could raise outside in miami? Something that will survive the higher temps in the 90's. I would have them in the shade so the water should not get higher than the air temp.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

@Reef Nutrition I notice that many of the phyto has settled in bottom in my apex pod culture. I do have air bubbles going on. Is it important to stir it once in a while?

This is a common occurrence. It's typically bacteria and waste along with some of the phytoplankton. I never stir my cultures, but I do employ sponge filters to minimize the organic waste covering surfaces in the culture.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

The Tigger pods from Reef Nutrition I bought at a local shop came out of the fridge! I was kinda surprised. Looked in the bottle and saw them swimming around!

On the bottle it says 35ppt salinity, so that’s what I went with.

Thought mine was crashing too. Started to separate out the adults from what I thought was detritus on the bottom. Luckily I was using a glass pitcher to help in the separation because I noticed that the detritus was swimming! Lol

Yes, refrigeration is a great way for stores to keep them for a bit while they sell. It slows down their metabolism. We use their wide-ranging temperature tolerance to our advantage. We grow our Tigger-Pods just below 30 ppt and bottle them in 35 ppt so that they are at a similar salinity to what hobbyists keep their tanks at.

Happy to hear you noticed them in the detritus. The nauplii tend to mill around in the mulm until they get into their juvenile stages.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

@Reef Nutrition will UV sterilizer kill Apex pods or other pods?

We don't have any strong evidence for this. I know hobbyists that run UV and report copepods throughout their system. Since they are more complex organism as compared to algae and bacteria, which UV kills, they may be spared from being harmed. The other good thing is that the copepods we work with don't drift around the tank, they commonly live in the substrate, on the glass and in the reef rock.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

@Reef Nutrition : i found some earlier online forums detailing culturing on the Marine Breeding Initiative, that’s states Reed mariculture found that Tigriopus don’t do well cultured in clear containers. What’s the info on this? I’ve been using clear sterilize containers and been getting great yields (10-15000 adults/ week) but if I can optimize those numbers that’s worth looking into

thanks!

This is very old information, and is not 100% correct. You can definitely grow them in clear vessels, as many here can attest. We've learned a lot since 2012, so thanks for bringing this old information up so that I can address it.

Chad

 

[Reef Nutrition]

Does anyone know of any copepod that I could raise outside in miami? Something that will survive the higher temps in the 90's. I would have them in the shade so the water should not get higher than the air temp.

Our Apex-Pods (Apocyclops panamensis) would do just fine in that environment.

 

[SMSREEF]

Our Apex-Pods (Apocyclops panamensis) would do just fine in that environment.

Thank you so much, this is perfect! I’m going to order some.

Edit: Found a store nearby that carries your apex pods! I’m picking them up today.

 

[canadianeh]

How do I know if my culture is ready to be harvested? How do I know when to replace the water?

 

[Aqua Man]

I harvested at around 40 days. Took some and added to my tank. The rest got new water and phyto to start a new generation.