Question on filtering my copepod culture

[miltonkl]

I just started culturing copepods and am about ready to do another harvest but for some reason this time around I've developed a fair amount of detritus in the bottom. What's the best way to filter this out of my batch without losing a bunch of copepods in the process? My copepod sieve will presumably catch all of this stuff too and I don't want to just keep putting it back into the next batch or dump it all into my display as I put a load in.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

That is called mulm, it is dead pods, egg shells, dead phyto, etc... I culture my pods by completely draining the water (as much as I can without draining the mulm) and then clean the container, then start again. If you use a filter, will lose many pods in the filter.

 

[floridareeflabs]

Hello, You can use a sieve to filter out the culture. You will eventually have to filter some mulm but overall you can leave it alone for months upon months. As for doing water changes, get a 25 or 50 micron sieve and drain the culture through the sieve but allow mulm to stay at bottom. Then basckwash the sieve back into culture and refill and your good to go for awhile depending on the species meaning some like dirty and some like cleaner water.