Rotifers and Saltwater demands

[Piker]

Hi all,

So, my project to breed orchid dottybacks is progressing. I've got my dottybacks laying eggs reliably, phytoplankton going, and I'm on to culturing rotifers. Going in, I didn't realize it was a daily harvest. So, I'm curious about other breeders experience with this. About how much daily saltwater does it take to maintain a healthy culture in a 5 gallon bucket? Do most of you that breed as a hobby only culture rotifers when you are actively breeding or do you keep them up all year round?

Any recommendations to a new hobbyist I may not have covered here? This just seems it would about double my saltwater demand as is, and while it won't break the bank, I wasn't expecting the extra labor lol.

Also, I've decided to go with this CCS kit from reefnutrition.com ( https://reefnutrition.com/product_compact_culture_system.php ). I like the idea of a clean and efficient system by the numbers, but if this is going to yield the exact same results I'd get by buying my own 5 gallon bucket, some rigid tubing and a harvest sieve please let me know.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

 

[Doctorgori]

I got a few tips:
Rotifers get everywhere and anywhere; esp green water cultures....keep the two cultures apart and watch your sanitation protocols

green water crashes a lot if you are not procedural...I think bacteria is usually the culprit as oft indicated by flocks and off colors

you never need as much F/2 as you think...

clean jars after every culture: you can save on vinegar, et by putting the cleaner in 1st, then place a plastic bag in the jar and fill that with hot water; displacing the cleaning solution (get it?)

 

[Piker]

I got a few tips:
Rotifers get everywhere and anywhere; esp green water cultures....keep the two cultures apart and watch your sanitation protocols

green water crashes a lot if you are not procedural...I think bacteria is usually the culprit as oft indicated by flocks and off colors

you never need as much F/2 as you think...

clean jars after every culture: you can save on vinegar, et by putting the cleaner in 1st, then place a plastic bag in the jar and fill that with hot water; displacing the cleaning solution (get it?)

By green water you mean my phyto culture right? My process right now produces one 32oz bottle of phytoplankton a week. I have been washing this with vinegar weekly and bottling it. I have no idea how much I'll need once I have rotifers/copepods/brine shrimp all going... but I hope it's enough.

I guess I don't follow you on the vinegar... my process is to rinse my jar with hot water, put about a cup of vinegar inside and swirl, rinse with RODI water.

 

[ThRoewer]

Due to energy cost and limited space, I culture my green water in the backyard in a 40B with a Marineland 1200 powerhead and a sponge filter for circulation and to keep it clean and let the sun provide the light. No idea what algae it precisely is, it developed on its own in one of my outdoors Tigriopous cultures. At least some of it looked like a flagellate (Tetraselmis?). I added also some Nanochloropsis of which I keep a couple of back-up bottles in the kitchen window, far from the fish room. Those get only refilled with previously microwaved saltwater. With the California sun, the culture thrives pretty well and I usually use just old water from my tanks that is pumped through a 1 µm filter to refill it. I have some old F/2 that I use for the back-up cultures, but for the outdoors culture I just use Miracle Grow.

For the rotifer cultures, you need about a gallon of green water every other day. I start with one gallon of green water and rotifers to a 5-gallon bucket. When the green is mostly gone I add another gallon of green water and so on until the bucket is full. At that point, when it clears again, you can siphon water out of the bucket through a 53 µm strainer to harvest rotifers. Replace the water you take out with green water.
This works for me so far pretty smooth.

I found that you may actually be able to culture Brachionus straight in the larva tank directly if you start with enough and add green water. At least with my Amphiprion bicinctus larvae, I found that the rotifers reproduced faster than the larvae could eat them, and once they transitioned to larger food (brine shrimp) the rotifers kind of got out of control because I still added green water for the brine shrimp to feed on.

 

[Skydvr]

I'm starting with Psuedochromis fridmani as well. I've got tigriopus going right now and should have my rotifers Thursday.

I am using the CSS system in a homemade 3 gallon setup. I got some intake/overflow pipe screens from Florida Aqua Farms when I ordered some other supplies and the rotifer floss from Reed's.

I will be using RGcomplete for growout and live phyto for enrichment. I don't really have the room to grow enough phyto for feeding and enrichment. RGcomplete will be more consistent as the primary feed.

If you don't want to harvest daily, or don't have the need to harvest daily, you can scale back the feed rate to limit the growth rate. There was someone testing the CCS with an every other day harvest schedule and they were successful. They recommend being on the higher end of the harvest ratio, closer to 50% to maintain long term viability. I'd probably try something like Mon 50%, Wed 30%, Fri 30% and monitor the culture for long term health. Bump up the percentages if required

You don't need to culture at full salinity (or breed at full salinity for that matter). Breeding at a lower salinity is actually beneficial as it reduces the energy required to maintain a proper osmotic ballance, so more energy can go into growth and reproduction, or a lower energy input is required for growth/reproduction depending on how you want to look at it. I haven't looked to see if there are research papers on growth and reproduction in reduced salinity to see if there is faster growth for the same feed input over a given time period or if it just reduces the reed required.