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View Full Version : anyone out there culturing their own rotifers?

tonyespinoza
12/21/2008, 10:39 PM
or would anyone be interested in some if i started culturing them? (i'm in the bay area.)
tcmfish
12/21/2008, 10:53 PM
Culturing is not hard at all, get yourself a 10 or 15 gallon tank and a starter culture. Fill it about half full with a bubble in the corner. Feed them some algae paste. Its best to use a microscope to count how many you have roughly. You will need a couple sieve's to change the water.
tonyespinoza
12/21/2008, 11:31 PM
how often do you change?

would a 5g be too small?

thanks for the tips!
tcmfish
12/21/2008, 11:36 PM
5g isn't too small, but you just can't harvest as many and it would be easier to crash (Tens are like ten bucks so you could start with a five and move up later.). I would suggest using two cultures one that you harvest and one you don't touch just maintain that way if the one crashes you can always restart.

You will see chunks on the bottom so change when needed, but they do best in good water quality with a nice dark green algae. You need to add algae when its starts clearing up.
tonyespinoza
12/21/2008, 11:59 PM
how much light?
tcmfish
12/22/2008, 12:29 AM
Whoops, umm just a double fluorescent shop light mounted above the tank. BUT if you use the paste light doesn't really matter because the light is so that the algae won't die on you.

Culturing phyto can be more touchy, and I would just use paste. And I would ask someone who has more experience culturing phyto, I just use paste. You have to be careful what containers you use for phyto and rotifers because if rotifers get in the phyto watch out just another rotifer culture.

IMO easy way = use paste.
http://www.reed-mariculture.com/microalgae/nanno.asp
tonyespinoza
12/22/2008, 12:40 AM
perfect. last question - in your experience how long does a individual rotifer culture last?
tcmfish
12/22/2008, 08:17 AM
If you keep up with it they just keep making more and more and more, so you should be set.
tonyespinoza
12/22/2008, 01:04 PM
Cool.

Thanks for the lesson!
xJake
12/22/2008, 01:20 PM
Here's an awesome series of videos from the TalkingReef Podcast that I found very informative:

Part 1 - Phytoplankton (used as food for rotifers):
http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/podcast-episodes/557-culturing-phyto-video-podcast-episode-39-a.html
Part 2 - Rotifers:
http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/podcast-episodes/648-culturing-rotifers-video-podcast-episode-42-a.html