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birddog486
04/13/2010, 06:38 PM
Is it possible to use my well water and pure salt to culture rotifers without using artificial sea salts? I'd like to be able to do water changes more often so I can stop killing my cultures. I'm on my third starter of 1 million rotifers and I've only got one 1/4" clownfish to show for them so far.

My well water has

ph 8.3
alk 10 dkh
hardness= Calcium and Magnesium 320ppm
Nitrate 40ppm

no Ammonia or Nitrite

GreshamH
04/13/2010, 06:57 PM
Should be fine but what "pure salt" are you taking about? You may need to buffer it a little. You might want to ask who your getting your starter cultures though.

rkelman
04/13/2010, 08:28 PM
That is alot of Rots for 1 fish.. Make sure you are harvesting enough of them as well. If you let them over populate it of course fouls the water quicker. How are you controlling ammonia?

birddog486
04/14/2010, 07:37 AM
I've got all 3 cultures from Reeds, The problems I've had with the rotifers are my own fault in one way or another.

The first batch I killed on the second day when I added about a cup of ro/di water directly to the one gallon cultures I had to lower the SG. Lesson learned there.

The second batch was going great until I missed 2 days of feeding and removing them because of a back injury.

This brings me to the third culture that I'm now using.

The second batch of rotifers was fed to a batch of fry that ended up swimming into the glass to there death(300+ dead thread)

then I killed all the rots but, this is where the ONE lonely clownfish came from that's about 1/4" now.

The third group of rots I had to have was for the last clutch of clown eggs that I killed because of fungus. I pulled the pot one hour before lights out but didn't have enough air running.

I've got to keep these rots alive so I can try again on the 20th. My false perc pair has been consistent laying every 10 days with hatching on night 8.

I'm using chloramX for Ammonia but I'd like to stop using ro/di and Instant Ocean salt if I can use my well water and some Mortons 99.8-9% pure salt with no binders, cleaners or YPS.

sorry for all the rambling:crazy1:

BTW I'm now using Two ten gallon aquariums half full for the rots with light aeration from a stone and harvesting about 25% per day

landlord
04/14/2010, 07:43 AM
I have heard from others here that there is a potential for ciliate contamination when using well water. Cannot site the exact source, it's been awhile but now that the search is working you might want to review this forum for that info. I might have remembered incorrectly.

birddog486
04/14/2010, 07:57 AM
Thanks landlord, I'll look around for that but, I have seen what I believe to be ciliates in all my cultures so far using ro/di when looking at the rots under my scope. These cultures have been started in sterile conditions so I believe the ciliates come in with the rot cultures. I have seen atleast 2-3 of these per ml in my culture water zooming across the slide under the scope.

landlord
04/14/2010, 09:52 AM
Weird, I have not seen these under the scope, I use the same rotifers.

birddog486
04/14/2010, 11:34 AM
Yeah, that is weird that you haven't seen them in your cultures. I'm not saying there's no other way for them to have gotten into the rots but up until now it seemed like the most likely source for them was the starter cultures.

I've rinsed my syphon hose with my well water and perhaps that's where they've come from.

I'm not sure I want to be drinking my water if that's where they're from:worried:

To tell you the truth I really only stumbled across them on accident when I was adjusting the light source through the slide on my scope. The lower the light shining through the slide, the easier it was to see them.

rkelman
04/14/2010, 05:21 PM
I use well water. Rodi is a waste for Rots IMO.

birddog486
04/14/2010, 05:58 PM
I use well water. Rodi is a waste for Rots IMO.

Thanks, I think I'm going to just give it a try and see what happens. Are you still using synthetic salt with your well water?

GreshamH
04/14/2010, 07:38 PM
I've got all 3 cultures from Reeds, The problems I've had with the rotifers are my own fault in one way or another.

The first batch I killed on the second day when I added about a cup of ro/di water directly to the one gallon cultures I had to lower the SG. Lesson learned there.

The second batch was going great until I missed 2 days of feeding and removing them because of a back injury.

This brings me to the third culture that I'm now using.

The second batch of rotifers was fed to a batch of fry that ended up swimming into the glass to there death(300+ dead thread)

then I killed all the rots but, this is where the ONE lonely clownfish came from that's about 1/4" now.

The third group of rots I had to have was for the last clutch of clown eggs that I killed because of fungus. I pulled the pot one hour before lights out but didn't have enough air running.

I've got to keep these rots alive so I can try again on the 20th. My false perc pair has been consistent laying every 10 days with hatching on night 8.

I'm using chloramX for Ammonia but I'd like to stop using ro/di and Instant Ocean salt if I can use my well water and some Mortons 99.8-9% pure salt with no binders, cleaners or YPS.

sorry for all the rambling:crazy1:

BTW I'm now using Two ten gallon aquariums half full for the rots with light aeration from a stone and harvesting about 25% per day

We (Reeds) have found glass tanks to be the worst culture vessel you can choose. 5 gallon buckets work much better.

We are also Euplotes free and work hard to stay that way. Since we supply major hatcheries with all their rotifer needs we need to be Euplotes free.

Feel free to email us, we're more then happy to help you through this :D

birddog486
04/14/2010, 08:10 PM
We (Reeds) have found glass tanks to be the worst culture vessel you can choose. 5 gallon buckets work much better.

We are also Euplotes free and work hard to stay that way. Since we supply major hatcheries with all their rotifer needs we need to be Euplotes free.

Feel free to email us, we're more then happy to help you through this :D

Can you give some specific reasons here why glass tanks are the worst thing to use?

GreshamH
04/15/2010, 11:36 AM
We're not sure why just know they don't work that well. Could be being clear, could be the glass, could be being rectangular and not round, who knows. We simply found, as have plenty of our customers that have given us feedback, that glass tanks aren't what you want to use.

birddog486
04/15/2010, 12:49 PM
We're not sure why just know they don't work that well. Could be being clear, could be the glass, could be being rectangular and not round, who knows. We simply found, as have plenty of our customers that have given us feedback, that glass tanks aren't what you want to use.

Thats good enough for me then, Thanks

Now I just need to figure out how green is to green or not green enough :hmm5:

GreshamH
04/15/2010, 01:29 PM
I can help with that. PPM me your shipping address and I'll send you a color chip to work off of.

floridazooguy
04/15/2010, 04:22 PM
Maybe the glass tanks let light in I keep mine (reeds rots) in a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket with a lid slightly open to shade light. They have been doing great.

rkelman
04/15/2010, 04:37 PM
Yes I'm still using synthetic salt. I also use buckets. IO salt buckets actually.

birddog486
04/15/2010, 05:50 PM
Thanks for the info guy's, I moved the rots to my IO buckets as well.

GreshamH
04/15/2010, 07:14 PM
another thing most don't think about is it's super simple to contaminate your culture with ciliates. Soil harbors them, amongst other sources, and it's not a stretch for them to survive in lower salinity water such as people use to culture rotifers.

birddog486
04/15/2010, 07:40 PM
Well, once the ciliates are there,, is there a way to get rid of them?

I started a small culture early this afternoon with my well water and mortons salt mixed to a sg of 1.017 and just checked it out under the scope to see how the rotifers were doing and more than 70% of the ones I saw had eggs attached and were really active but, There were 3-5 of these small bugs 1/10th - 1/20th the size of the rotifers zooming around in each drop of water.

I raise freshwater fish and have looked under the scope thousands of times and never seen an abundance of these before I'm thinking it may be the combination of the salt and phyto that get them going. any thoughts?

GreshamH
04/15/2010, 07:55 PM
I don't think it's the salt, but the phyto (large food source) is definitely one thing that helps them boom.

I just spoke to one of our scientists and he said no worries on Mortons (even with iodine in it) and well water. He did say it would be best to either bleach the water or boil it prior to use.

I didn't ask about getting rid of them. I know we worked on that a little while back to get us clean and clear of them. I'll ask and report back tomorrow.

birddog486
04/15/2010, 08:03 PM
I don't think it's the salt, but the phyto (large food source) is definitely one thing that helps them boom.

I just spoke to one of our scientists and he said no worries on Mortons (even with iodine in it) and well water. He did say it would be best to either bleach the water or boil it prior to use.

I didn't ask about getting rid of them. I know we worked on that a little while back to get us clean and clear of them. I'll ask and report back tomorrow.

Thats awesome, thanks for the help.

gpsmart
04/15/2010, 11:29 PM
I think I can add a bit of clarity on the issue of glass tanks without actually knowing why what I am doing is working. To start off, I can't keep a rotifer culture going in a rectangular glass tank. However, I now use 2G glass jars situated near the door of my breeding shed. They get plenty of light from a tank next to them and from the door when it is open.

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/7110/rots005.jpg

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/730/rots006.jpg

In the second image the line is just over 2cm long so you can get some sort of idea of rotifer density (I have never measured rotifer density). They get fed with Rotifer Diet and are very easy but take a bit of time to maintain. I have a couple of backup cultures is plastic drums outside in full weather which get totally neglected except for feeding.

My rotifers are fine in glass jars and with light so I don't think either of these factors crash cultures. I think it is more likely to be the shape of the glass tanks that create inadequate circulation in the tank.

Just my theory, hope it helps.

Graham

GreshamH
04/16/2010, 11:33 AM
I meant to post yesterday about "dead zones" created bu square and rectangular tanks. I think that plays a big part in it. Clear in general produces less dense cultures we've found, whether it's plastic or glass, especially is you are using paste and not live.

The scientist I need to talk to re: getting rid of ciliates is not in today so I sent him a text message. I'll try to reply to that question this weekend if he gets back to me.

billsreef
04/16/2010, 05:31 PM
Hoff's plankton culture manual mentions rinsing the rots (in a sieve) with fresh water in order to dislodge the ciliates from the rots. Than placing the cleaned rots into a fresh culture container.

gpsmart
04/16/2010, 11:29 PM
Gresham - That would certainly make sense. I don't get anywhere near the rotifer densities that Rotifer Diet is supposed to be able to produce but I get more than enough for my small hatchery. I also get heaps more rots using 3 x 2G jars and Rotifer Diet than I ever managed to get from live phyto and a 40G drum.

birddog486
04/17/2010, 05:43 AM
Hoff's plankton culture manual mentions rinsing the rots (in a sieve) with fresh water in order to dislodge the ciliates from the rots. Than placing the cleaned rots into a fresh culture container.

Bill, am I reading correctly "rinsing with fresh water" or does that mean new/clean saltwater?

I was under the asumption if the rots were exposed to water with a change of SG more than .007 they become useless.

billsreef
04/17/2010, 07:50 AM
Bill, am I reading correctly "rinsing with fresh water" or does that mean new/clean saltwater?

I was under the asumption if the rots were exposed to water with a change of SG more than .007 they become useless.

Actual fresh water, no salt. I expect the temperate exposure might set back production a bit, but won't kill them for such a short duration.