Pod culturing issues??

[psimitry]

So I read Dwayne Sapp's article on culturing pods not too long ago. Since I have an intense desire to keep a mandarin dragonette, I wanted to make sure that my tank had an intensely concentrated pod population (I had a TON of them in my 18G but when I moved to my 55G I hardly ever saw them).

I've got about 75LB of rock in my tank so I have the rock qualification taken care of, but I wanted to culture some pods so that everything would be "copesetic" (har har).

So I got myself a 10G tank, partitioned it so that I could run redundant cultures, got an air pump with a gang valve so that I could reduce the flow and just have a gentle current in the tank.

I added my phytoplankton (phyto-feast), and a bottle of pods (tigger-pods), and away they went.

After a few days, VOILA! I could see a noticable increase in the population in there. But the water started getting clear (a good thing as I took it - it meant that the phyto was being consumed).

So I added some more phyto...

and my fortunes started going down from there.

I don't know why but instead of a further increase in pod population, they started going down.

A few days later, and there's hardly anything left.

SO. I am trying to figure out what I did wrong. I am told that phyto-feast might have been part of the problem. That I should have used DT's from the beginning and that phyto-feast because it supposedly has alcohol in it may have been my problem.

Possibility #2 - increase in salinity due to evaporating water. Though I do keep a tight lid on the tank, there has undoubtedly been some evaporation.

Possibility #3 - Water change - does one do this when culturing pods??

Possibility #4 - A combination of all three. Since I don't REALLY know what I am doing, I'm counting on losing a few cultures.

Anyone have any advice?

[mwp]

I had problems trying to use Phytofeast with the "Tiggerpods" - so far my best bet for long term culture has been the following:

1. Little to no aeration (seriously)
2. Good surface area to water volume ratio (because there's no aeration)..i.e. water volume that's "Cube" in essence...my gallon milk jug cut down to 1/2 gallon consistently produces the best pod populations.
3. "Batch Culture" - taking a more "batch culture" kind of approach seems to have helped. Periodically harvesting most of the culture seems to help.
4. Maintain backups - I still actually grow quite a bit of Tiggerpods in that little dropper bottle with graciliaria that they come in.
5. Live Phyto cultures - I'm working with Nannochlorpsis, Nannochloris and Tetraselmis (my Iso won't grow) - they definitely helped with ALL of my live food cultures. I don't do "Water changes" par say, but rather harvest a portion and replace it with stored (refridgerated) phyto that's been harvested.

I still don't grow a lot of Tiggerpods, but enough to supplement the reefs now and again.

FWIW,

MP

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7131513#post7131513 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by psimitry
So I read Dwayne Sapp's article on culturing pods not too long ago. Since I have an intense desire to keep a mandarin dragonette, I wanted to make sure that my tank had an intensely concentrated pod population (I had a TON of them in my 18G but when I moved to my 55G I hardly ever saw them).

I've got about 75LB of rock in my tank so I have the rock qualification taken care of, but I wanted to culture some pods so that everything would be "copesetic" (har har).

So I got myself a 10G tank, partitioned it so that I could run redundant cultures, got an air pump with a gang valve so that I could reduce the flow and just have a gentle current in the tank.

I added my phytoplankton (phyto-feast), and a bottle of pods (tigger-pods), and away they went.

After a few days, VOILA! I could see a noticable increase in the population in there. But the water started getting clear (a good thing as I took it - it meant that the phyto was being consumed).

So I added some more phyto...

and my fortunes started going down from there.

I don't know why but instead of a further increase in pod population, they started going down.

A few days later, and there's hardly anything left.

SO. I am trying to figure out what I did wrong. I am told that phyto-feast might have been part of the problem. That I should have used DT's from the beginning and that phyto-feast because it supposedly has alcohol in it may have been my problem.

Possibility #2 - increase in salinity due to evaporating water. Though I do keep a tight lid on the tank, there has undoubtedly been some evaporation.

Possibility #3 - Water change - does one do this when culturing pods??

Possibility #4 - A combination of all three. Since I don't REALLY know what I am doing, I'm counting on losing a few cultures.

Anyone have any advice?

That is comptely and utterly false. We do not add any alchohol to any of our products. Utter rubbish.

#1 Our Tigger-Pods are raised on Phyto-Feast Live thru out their entire life stages. It's in the bottle when you got them even :D

#2 They're natural salinity range is far more then you'll ever reproduce, they live in the upper splash pools that barely ever get wash thru :D I've seen them thrive as high as 60ppm with no problems.

#3 We do weekly water changes

We do the same as MWP, very little aeration and major surface area. Fans help to move to surface. We only aeriate the pre-bottling containers, which are at 50 - 70 count per ml. Batch culture is a key as well.

One huge hole I see in your set-up, is the lack of substrate for them. I'd go out and buy a couple Aquaclear70 foam inserts. These are one of the things we use to culture them. Substrate is crucial, with out it, you get an intitial bloom, and then a collapse as predation takes place. Once they hatch, and become of size, they drop off the parent and search for subtrate. With no substrate, they become quick food in the no see em stage :D Some will make it, and you'll produce small amounts of copepods. Add substrate, and you can mass produce them :D

Keep an eye on PH as well, and simply do a water change when it drops into the mid 7's.

We're open about most our culturing practices, as evident by our website. If you ever have any questions, please feel free to email us and we'll answer them to the best of our knowledge.

[David M]

I knew it wasn't achohol, I thought is was bleach you guys added just before shipping to ensure repeat business :lol:

Anyway back when I thought copepods were essential to seahorse breeding :rolleyes: I conjured up two "transferable" substrate ideas that combined growing and harvesting. The first was strips of indoor/ outdoor carpet (the fake lawn type) . I clamped them to the tank walls and would just remove one and place it in the nursery tank when I wanted to add 'pods. The other was similar, strips of window screen with a pencil-like strip of styrofoam glued to one edge. The floated around in the culture tank and could be transferred to the fry tanks when loaded. The astroturf worked better but the screen did work and was easier to clean. Both worked well when I had a lot of 'pods (new culture) but I never got very far with the "culturing" part :(

[psimitry]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7132563#post7132563 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GreshamH
Stuff

Interesting info, all of it.

As far as the substrate, will filter floss work? I've got a metric ton of it lying around. Was hoping that would fill the need until I can get some aquaclear sponges.

[GreshamH]

LOL, a metric ton.

These guys are spiney as all get out, I'd steer clear of the filter floss. I've found larger ones get wrapped up in it and little ones don't venture all the way into it. You can roll/wad up some window screen (BTW, excellent choices David :D ) or just toss some clean bio balls in there for now. I have astroturf, but I haven't tried it yet myself. Maybe when my pallet of AC sponges weans a bit.

[psimitry]

Ok - so I have some spare nylon window screen that I used when I acclimated my corals to my MH bulbs. The catch is, though it wads up pretty well outside the tank, inside it just expands to the point where it's virtually flat.

Suggestions?

[David M]

Tie wraps, rubber bands, fishing line... :D

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7136867#post7136867 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by David M
Tie wraps, rubber bands, fishing line... :D

:p took the words right outa my mouth :D

[psimitry]

So the next question is:

With the (very) limited amount of pods I have left in the culture, is it possible to "rescue" the culture now that I have proper substrate?

[psimitry]

Round 2 - FIGHT!

So I restarted my culture. We'll see how successful it is this time. I think another one of my problems with the previous culture was too much phyto in the water. Whereas now I have a green-tea tint to the water, before it was pretty darned green (you couldn't see through the tank).

Hopefully I'll have better luck this time.

As it stands, I have a 10 gallon tank with three partitions (one of them is not currently being used). The main partition is currently holding about 2 gallons of water and has 4 Aquaclear 70 sponges in it. I'm assuming (read: hoping) that the partitions don't have to be literally packed with the sponges.

The second partition has about 2 gallons in it with 2 sponges.

Current params are (made to match the suggestions on the website):

Temp: 77.4F
SG: 1.021
pH: 8.1
ALK: 2.5 meq/L

Hopefully I can get some groovy pod cultures going. I'd love to be able to seed my tank with a metric TON of pods (especially once I get my HOB refugium on there).

[GreshamH]

<I thought I'd answer your PM here, if you don't mind. That way others can see it :D >

Your set up sounds great to me. I usually put enough foam to take up like 1/8 of the volume. I'd get at least one of the sponges air free, so it can sink. One floating is ok, they seem to groove on that. I typically drop my phytoplankton on top of that floating sponge and into the water column. You definitly don't want to take up the whole volume with sponges IMO, nor do you want to keep to much food to decompose in your culture. You'll find the proper amount with trial an error with the feed. I haven't found a sweet spot, ie. 5 drops per gallon, etc. Each culture seems to be different. I try to get them to be able to clear it in a day.

[jnowell]

Great discussion guys!

I have some great stuff called rotifer floss (I think) from Reed Mariculture, I assume the sponges are better for this?

Thanks for all the info, great read so far!

Jason

[psimitry]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7193819#post7193819 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnowell
Great discussion guys!

I have some great stuff called rotifer floss (I think) from Reed Mariculture, I assume the sponges are better for this?

Thanks for all the info, great read so far!

Jason

I haven't ran into the rotifier floss, but I know up above GreshamH mentioned that filter floss was no good for it. That the little guys can get trapped in it (or not use it at all).

[GreshamH]

Rotifer floss is best for rotifers. We tried it once, but they got caught up in it pretty badly.

Odd that my above post was editted and nothing noting the editting left behind, other then the entire post being put into italics.

[psimitry]

Can one dose Selcon to the water in order to boost the nutritional value of cultured pods?

[seafarm]

Copepods do not need to be enriched. They naturally change short chain fatty acids such as EPA into long chain fatty acids such as DHA so there is no need for enrichment like you do for rotifers and brine shrimp.

[jnowell]

I'd also be very careful adding Selcon to any water that you plan to keep for any time. It fouls water pretty quickly, which is the main reason most people enrich in a small container just before use.

[psimitry]

So for a little bit, I thought I killed another culture. There didn't seem to be much going on with it.

I was adding about 12-15 drops of phyto-feast to the water and could see the occaisional pod here and there, but I knew the phyto was being consumed because it would clear after a day or two.

Then yesterday (or perhaps the day before)...

BOOOOOOOOMMM!!!

I've got a ton of pods in there. Big and small.

So I guess I've got a couple of new questions. I was thinking that the best way to harvest them is to essentially take one of the sponges in the water out, transfer it into the main tank and shake it until the pods come out.

In addition, I was thinking about adding some cyclop-eeze to the water to distract the livestock as the live 'pods go into the water.

Actually I guess I have three questions.

1. Is this a good method to transfer them?
2. At what point (density), should I start harvesting them?
3. Apparently I have wild mysis shrimp in the water. A lot of them. Is there a potential that my pods are pretty much going to get roasted alive by them and I'm not going to be able to keep a 'pod culture in tank? Or will I be able to get a good amount of 'pods flowing around the tank?

[psimitry]

Edit: Cross-posting to Reef-Nutrition...

[spk]

Great thread,

I too had a problem when using Tiger pods to start. i had several running around then none. Want to try again, but willneed to get a new source for them. We cannot get the Tiger here in the UK that I know of so will have to wait for my next trip to the US :(

Thanks for all the suggestions.
Steve

[seafarm]

We can ship direct to the UK - no problems :)