Reef Pods TISBE vs Tigger Pods

[dzhuo]

Randy,
Keep us post on question #1 and #4. Appreciate your help and sharing your experience and knowledge with us!

[C-Dragon]

Hey everyone,
Randy asked me to jump in here to help shed some light on the Tigger pods. I am the aquarist in charge of Tigger culture and have been working with them for almost 3years. Well, enough about my background.

Question #1. How fast do tiger pods reproduce? For example, how many eggs do they lay per life time?

Answer: Regarding the question of how fast Tiggers reproduce. Most females only require one or two mating occurences during their lifetime. They have the ability to store sperm. From only one mating occurence, they can produce up 12 batches of fertilized eggs every 4 days with optimal nutrition and a temperature of 23C (73F). Females can hold anywhere from 30 eggs to 140 eggs at one time. In fact, with plenty of oxygen, light and a good food supply, a population of Tiggers can double itself every 6 days at 15C (59F) or every 4 days at 23C (73F).
A female Tigger is sexually active by day 14 at 23C. From there, if she lives another 86 days, at 23C she could potentially produce anywhere from 645 embryos to 3,000 embryos in her lifetime with only needing to mate twice!

4. Typically, how many pods can live in a 9x13 glass cake pan?
Answer: I would have to say you could potentially see anywhere from 10K to 50K individuals in your cake pan if the females are producing large clutches of eggs and you are feeding them well. They have the ability to filter feed as well as scrape algae off of any surface.


I hope this helps. Randy did a great job answering all the other questions accurately.

Chad M. Clayton
Aquarist, RMI

[djkms]

Thanks Chad, good info there! May I ask what you guys feed your cultures at Reed? Also, do you think we could use these same methods for tisbe pods with the same degree of success?

[mwilliams62]

What does the "ppt" stand for when referencing salinity????

mary

[djkms]

Originally Posted by mwilliams62

What does the "ppt" stand for when referencing salinity????

mary

Parts per thousand

http://www.saltyzoo.com/SaltyCalcs/SgPptConv.php

[C-Dragon]

Originally Posted by mwilliams62

What does the "ppt" stand for when referencing salinity????

mary

Mary,
For example, if you are trying to achieve a salinity of 35ppt, you add 35grams of sea salt mix to every liter of water.

Thanks Chad, good info there! May I ask what you guys feed your cultures at Reed? Also, do you think we could use these same methods for tisbe pods with the same degree of success?

PhytoFeast is a great food for Tiggers. Tigriopus and Tisbe are harpactacoid copepods and should do fine with PhtyoFeast.

[mwilliams62]

Thanks Chad... please forgive the stupiness question here: i am not very good at the grams stuff how much would be in relations to the measurments in teaspoons???

mary

[dzhuo]

Chad,
Great info! A couple of follow up questions:

1. Do we need to maintain temperature to ensure we have both male and females? Or would a higher temp only produce one gender of babies?
2. Do we need to put anything such as rock, sand or algae in the cake pan for the pods?

[GreshamH]

Originally Posted by seafarm

Mary - It's possible to culture them to your sump, however they might get pushed out depending on how high the flow rate is. They can be added directly from the cold bottles to your sump, however I'd suggest letting them warm up to room temperature first.

By far the most successful way to culture them is in a simulated tide-pool, and a 9x13 glass cake pan works perfectly for that. It will be about 30 days until you see results, but after that you can scoop them out regularly.

Hope this helps

There is also the issue of predation by amphipods and mysids as John noted earlier. In tank copepod cultures are very hard to maintain given that factor alone Luckily stand along cultures are very easy to maintain.

[mwilliams62]

I don't recall seeing an answer for the question about TISBE can they be cultered as the Tigger Pods??

Mary

[GreshamH]

Originally Posted by dzhuo

Chat,
Great info! A couple of follow up questions:

1. Do we need to maintain temperature to ensure we have both male and females? Or would a higher temp only produce one gender of babies?
2. Do we need to put anything such as rock, sand or algae in the cake pan for the pods?

Gresham from RMI here...

1. no, the shift from female to male at higher temps is very insignificant.
2. bare vessel is suggested. No rock, no sand, nothing.

[GreshamH]

Originally Posted by mwilliams62

I don't recall seeing an answer for the question about TISBE can they be cultered as the Tigger Pods??

Mary

Me neither I have seen write-ups for Tisbe floating around on the net, I'd suggest checking MOFIB dot Com or MBI dot com. Both have areas where members do zooplankton culture write ups.

[dzhuo]

Sweet! Thx Gresham!

So basically get a cake pan, pour salt water and add eggs, once hatched feed the pods once every 2 or 3 days. And then just occasionally check salinity and add RO/DI or fresh salt water (no tank water) and continue to maintain the culture? Anything else I missed?

[GreshamH]

Well close, but you will be adding live copepods. To my knowledge the eggs have to develop on the female and hatch off her. I do not think they produce a resting cyst like rotifers or artemia.

That is virtually how I have done it in the past, except I prefer plastic kitty liter pans since they offer a litter larger area and because they are opaque. I've found clear tanks/vessels and light makes the Tigger-Pods concentrate in one area and eventually you see large die offs in those areas (localized low dissolved oxygen, dunno). The funny thing is they are not always attracted to light. I've tried harvesting just using light and only half would typically make the migration. Light flashes will make them disperse and hunker down.

[dzhuo]

How many bottles do you suggest that we should start with? Also, do I need special net to take out the pods (young and adult) for feeding?

[mwilliams62]

Originally Posted by dzhuo

How many bottles do you suggest that we should start with? Also, do I need special net to take out the pods (young and adult) for feeding?

That is a very good question "how many bottles to start with"???

Is it possible to use only half a bottle and put the other half in the sump???

I also want to thank everyone who has shared their advise and expertise here in this thread....

Mary

[djkms]

Ok Randy, got your bottle of Tigger pods (holy copepods batman! You weren't kidding when you stated on the bottle double density!) and shellfish diet (most people could probably get away with phyto-feast but I will use the algae to culture other things).

I am running 3 experiments - all with your tidepool approach listed here. I purchased plastic Tupperware instead of glass (hope it works, pyrex and the like is expensive). I split the bottle into 4 - one for each of the 3 Tupperwares and the rest stayed in the bottle in the fridge.

All containers at 1.021 SG. In the first tub will be just water, pods and food. In the second tub will be bioballs to increase surface area. In the 3rd tub will be a rigid tube to give surface agitation and help increase oxygen levels in the water - around 1 bubble per second.

So lets take some bets. Which container will produce the most pods and why?

[mwilliams62]

Please keep us updated on the experiment.

[The_Codfather]

what's the best way to accumulate them from fridge to the DT?

[jbonez]

i have a bunch of lil white things on the back of my tank glass what can they be? the move very slow

[mwilliams62]

What time of day do you see them crawling on the glass? I think it is some type of snail I cannot remember the name of them.

[jbonez]

well i dont see the move its that i see them in the morning at one spot then i notice more at another spot they are there all the time

[sharkman121]

great thread, learn alot of stuff for when i culture my own pods for my mandarin.

Tagging along for the results of the experiment.

[chefgreg]

Bump

Well? should have had some results by now any updates?

[djkms]

Ahhh, are you guys waiting on me?

Well surprisingly the tub with no agitation and no bio balls did the best. I was never able to get the pods as plump or orange/red as the bottle from Reed but they did reproduce. I only cultured the pods for a couple months before tearing down due to other issues.