Microfood culture: phytoplanktons, Rotifers, ciliates, Artemia, and copepods

[Mpek]

This is what I've been looking for...Thanks FMar!

[SantaMonica]

I wish someone would make a plug-n-play HOB culturing device or the like.

Someone had answered this before, but I can't find it now.

[Wilrok]

I saw a rotifer starter kit , that came with a bucket on reeds mariculture , would anyone recommend using or buying this ?

[ohad shimon]

Hello
My name is Ohad, and i am part of a team that cultures ciliated protozoa (Conc. of 10k for ml) for fish larvae feeding. our main focus was food fish, such as groupers and bluefin tuna. Recently we decided to test our product on ornamental fish larvae.
My questions to you, who know this world better then me.
What fishes are good to start with (with problems in the larval stage) ?
Do you think larval feeding is a major obsticale in culturing ornamental fishes ?

Best regards
Ohad

[billsreef]

Hi Ohad,

Yes, larval feeding is the stumbling block in a number of ornamental marine finfish species. I'd probably start looking at Centropyge species. High market demand, easy enough to breed, very limited success, and larval feeding seems to be the bottle neck. Simularly some of the basslets like the Swiss Guard, and also a number of wrasses would be good candidates.

[bok]

I have a question , and I guess this is the right place for it :
- can I use in my green algae bottles a CO2 scrubber ?
I am thinking that a lot of algae should need a lot of oxygen , as the culture matures and it gets greener.
Could a air with no CO2 do any good ?
Thank you!

[billsreef]

Can an algae culture be used as a scrubber, sure. There are people looking at using power plant exhaust in conjunction with algae culture to help scrub the CO2 from the power plant emissions and utilize the CO2 to boost culture production in order to produce algae for biofuels.

As for algae needing O2, they produce plenty of it themselves while the lights are on. No need to supplment it. Added CO2 on the other hand will benifit the algae and lead to increased production via denser faster growing cultures.

Air without CO2 would greatly hinder algae production. After the algae pulls CO2 out because it is needed

[bok]

Thank you!
It all makes sense now....

[Dresd3n]

This is a silly question but, how do the copepods from the refugium get to the main tank? Do you have to suck them up and put them in the main tank? The return pump seems to kill them before they get to the main tank.

[smb2415]

your question brings a debate by many. Most feel that pods will make it through the return pump back to the DT. Some will die but many will survive the journey. If you choose you could also use pod condos, songs, etc in the fugue then selectively put into DT.

[Dresd3n]

Thanks smb, I found a thin mesh made of fiberglass instead of gutterguard. Is fiberglass reef safe?

[smb2415]

it is however the resin should be epoxy to be safe. Also make sure the size of your mesh is sufficient to allow pods to pass through.

[Dresd3n]

Thanks a lot, smb. I recently obtained a breeding pair of tank bred sea horses. The male looks pregnant. Im not set up for rotifers but have copepods in fuge. We'll see what happens.

[flynnfish]

Look up info on seahorse source.com. I had a pair of dwarf seahorses and the babies ate baby brine shrimp. Rotifers may be too small.

[joeang]

Is it hard to grow your own copepods, I don't seem to see any in my tank but my mandarin goby is getting bigger so it must be eating something.

[SantaMonica]

The pods that grow in the periphyton usually do most of the feeding.

[billsreef]

Originally Posted by joeang

Is it hard to grow your own copepods, I don't seem to see any in my tank but my mandarin goby is getting bigger so it must be eating something.

Copepods are fairly easy to grow, but to grow any amount of them does require a predator free environment. Within your tank, you will get some copepod growth, but the mandarin and other fish will keep those numbers low.

[GreshamH]

Originally Posted by SantaMonica

The pods that grow in the periphyton usually do most of the feeding.

Given more copepods are pelagic then benthic, how can that be?

[SantaMonica]

I'm sure there are all types of pods there.

[billsreef]

Originally Posted by SantaMonica

I'm sure there are all types of pods there.

Indeed there are many types of copepods. However, for larval fish feeding, it's the planktonic species you want. Not the benthic species that you would find in the periphyton.

[GreshamH]

Originally Posted by SantaMonica

I'm sure there are all types of pods there.

Yes, there are all types of species of copepods there... but less then in the water column. Your rebuttal is meaningless.

The bulk of copepods are palegic.... thus the bulk of feeding done by copepods is palegic. Even most benthic copepods feed in the water column and not off substrate.

[billsreef]

Originally Posted by GreshamH

Yes, there are all types of species of copepods there... but less then in the water column.

Gresh is quite correct. Indeed, if someone came to me and said, "Bill I need some wild caught copepods", I would be grabbing a plankton net and the boat keys.

[lokii_37]

I finally got around to getting my Nanochloropsus last week. So far it seems to be doing pretty good, at least in my inexperienced eyes. It is a much darker green then when I started greener.

I was wondering what a good cell/ml count is for a home culture?

Right now using the stick that I ordered from Florida aqua farms with my algae disk I am at about 19mil/ml, 2 cm until the dot disappears.

Also I was wondering about adding more of the f/2 fertilizer. it seems to be growing well so the nutrients must be getting used up. Should I wait until I spilt my culture in 1/2? and if so, when I add more do I dose based on the entire volume of my culture vessel or just to replenish the 1/2 I split off?

[herring_fish]

I took a break from culturing zooplankton because of a vacation crash of my display tank after 20 years in the hobby but now I am ginning up to restart everything again. Now, I’m planning my next moves.

I grow plankton for my corals, not to feed larval fish so my motivation is different but this is the place to get good information and would appreciate a little help.

While my method for growing zooplankton is a little strange, it is automated and that works for me. I want to grow several different cultures at the same time to have all the variety that I can get. Artemia is easy to grow. I can keep the rotifer cultures running, hands off, for many months without cleaning or crashing using one food, when I add something that most people like, it crashes pretty quickly.

If I continue to feed it, the crashed culture chugs right along as though I planned it that way. After repeating the same experiment several times I thought, “What is that cloudy stuff?” Is it of any value to the corals in the main tank, particularly the Non-Photosynthetic ones?…or is it dangerous?

I have looked at growing bacteria on purpose but haven’t thought it through. I figured that bacteria would fill in a few niches. I tried growing Reef Bugs and found that the culture container grew long white filaments on most of the surfaces. This was somewhat expected but more work has to be done in that area. Reef Bugs gives me a clean resulting product but I think that I would have to harvest it manually. At lease I know that it is not just snake oil. Most bacteria cakes or grows a slime or something. That means maintenance.

I thought about simply metering out vodka into a culture vestal. I want for the bloom to happen in the container so that I could introduce less hungry bacteria. Putting vodka directly in the display tank for food, in addition to taking up too much oxygen, can mess with the nitrate levels without reducing the phosphates. That can throw things out of balance for my tank. Has anyone had any luck with bacteria?

Finally, is anyone getting anywhere with ciliates? I would guess that Ohad’s work is proprietary. I read that brown jelly disease is linked to ciliates. Are we talking about a different set of strains?

[GreshamH]

there are a ton of ciliates.