Phytoplankton starter culture - Calgary

[abcha0s]

So - my culture (T. Isochrysis) crashed after roughly 30 days. I learned a lot in the process. So that others can benifit from my trials and errors, here are some thoughts.

Firstly - make sure that you know why you want to culture phytoplankton. My initial motivation was to feed a secondary culture of copepods which would then be food for a Mandarin.

Secondly - While this sounds perfectly reasonable, it is far from easy and a LOT of work. If you are doing this simply to keep a mandarin, then head my warning and stop. It is not worth the effort or expense.

(BTW - After a couple of weeks eating the pods in my tank, my mandarin started eating spirulina enriched frozen brine and mysis).

Some key points from my experience.

About pods
* Understand the difference between harpacticoid and calinoid copepods.
* Tiger-Pods from Reef Nutrition have particular challanges surviving in a reef tank. I did not have a good experience with them. if you have a reef tank, my advice is to avoid this species. They may be usefull in a FOWLR.
* copepods DO survive the trip through your return pump MOST of the time. The problem is that in a high flow system, they make the trip again and again. Within a day or two, they have all made the trip many times and are all now dead.
* copepods are not necessarily cultured the same way as rotifers. There are likely some similarities, but if you are culturing copepods - make sure you have a plan that is not based on research around culturing rotifers.
* Everybody and their cousin cultures rotifers - not nearly as many people culture copepods.
* Mandarins will eat other pods - not just copepods. I have lots of ampipods in my tank and my mandarin loves them.
* Do not buy copepods that you can not see. If you can't see them, neither can your mandarin.
* For a wealth of knowledge - search the web for "Dr. Adelaide Rhodes" - She sells everything you need and will ship to Canada if you are really nice to her. I brought in my T. Iso culture from her as well as a bulk culture of 5000 Tibse sp. copepods. They were all big enough to count and all very active when they arrived. (Group order anyone?)

About Phytoplankton (T. Isochrysis unless otherwise specified)
* Nanno is easier to culture, but less useful. Copepods don't benifit much from Nanno.
* T. Iso is extremely sensative to temperature. It must be constant. I'm not sure what "ideal" is - does anyone else know?
* Bacterial contamination is a real problem. Have a strategy for dealing with this.
* Predation (ie. introduction of rotifers/pods) is potentially a problem.
* I was never able to figure out when to split my culture. It is difficult to tell when the nutrients have been consumed.
* If you wait to long to split the culture, it will crash.
* If you split the culture to soon, it will thin out and may crash.
* Split early if you are not sure.
* Put the live phyto in your tank at your own risk. I would advise against this based on the presence of unconsumed nutrients in the phytoplankton. If you split to early, there will be excess nutrients. If you wait until the nutrients are consumed, the likelyhood of a crash increased.
* SP should be around 1.019 (not full strength SW).

About automation of your system
* Forget about it - you can't automate this on a small scale. Possibly on a larger commercial scale, but not in your basement.
* I bought all of the pumps to automate my system (Aqua Medic Reef Doser Quad Pump). They made it out of the box, but have not yet been plugged in.
* Paristaltic pumps can be used to move phyto and copepods, but you are unlikely to get to the point where you are hooking the pumps up.
* I bought the Aqua Medic Plankton Reactor Light product from JL. I actually like this as a culture vessile for phyto. However, I never figured out how to use it for copepods.

Please feel very free to message me. I invested a lot of time and money into making this work and would gladly share more of my experience. Just because it didn't work for me on my first attemp, doesn't mean that it won't work for you.

-> Please post your experiences to this thread. I may decide to try again, but for different reasons.

[phyto4life]

regarding nitokra lacustris and tisbe harpacticoid

I found this pdf laying around on the internet from Adelaide Rhodes

http://www.fishlarvae.com/e/BigBang/Rhodes.pdf

in there. from my understanding, it mention's on how the harpacticoid copepod nitokra lacustris can be rich in HUFA both in dha and epa while not consuming live phyto but consuming food not rich in epa/dha such as baker yeast/Tomato or vegetable juice etc but can make their own fatty acids without phyto

I believe artemia and rotifers need epa/dha enrichment in order to get there hufa's

nanno is high in epa while t-iso is high in dha

but for the baby harp's I think they still need phyto because they are pelagic (in the water column) not benthic (on the surfaces) still looking in to it thou

the pdf also says on how these harps when just born could potential replace rotifer and artemia brine shrimp. in fish rearing

As well as providing a superior diet, harpacticoid nauplii which are not eaten would be able to find nourishment in tanks by feeding on detritus, the biofilm and bacteria, maintaining their nutritional value as well as keeping the tank clean.

Copepods - Podcast Episode 69 talking reef
http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/po...sode-69-a.html

i'm culturing nanno now but might switch over in the near future to t-iso I just need to make sure I can grow nanno phyto first

[Rotifer]

It's really unfortunately that abcha0s is so adamant about Tigger-Pods (Tigriopus californicus) being a cold water species. I'm not going to be able to change his/her mind, but for anybody else that wants to see a scientifically peer-reviewed and published paper stating that their temperature range is 43 F to 91 F, take a look at the link below. Obviously the Cambridge Journals website is not something I can fake

http://journals.cambridge.org/action...line&aid=70713

Temperatures above 80 F and below about 65F are not their optimal temperature range, but they can live and produce in those ranges.

[soapy]

Hi interesting thread. Just hooking up to see where this might go.

[phyto4life]

that would be great news I love the name Tigriopus californicus I also love their size if this is true

when you say reproduce

at what % @ a temp range of 78f-82F?

from the little I read they seem to breed well at sub-tropical temp but seem to die off at tropical temps and seize to reproduce.

do you have any free paper's regarding their reproduction at higher temps?

why do stores put them into the fridge?

is it for the same reasons as phyto?

[abcha0s]

Originally Posted by Rotifer

It's really unfortunately that abcha0s is so adamant about Tigger-Pods (Tigriopus californicus) being a cold water species. I'm not going to be able to change his/her mind, but for anybody else that wants to see a scientifically peer-reviewed and published paper stating that their temperature range is 43 F to 91 F, take a look at the link below. Obviously the Cambridge Journals website is not something I can fake

http://journals.cambridge.org/action...line&aid=70713

Temperatures above 80 F and below about 65F are not their optimal temperature range, but they can live and produce in those ranges.

I have no problem double checking my opinion. You comments sent me to go more in-depth with my research and I did settle on some new ideas (I also updated my original post to reflect this). I concede your point that Tiger-Pods are sustainable at higher temperatures. I had read elsewhere that the higher temperatures result in a predominately male population which over time loses its ability to sustain itself, although I cannot say for sure if this is anything more than someone’s theory. What is certainly a fact is that environmental conditions do affect their reproductive cycle, but more research than I have time for would be needed to identify exactly what that effect is.

Here is an excellent paper that supports your view: https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xml...41/Herbert.pdf

However, my opinion on the usefulness of this species in a reef tank remains unchanged for the following reasons:

* It’s all about the flow in our tanks. Consider 30x as a baseline.
* Tiger-Pods are free swimming. In a high flow tank, they are whipped around like a tornado. They are repeatedly sucked through the pumps which they often survive, but occasionally do not. 30x flow is a lot of flow and many of our tanks have even more than that.
* In a system with powerful skimming, things don’t look good for free swimming pods.

I added 2 bottles of Tiger-Pods to my refugium. Each bottle is between 2000-4000 specimens. I observed the following:
* Within the first day, most of the Tiger-Pods had left the refugium and were circulating through the display tank. All of the ones that I could see were still alive after being sucked through the return pump, but it’s much harder to see the dead ones.
* Many of the Tiger-Pods were skimmed out during the first day.
* Most of the remaining Tiger-Pods were skimmed out on the second day.
* Within a week, I could not find a single Tiger-Pod anywhere.
* I theorized that being repeatedly sucked through the pumps greatly increases the mortality rate.
* My fish chased after the Tiger-Pods but in a 30X system, they are really moving and the fish had only limited success in catching them.

> While irrelevant to this conversation, I also believe that there is little evidence to suggest that Mandarins can survive on Tiger-Pods. Mandarins are slow feeders and like to pick off the rocks, while Tiger-Pods are free swimming. While they may catch the occasion Tiger-Pod, there is no question that better species exist for keeping Mandarins. I had very good success with Tibse Sp. – Incidentally, after adding 5000 Tibse Sp. Copepods to my system about 6 weeks ago, I can still find them alive and well.

To back up my opinion with science, I offer this information on the breading methods of Tigriopus califoricus (quoted from the research paper referrenced above).

“During mating the adult male swims above the adult female or fifth stage female copepodid attached by the hooks of the first antennae. The amplectic pair may spend several hours to several days together during which time a spermatophore is transferred to the female. This will suffice for the development of up to twenty broods of eggs (Vittor, 1971). Five to ten days after copulation, depending on temperature, or soon after the final moult if the female had mated at the fifth copepodid stage, a small dark egg sac appears behind the fifth leg of the female. It grows quickly changing to pale green and eventually assuming a bright pink color. The eggs (average 46, range 10-110 (Vittor, 1971]) remain in the sac from ten to fifteen days and then hatch while the sac is still attached to the female.”

Now – consider how this could possibly occur in a high flow reef tank? – I think it is impossible for this process to complete in our tank.

Some additional science:

“Towing plankton nets just off rocky shores failed to produce Tigriopus (Vittor, 1971).”

My interpretation of this is that certain population densities are required for the species to survive. They have to be able to find each other before they can attempt to mate.

In summary – My “new” research suggests that it should be fairly easy to culture the Tiger-Pods outside of your tank, but they are unlikely to sustain their population within your tank. Further, because they are free swimming, if your tank has a high rate of flow, their usefulness is greatly diminished. Finally, they are not a suitable species for keeping a Mandarin.

[Seamazter]

the "Rotifer" handle is Randy reed.
Randy Reed, Reed Mariculture / Reef Nutrition owner of the tigerpod brand.

[Rotifer]

I completely agree with that they will not do well in a main tank. We recommend putting them in the refugium or sump, or a seperate tank (9x13 cake pans work especially well).

My only bone of contention was your suggestion that they are a cold water species. I'm constantly having to put that fire out. Thank you for your very polite and on-point reply.

I'm flying home from Greece in a few hours and look forward to seeing how this thread continues.

[phyto4life]

I hear that they are extremely cannibalistic eating their young like mysid shrimp


My assumption it that they are like cleaner shrimp etc eating all types of eggs,pods etc there might be a possible chance that they may hunt smaller harp's and kill them

True?

[Rotifer]

Cannibalism is not a behavior that we have ever seen. To my knowledge they are strictly herbivores and detriatavores. You can find many postings on forums that describe them as growing well and playing nicely with other pods.