altolamprologus Posted July 15, 2011 Share Posted July 15, 2011 The Pod Farm is a short guide to culturing copepods at home. I hope to continually add more species profiles as I experiment with them myself. Tigriopus californicus Type: Harpacticoid copepod Lifestyle: Pelagic Tolerance to change: Very high Great for: Small planktivorous fish such as clownfish, cardinalfish, seahorses, pipefish, anthias, and post-meta* juvenile fish *Do not feed to larval fish. T. californicus are large enough to chew through the stomach walls of delicate larval fish. They are safe anytime post-meta. DIET: Phytoplankton, occasionally detritus and leftover food IDEAL FOOD: A mix of various phytoplankton species, such as reef nutrition phyto-feast TEMPERATURE RANGE: 40-90 degrees Fahrenheit IDEAL TEMPERATURE: 60-75 degrees Fahrenheit SALINITY RANGE: 1.015 SG-1.040 SG IDEAL SALINITY: 1.030 SG LIGHTING: Not necessary. Diffuse daylight will suffice. A lamp is optional if you wish to have live phytoplankton reproducing in the culture AERATION: Not necessary WATER CHANGES: 25% water change a month will suffice for most cultures. 100% water changes every couple months are not needed, but are beneficial IDEAL CULTURE VESSEL: Bare bottom bucket with saltwater tinted green with phyto and at room temperature. I have also has great success using 2 liter bottles. Harvesting can be done by scooping pods out of a bucket with a brine shrimp net or pouring water in bottles through a sieve. Tisbe biminiensis Type: Harpacticoid copepod Lifestyle: Benthic Tolerance to change: Moderate Great for: Dragonettes, pipefish, dwarf seahorses and juvenile seahorses DIET: Detritus, phytoplankton, leftover fish food IDEAL FOOD: Crushed fish flakes/pellets TEMPERATURE RANGE: 60-82 degrees Fahrenheit IDEAL TEMPERATURE: 68-74 degrees Fahrenheit SALINITY RANGE: 1.020 SG- 1.030 SG IDEAL SALINITY: 1.025 SG LIGHTING: Not necessary. Will hide in dark areas when high light is present AERATION: Not necessary WATER CHANGES: 50% twice a month. Cultures will crash if water quality declines too far IDEAL CULTURE VESSEL: Two liter bottle with saltwater and a small amount of crushed fish food. These bottles make it easy to harvest the copepods by pouring water through a sieve 1 Link to comment
ednangel Posted July 15, 2011 Share Posted July 15, 2011 thanks for sharing, Following Link to comment
Huskerguy84 Posted July 15, 2011 Share Posted July 15, 2011 That seems easy. Are you keeping a mandarin at the time? Link to comment
altolamprologus Posted July 15, 2011 Author Share Posted July 15, 2011 That seems easy. Are you keeping a mandarin at the time? Not at the moment. I'm very picky about what I want my mandarin to look like (more on the blue side rather than green) and I haven't yet found the perfect one. However, this does allow the cultures more time to grow. Link to comment
Huskerguy84 Posted July 15, 2011 Share Posted July 15, 2011 I had a mandarin for a bit but my coral banded shrimp caught and ate em. I tried so hard to keep it healthy. I cant keep gobies because of that shrimp. I caught him the other day with a cardinal fish. I will be getting rid of that shrimp on my upgrade, along with my brittle star( 12" from tip to tip.) I cant wait to see the one that you pick out. They might have good ones on drfostersmith Link to comment
altolamprologus Posted July 15, 2011 Author Share Posted July 15, 2011 I had a mandarin for a bit but my coral banded shrimp caught and ate em. I tried so hard to keep it healthy. I cant keep gobies because of that shrimp. I caught him the other day with a cardinal fish. I will be getting rid of that shrimp on my upgrade, along with my brittle star( 12" from tip to tip.) I cant wait to see the one that you pick out. They might have good ones on drfostersmith Sorry to hear that I have seen some good looking mandarins on the internet, but I prefer to see them in person before buying them. I just don't want to take the risk of receiving a fish that looks nothing like the pic or is unhealthy. Link to comment
altolamprologus Posted July 18, 2011 Author Share Posted July 18, 2011 I have a couple pics I'll add in a minute. Link to comment
Euphyllia Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 Sounds super fun! It's time consuming to harvest the little bugs that get stuck in my media bags, so I may start a culture. I don't know if my tank even has copepods. I have lots of amphipods and I could buy Reef Nutrition Tigger Pods at my LFS. Where could I find copepods in my reef? Link to comment
altolamprologus Posted July 18, 2011 Author Share Posted July 18, 2011 Sounds super fun! It's time consuming to harvest the little bugs that get stuck in my media bags, so I may start a culture. I don't know if my tank even has copepods. I have lots of amphipods and I could buy Reef Nutrition Tigger Pods at my LFS. Where could I find copepods in my reef? Anywhere you have a few rocks close together there should be a bunch of copepods hiding. They're also often on the glass in areas where you can't scrub off the algae. One thing you can do is turn off all circulation in your tank and after 15 minutes, you should see swarms of pods out in the open near the sand. All you have to do is siphon them up. Link to comment
howie1son Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 How did you acclimate your tigger pods? I've dumped them in my tank and shortly after watched them die? Not by fish eating either! Link to comment
altolamprologus Posted July 18, 2011 Author Share Posted July 18, 2011 How did you acclimate your tigger pods? I've dumped them in my tank and shortly after watched them die? Not by fish eating either! I let them sit in the bottle for a few hours to slowly bring them to room temp then poured half the bottle into the culture jar with fresh saltwater and after a couple days of them doing well, I added the other half of the bottle. By saving some of them in the bottle, I had a back up incase the ones in the jar died. Yours probably died from temperature shock. Link to comment
howie1son Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 Thank you. Are the jars on window sill for the macros to get light and for temp regulation, or is there another reason for that? Here in Wisconsin weather can be a pain in the ass! lol Link to comment
altolamprologus Posted July 18, 2011 Author Share Posted July 18, 2011 Thank you. Are the jars on window sill for the macros to get light and for temp regulation, or is there another reason for that? Here in Wisconsin weather can be a pain in the ass! lol Yes, they are there for the macros and also because I feed live phytoplankton, so it keeps the phyto alive. Here in California the weather is really mild so they do well in the windowsill, but I think in Wisconsin the temperature of the jars would really be affected by being so close to the window. Link to comment
Euphyllia Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 Anywhere you have a few rocks close together there should be a bunch of copepods hiding. They're also often on the glass in areas where you can't scrub off the algae. One thing you can do is turn off all circulation in your tank and after 15 minutes, you should see swarms of pods out in the open near the sand. All you have to do is siphon them up. I'll go to the dollar store tomorrow and get some jars. Do I need to do water changes or aerate the jar water? And do they need live phyto or can it be RN phyto feast? Link to comment
altolamprologus Posted July 18, 2011 Author Share Posted July 18, 2011 I'll go to the dollar store tomorrow and get some jars. Do I need to do water changes or aerate the jar water? And do they need live phyto or can it be RN phyto feast? On this small of a scale, no you don't need to aerate. But if you upgrade to anything more than half a gallon you should aerate it. They don't need live phyto, but I prefer it because it won't foul the water. Regular phyto feast will work just fine, but if you can find phyto feast live, it would be better. Link to comment
altolamprologus Posted July 26, 2011 Author Share Posted July 26, 2011 Just a small update: I have been seeing tiny baby Tigger pods since the culture was started, but nothing much until yesterday. Yesterday I noticed, quite litterally, THOUSANDS of baby pods on the side of the jar. In 2 more weeks I should have a huge population explosion Link to comment
Squared Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 do you already have a mandarin? Link to comment
altolamprologus Posted July 26, 2011 Author Share Posted July 26, 2011 do you already have a mandarin? Not yet. I'm hoping to find a good one soon though. Link to comment
ednangel Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 where are the pics of the setup? Link to comment
altolamprologus Posted July 26, 2011 Author Share Posted July 26, 2011 where are the pics of the setup? On the original post. Link to comment
Squared Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 and you were the first poster in this thread too lol. Link to comment
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