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Culturing tisbe pods


Jeradmccarty

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Jeradmccarty

Ok some I'm culturing tisbe reef pods, I bought two packs of them and they were freshly packed the date on the package was two day before I had purchased them. I set them up in a 1 gallon water jug that I cut the very top off of. I filled it about 3/4 of the way full and dumped both bags in the salt water and put a heater in there to keep it at a consistent temp and I put a airline in there from a air pump and have just very little bubbles coming up probably about 1-2 bubbles per second, I then put siran wrap over the top to keep the evaporation down and to keep dust and crap from getting in there.

 

My questions are:

 

Do I need a light over the culture?

 

Do I need to do water changes or not? And if so what percentage of water?

 

And last but not least, I have put siran wrap over the top so I don't get any evaporation but if I do should I top off with freshwater like in my DT or should I just add some more saltwater?

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Jeradmccarty

 

I've checked that out but it's a little vague I was hoping to hear from someone with good experience in culturing pods especially tisbe pods, tigger pods aren't the best because they don't last long in the display tank because they are too big to hide well

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Sci Fi Nerd

Tisbe biminiensis

tisbebiminiensis.jpg

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

 

From the linked post above ;)

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if you're using live phyto, make sure your phyto culture is at least 5 days from fertilization. the added pollution from the early harvest will have a negative affect. keep your copepod water tinted green. use a turkey baster to harvest the mulm, i feed it to my dt. top off with fresh sw at no more than 33% wc. don't wash your culture jars, drop your bubble count to one every two seconds and use a jar with a lid. drill two holes in the lid, one for airline, the other as exhaust. if you want to boost your feed, two drops per gallon of roti rich, or some yeast based liquid food twice daily. harvest at these times. what are you feeding your pods and what are you feeding them to?

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Jeradmccarty

if you're using live phyto, make sure your phyto culture is at least 5 days from fertilization. the added pollution from the early harvest will have a negative affect. keep your copepod water tinted green. use a turkey baster to harvest the mulm, i feed it to my dt. top off with fresh sw at no more than 33% wc. don't wash your culture jars, drop your bubble count to one every two seconds and use a jar with a lid. drill two holes in the lid, one for airline, the other as exhaust. if you want to boost your feed, two drops per gallon of roti rich, or some yeast based liquid food twice daily. harvest at these times. what are you feeding your pods and what are you feeding them to?

I just started the culture yesterday, the pods were in the package and the water was green so I'm assuming it was some kind of phyto, I was going to wait until the green tint went down because that meant that the pods ate all the phyto and then I was going to feed the pods crushed pellets or flake food or I was going to go to my lfs and buy some phyto pure which comes in a bottle. I am growing the culture so that I have a continuos supply for my mandarin, I bought 4 packages and I used two for my culture and two to put I my tank, I put the other two packs in my DT after the lights went out and I turned off all my power heads and filtration for and hour to let them settle, so he's not going hungry by any means I just want to make sure that I can continuously seed my tank every other week or so to keep the population in my tank boosted.

 

I have had my mandarin now for about 6 months, he's like a little sausage with fins so he's not starving and I know I have pods in my tank but I just thought it would be gun to grow some on the side and also to make more of a feast for him just in case he does go mad nuts and bring the pop down, but for the last 5-6 months I watch him graze constantly and he is thriving very well so I basically just don't want to take it for granted that he has thrived this long without the assistance of me adding pods so I just want to be able to have the piece of mind knowing that there will be a nice population of pods in there always

post-78020-0-36034800-1393715391_thumb.jpg

post-78020-0-46126200-1393715415_thumb.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

so what did you end up doing?

 

how are you culturing your tisbes? I'd like to see some pics of your setup for them :scarry:

 

I plan on cultivating pods, maybe in a 1 gal tank, but I am looking for ideas.

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Jeradmccarty
so what did you end up doing?

 

how are you culturing your tisbes? I'd like to see some pics of your setup for them :scarry:

 

I plan on cultivating pods, maybe in a 1 gal tank, but I am looking for ideas.

 

Basically I I have two 2 liter bottles filled about a little more than 3/4 full and one bottle has tisbe pods and the other bottle has tigger pods, each 2 liter bottle has a heater in it and an airline tube. The heater on each is set at 70 degrees and the airline tube only emits about 1-2 bubbles per 10 seconds, just enough air/water movement. I feed the tisbes pods 2 finely crushed pellets every 4 days and they seem to be thriving off of that, and it feed the tigger pods a drop or two of seachem reef phytoplankton every 4 days as well and they seem to be multiplying like crazy a little faster than the tisbe. I tried feeding the tisbe the phyto but they weren't multiplying like I thought they should be so I did some research online and everyone says they prefere leftover food and to feed them flake or pellet over phyto so I tried and it worked. Then I make a small single water bottle and cut both end off to make a cylinder and on one end I covered the hole with a brine shrimp net and basically when I want to harvest I poor half the bottle of the 2 liter through that net into another bottle that can catch all the water and the net catches the pods which I then put in the tank and then I put the caught water back in my 2 liter bottle and wait for the pods to regenerate ther population and then harvest again. It's actually pretty simple. The people at reed mariculture said it was easy as breeding them in a 2 liter bottle with no heater and no air stone but the heater in my opinion helps them breen faster so there ya go.

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Basically I I have two 2 liter bottles filled about a little more than 3/4 full and one bottle has tisbe pods and the other bottle has tigger pods, each 2 liter bottle has a heater in it and an airline tube. The heater on each is set at 70 degrees and the airline tube only emits about 1-2 bubbles per 10 seconds, just enough air/water movement. I feed the tisbes pods 2 finely crushed pellets every 4 days and they seem to be thriving off of that, and it feed the tigger pods a drop or two of seachem reef phytoplankton every 4 days as well and they seem to be multiplying like crazy a little faster than the tisbe. I tried feeding the tisbe the phyto but they weren't multiplying like I thought they should be so I did some research online and everyone says they prefere leftover food and to feed them flake or pellet over phyto so I tried and it worked. Then I make a small single water bottle and cut both end off to make a cylinder and on one end I covered the hole with a brine shrimp net and basically when I want to harvest I poor half the bottle of the 2 liter through that net into another bottle that can catch all the water and the net catches the pods which I then put in the tank and then I put the caught water back in my 2 liter bottle and wait for the pods to regenerate ther population and then harvest again. It's actually pretty simple. The people at reed mariculture said it was easy as breeding them in a 2 liter bottle with no heater and no air stone but the heater in my opinion helps them breen faster so there ya go.

 

 

if you are catching the pods in the net, how do the regenerate? do the eggs go through the net onto the second water bottle? or do you save some from the net before placing them in the tank?

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Jeradmccarty

Yes catching them In a brine shrimp net that I cut off the handle and rubber banded it on the bottom of a cut of water bottle and I run the water through that to catch them

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  • 2 weeks later...

How do you keep the water for these guys? Do you do water changes often, how do you decide when it is time?

 

Gravity, pH, etc?... do you test for all, or which do you test for and how often?

 

I found this link:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/2/breeder
thought it could help better your cause.

I have some pods coming in the mail soon and I want them to thrive, however I don't have a good source of DT's Plankton and can't find it online yet.

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Jeradmccarty
How do you keep the water for these guys? Do you do water changes often, how do you decide when it is time?

 

Gravity, pH, etc?... do you test for all, or which do you test for and how often?

 

I found this link:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/2/breeder'>http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/2/breeder

thought it could help better your cause.

I have some pods coming in the mail soon and I want them to thrive, however I don't have a good source of DT's Plankton and can't find it online yet.

 

I don't test parameters for the cultures at all, I do a 50% water change once a month and and I harvest once a week or once every two weeks depending on how many I can see, it is different for everyone just try it, it's really hard to screw it up. Basically you can throw them in a 2 liter soda bottle with no heater and no aeration and they will thrive and you can do the opposite and they will thrive, you can feed them fish food or you can feed them phytoplankton, they are hardy and there's only one way to kill them over feeding and dirtying up the water, just feed them bare minimum and you will be golden, just try and you will see

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  • 1 year later...
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  • 2 years later...

Wow I haven’t been back on this site in ages haha. Well it’s been a bit more than a year but the reefing is going great! My mandarin is still alive and well and I eventually ended upgrading the reef ten fold and I breed my pods in my refugium/sump in a huge pile of coral rubble and Chaeto so life in the reef is good. This is the best picture I could get of Radical Larry, yes my mandarins name is Radical Larry haha. I will try to post pics of my tank soon. I originally had a 20 Long tank when I first started this thread and about a year later I moved onto a 50 long and made the 20 long my sump/refuge tank. 

4217C613-197B-46F6-A544-335A20DFA7F7.jpeg

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  • 4 months later...
printerdown01

I’m sorry I got to this thread so late. I’ve cultured T. Cali. for years. Both on the central coast of California as well as the deserts of Colorado. I can say that without a doubt culturing these -outside- is a LOT easier. Inside I have found that a light source is a must and temp control allows me to keep the temp just high enough to keep chaeto alive in the bucket to help stabilize things. I never really get the huge blooms that I do from an outdoor culture. 

 

Cutturing outside is as difficult as this: Get bucket (dark colors work better I typically use a container for plants with no holes for drainage ~10-12 gallons), add water to bucket, add live photo. Stir. Add tigger pods. Harvest with a baby brineshrimp net. Pull long stringy algae when it starts to grow but leave a baseball sized clump of it in there. Top off with freshwater every week or two as needed. When leaves or dead bugs fall in -leave’m. If temps get over 100 move culture to the shade. I do set a heater at a super low setting in the bucket as well. I do 3/4 container water changes whenever. Litterally produces 1,000s of pods. 

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  • 1 year later...
On 7/4/2018 at 10:27 AM, printerdown01 said:

I’m sorry I got to this thread so late. I’ve cultured T. Cali. for years. Both on the central coast of California as well as the deserts of Colorado. I can say that without a doubt culturing these -outside- is a LOT easier. Inside I have found that a light source is a must and temp control allows me to keep the temp just high enough to keep chaeto alive in the bucket to help stabilize things. I never really get the huge blooms that I do from an outdoor culture. 

 

Cutturing outside is as difficult as this: Get bucket (dark colors work better I typically use a container for plants with no holes for drainage ~10-12 gallons), add water to bucket, add live photo. Stir. Add tigger pods. Harvest with a baby brineshrimp net. Pull long stringy algae when it starts to grow but leave a baseball sized clump of it in there. Top off with freshwater every week or two as needed. When leaves or dead bugs fall in -leave’m. If temps get over 100 move culture to the shade. I do set a heater at a super low setting in the bucket as well. I do 3/4 container water changes whenever. Litterally produces 1,000s of pods. 

^This.

 

I'm starting to see more and more reefers do an inline sump/fuge with chaeto, LR, or media blocks/balls and add pod cultures to that.  My LFS has one set up in an AIO 15 gallon with a hob chaeto fuge/pod cultivator. I closely examined it and there were a bunch of mature pods in the chaeto and his mandarin is happy as can be in DT.  

 

I'm not going to lie.  I copied it and added a water pump into the hob fuge to help move the water a little better than an air tube.  I'm not too proud to say I copied my lfs.  Isn't this what the hobby is about? Mimic, advance, improve, and share?

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