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Culturing Copepods

R

ReefNexus

I am kinda new to this forum, but not new to this hobby. I have a well established reef and contemplating a copepod eating fish. There maybe some in my main tank but will not be for long with a Pipefish or Mandarin in it.

So I need some copepods ready to hand, so I bought some tigger pods from Reef Nutrition I have setup a 5g tank with air-stone, heater and followed the instructions. However its been 3 days and the live ones I saw when I poured the $20 bottle in seemed to have gone and all I have is dead copepods.

Anybody have some advice or guidance on how to culture copepods without the aid of refuge?
 
JohnS_323

JohnS_323

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Can you give a little detail about your system? How many gallon display? Do you have a sump/fuge?

Typically if you have a few pods, you have a lot of pods, you just may not see them. If you have a fuge, you can put a bunch of empty snail shells in it and let the pods "move in". Every so often you can swap out some empty ones from your display with filled ones from the fuge. If you don't have a fuge, you can still throw a bunch of empty shells in the display to give the pods a place to hide and reproduce.

I'm not sure what you'd feed pods or how you'd go about breeding them in a separate 5g system, though.

I will tell you that I wouldn't say we have an over abundance of pods and we have a very fat and happy mandarin.
 
C

Carlo

It's pretty easily. If the room they are in is "room temperature" then get rid of the heater. Pods do best in normal to darker then normal room light when doing cultures.

Use want to use an airpump but the stone is optionally. I don't myself use an airstore but just have the airline tubing in the tank. You want to set it to about one bubble every second or two. The idea is to get just enough air to break the surface every now and then to help with O2. I use a 2.5 tank with no heater in my basement and no direct light.

Now for the "key" part. Just like anything living the pods need food. What do pods eat? Phytoplankton. You can use Reef Nutrition Phyto Feast or DT's Live Marine Phytoplankton. Both brands will work. I myself have both on hand but usually feed DT's to the display tank and Phyto Feast (non live) to the culture.

It's important to feed the proper amount of Phyto. What you want to do is keep the water a very light shade of green. If it has a tint of green in it you know there is food. Feeding the tank more then what is needed simply causes the water to fowl faster just like overfeeding your reef tank. A very light shade of green is perfect.

Just like any other tank you will need to do water changes but they can be trickier and easy at the same time on a culture. This is why I use smaller tank sizes. About every two weeks I do a 25% water change. What I've found to work well is to use a good quality paper coffee filter, a small bowl or similar and a waste container. I use the bowl to take some water out of the culture and slowly pore (strain) it through the coffee filter into a bucket. Any pods get caught with the coffee filter. After you've emptied (strained) 25% of the water make sure to any pods on the filter back into the culture or just use these for your tank. I just wave the filter a few times back and forth in the culture. I also just for safe measure do the same afterwards in my display tank just in case a couple were still on the paper filter. Putting it in the direct line of a powerhead will just about guarantee they are gone from the filter.

Add the 25% topoff salt water back to the culture and you're done. I used to discard the 25% water but now I just dump it directly into my tank. I figure why waste the Phyto? Of course if you are already fighting high nitrates in your main tank then you will probably not want to do this.

There are many ways of doing pod cultures and I've read a lot about them and tried a few different ways but this just seemed to be the easiest way and it just plain works.

Oh probably worth mentioning but I have 2 cultures always going and both are 2.5g tanks. I alternate the work on them. I do this just in case there is ever a culture crash I'd still have one. I do not share the bowls used to get the water out of the tanks nor anything else I put in any culture or QT tank so I can't accidentally infect them with anything from another tank.

When it comes time to harvest the pods I use the same method above with the coffee filters and of course throw them away afterwards. I never use sponges or anything non disposable so I can't accidentally bring water from my display back into a culture and contaminate it.

Carlo
 
C

Carlo

John and I were both typing a response at the same time and he got his done first (I'm to long winded). :)

I only touched on the cultures previously. John brought up a good point. If you have a refugium you may not even need any cultures. I still do both myself however as I like to have the pods available for QT tanks.

If you have a refugium build up some "pod piles" in the corners. This can be a bunch of rubble rock, snail shells or anything else. The idea is to give them protection from predators. You can and should also do this in your main tank (pod piles). If you have cheato in your refugium you will also find a lot of pods buried in the cheato after a while. What I like to do is pull the cheato out of the refugium and throw it right into the display tank. You can wave it around and get a powerhead to blow the pods out of the cheato. You can then discard the cheato or let some of your fish eat it (some people do and others don't).

Carlo
 
R

ReefNexus

Cayars,

Your original answer is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

I have the culture tank in basement in the dark too along with my top-off and sw water reservoirs. I don't have a refugium yet, although its on my list primarily to see if it will keep my nitrates down more naturally.

Anyhow I digress, I believe I went wrong on temperature front. I assumed my basement was 'room temperature' which it was not, hence the heater. Now when you buy the tigger pods (which I did at Hanover Pets) along with Phyto-Feast for food they are refrigerated to keep them alive and hibernated. However that is fridge temperature not basement temp, so I think that is why they are gone.

I will follow your suggestions and the coffee filter is great idea. Maybe coz I am originally from England 'cheato' does mean anything to me.

BTW my setup main display is 75 gallon, with 80lbs live rock, euro-reef skimmer, UV, assorted coral Xenia, Candy Cane, Frogspawn, m'rooms, zoos, BTA and pair of maroon clowns, 3 hippo tangs, purple tang and Juv 2 inch Emperor Angel. I think I like to exchange a pipefish or mandarin to for the Purple tang or the hippos.
 
C

Carlo

That's a pretty good article and I've read it a few times before. The only part of it I'd object to is the amount of phyto they feed. Looking at the pictures and text a dark green color is not what you want. A light tint is PLENTY of phyto and helps to keep the water fresher longer. In the long run you waste a lot less phyto this way.

Carlo
 
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