I am currently doing this for fry.
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I culture gallons of it...4-6 white 5 gal buckets with a dbl 4ft shop light and air bubble is plenty cheap...I use f/2 and no air stones ... I’ve tried pure cultures but wild ones are probably ok if the nutritional profile works for you... I can go into detail but suffice to say I don’t do much workSo whats the best setup folks have found? I am limited on space so was thinking about two of the one gallon glass jars. One for Phytoplankton and one for pods. The online kit they sale is way to over priced for what it is.
I use f/2 and no air stones ... I’ve tried pure cultures but wild ones are probably ok if the nutritional profile works for you... I can go into detail but suffice to say I don’t do much workSo whats the best setup folks have found? I am limited on space so was thinking about two of the one gallon glass jars. One for Phytoplankton and one for pods. The online kit they sale is way to over priced for what it is.
Interesting subject. Is anyone aware of someone who has tried to implement a continuous feed type system to dose a tank with zoo/phytoplankton? I'm imagining a system where you take the water that you would normally flush down the drain for water changes on a reef tank and collect it maybe even with skimate from the skimmer and sterilize it before storing it. Adjust the nutrient content with your fertilizer of choice and then have it drip into your phyto cultures.
Have the cultures set up with a drain that functions like siphon when a high water mark is reached, draining a portion of the phyto culture into the zooplankton culture, which would in turn have a similar setup to feed the reef tank.
The way I imagine it, you would be able to maintain a stable population level in the cultures by maintaining them in a constant state of growth and reproduction by regularly adding fresh nutrients and exporting part of the culture out.
I use a Poseidon Reef Systems phyto reactor and grow more nanno than I can use. I do not have a culture running all the time, only when I need to replenish the fridge. I restart it with phyto that's been in the fridge for weeks (maybe a couple months) and I haven't had any issues.
Maybe try cultures and fertilizer from them?
The Poseidon reactor was a heavy inspiration for my build (if it's not obvious). I don't have the one-way valves and everything, but it should still work. Their cultures would probably be a solid way to go, though I was just hoping that it'd be a mix of species, rather than single ones.
Did you ever do the writeup on copepods?
I dont see anything stickied and would love to see your write up!
You really shouldn't do a mix of species in one vessel. It will quickly become a single species. If you want to do multiple species, you have to do a separate vessel for each species and then combine them later. One-way valves are important if you intend to do this.
As far as the source of the cultures, I used Florida Aqua Farms and North Carolina Biologic Supplies.
I'm sorry, but I never did get it written. I no longer have the time to do the cultures. However, the copepod cultures were pretty easy. The copepods are very resilient.
I did two different cultures- one with tigriopus californicus (Tigger Pods) and the other with tisbe.
As I said, they are very resilient. I had weeks where I didn't have time to do anything with them. There was no phyto to be seen and the water was about half its initial volume (which would have doubled its concentration). I used my regular procedure to strain and rinse them back in and didn't see much impact to the population.
- I started with a one-gallon bucket for each and added the phyto I had cultured. Only add enough so that the bucket is no more than half full so that there is enough surface area/volume for gas exchange. This allows it so that you don't have to run a bubble line, which can damage the fry.
- Every week or so, I would use a very fine sieve and strain the water through it to get rid of the old water and waste.
- I would then rinse the copepods retained on the sieve back into the culture buckets and add new phyto.
- After a while, I had a large enough population to expand it to 5-gallon buckets. Once the population had built up in the 5-gallon bucket, I divided the population so that about 1/3 went into my tank and the rest was used to continue the culture.
Hope this helps.