Copepods culture help

[ChickReef]

Hello,

I am trying to culture Copepods so I could help myself in housing a dragonet. I purchased a 1.5 gallon container from target, air pump, water heater and salt water from the LFS. I got my little tigger pods and phytoplankton from seachem. I combined everything together and put a little rock to hold the air line. These are my results.

Day 1 everything looked fine
Day 2 semi okay
Day 3 I think they all died.
Help…

I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t keep the lid on or what might be the problem. I think they are dead or I don’t really know. I can’t tell if there are eggs on the glass. The bottom is dark green and I sucked some of it up and it was the tigger pods not moving. This is all uncharted waters for me.
Any input or help would be appreciated! I will attach pictures

 

[Mark Novack]

Ammonia perhaps from the phyto dying. It might need a mature filter system to feed phyto constantly.

 

[LordofCinder]

ammonia is always building up due to dying phyto, dead pods, pod waste, etc.... . Only add a few drops of phyto every day, very little. The water should be mainly clear with just a slight tint of color.

Personally, I suggest to try to find homemade phtyo, such as nananochrlorsis (sp?), I have much better yields using homemade phyto compared to store bought phtyo.

Also remember to top off every day, salinity changes very fast in that small container.

 

[Woodyman]

There are numerous threads on here about culturing. I'll post a link to one I had previously participated in below.

Advice needed from folks culturing pods and rotifers

Hello fellow saltines, I purchased a bottle of mixed rotifers/pods and live phyto (it's not reef nutrition because my last was out of stock of what I wanted). The mixture contained pods: tisbe biminiensis and rotifers: brachionus privatizing and brachionus rotundiformis. The bottle had live...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[airvicconcre]

Hello,

I am trying to culture Copepods so I could help myself in housing a dragonet. I purchased a 1.5 gallon container from target, air pump, water heater and salt water from the LFS. I got my little tigger pods and phytoplankton from seachem. I combined everything together and put a little rock to hold the air line. These are my results.

Day 1 everything looked fine
Day 2 semi okay
Day 3 I think they all died.
Help…

I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t keep the lid on or what might be the problem. I think they are dead or I don’t really know. I can’t tell if there are eggs on the glass. The bottom is dark green and I sucked some of it up and it was the tigger pods not moving. This is all uncharted waters for me.
Any input or help would be appreciated! I will attach pictures

View attachment 2844608 View attachment 2844609 View attachment 2844610 View attachment 2844612

hi. im very new to the marine hobby however the copepod culturing made me curious. i live in india and i was visiting USA last month. i carried copepods from seattle to india when i returned. i bought Pioneer pods from Algae Barn and Tigger pods of Reef Nutrition. the LFS guy in Seattle was very helpful and advised me to use Pioneer Pods to culture instead of Tigger from RN as they culture easier than Tigger. he suggested i buy Phytoplankton from Reef N brand (phyto feast). its been almost 10 days and my copepod culture is thriving. i add a few drops of Phyto Feast every couple pf days and sprinkle a pinch of spirulina powder to keep the water lightly green. i did throw in some Chaeto in the tank as well.

 

[airvicconcre]

Hello,

I am trying to culture Copepods so I could help myself in housing a dragonet. I purchased a 1.5 gallon container from target, air pump, water heater and salt water from the LFS. I got my little tigger pods and phytoplankton from seachem. I combined everything together and put a little rock to hold the air line. These are my results.

Day 1 everything looked fine
Day 2 semi okay
Day 3 I think they all died.
Help…

I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t keep the lid on or what might be the problem. I think they are dead or I don’t really know. I can’t tell if there are eggs on the glass. The bottom is dark green and I sucked some of it up and it was the tigger pods not moving. This is all uncharted waters for me.
Any input or help would be appreciated! I will attach pictures

View attachment 2844608 View attachment 2844609 View attachment 2844610 View attachment 2844612

 

[PeterEde]

you dose enough phyto to feed the current population and wait till it goes clear before dosing more
My jar is in a window so phyto seems to grow.

 

[Jay'sReefBugs]

If you need any help getting the culture started and running just shoot me a message and I'll get back to you ASAP.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

What temp did your culture get to? I don't heat mine, room temp is enough for them where I have the culture jar. I've been going 3 months with the same starter jar of pods, but I also fed live photo I also culture.

You also said you added a piece of rock, was this dry rock or did you pull out from your system? Dry rock is ok, but if you took one from an existing tank than you might have contaminated your culture with another type of pods or something that could eat them and outsource them for food.