Tigger & Tisbe Pods

[40B Knasty]

I'm at about 26 days now, and the difference is quite striking. I do think there has been a bit of die-off as it seems there was a bit of an ammonia spike this past weekend, but they're still thicker than when I posted last week. That's basically the only trouble I'm having right now, ammonia. I'm hesitant to put tank media in there as I don't want to contaminate the culture, so for now water changes about every four days is what I'm doing.

What I do need to do is get a sieve so I can just scoop the adults out for now, but next week I intend to start putting these guys in the DT sump. There is a bunch of detritus there for them to feast on, so hopefully they can continue taking off there. Trying to use one of those mason jar dispensers as a second culture with a few scoops from the first, but I think just getting another 2.5 gallon tank will be an easier, more practical way to do this.

Have to say it again, thanks so much for this thread.

2.5 gallon tank is pretty small of a water volume. Get into a 5g+. I am doing that 20g tank, but at 10g of water. In that last video I was at 6g. When I added the 4 gallons. The smell of ammonia came up, but I dispersed the ammonia by adding more water. With the 5g tanks I was doing before I could go 2 weeks before a water change by raising the water volume up as the week went on. It was a lot easier.
I have read Tigger pods have trouble living going the through impellers. Tisbe pods can handle it. How much truth to that I don't know.
Also if you have no flow on beneficial bacteria. It will die off. It is like a power outage. Bacteria starts to die if there is no flow.

 

[Kyl]

I'm sort of space limited since I didn't account for a sudden pod factory in my layout areas, but noted. The only 5 gallon I have around has had copper in it, so maybe I'll just pick up another 5.

* actually the footprint of a 10 or 15 isn't that much more, might look into that instead. I do like the idea of two separate cultures though, just in case.

 

[40B Knasty]

Things are looking great right now. The title says it all!

 

[Kyl]

32 days later:

pods_july3 by Kyl, on Flickr


pods_july3_2 by Kyl, on Flickr

The mulm on the bottom has a thick mat of jittering copepods on it. They are so dense that it looks like something out of a horror movie.

 

[40B Knasty]

32 days later:

pods_july3 by Kyl, on Flickr


pods_july3_2 by Kyl, on Flickr

The mulm on the bottom has a thick mat of jittering copepods on it. They are so dense that it looks like something out of a horror movie.

Looking really good. You can cut back on feeding. I feed every 3 days now since I started. It's up to you though. I did just pull about 1500 the past 2 days. All 6 of my fish went to town on them.

 

[Kyl]

@Reef Nutrition - If I've noted correctly while trying to re-read the thread, the sieve sizing I should be aiming for is 50 micron to catch everything, including the nauplii, and ~300 micron to just catch the adults? Found a guy on Ebay that has a decent stacking set from 5 - 300 microns and I'd rather just pick a couple sizes up instead of trying to hack something together or fiddle with brine shrimp nets, etc.

Looking really good. You can cut back on feeding. I feed every 3 days now since I started. It's up to you though. I did just pull about 1500 the past 2 days. All 6 of my fish went to town on them.

I'm at the pinch every two days mark, and by day two the water is almost clear (the mulm is still green). They're really exploding now

 

[40B Knasty]

I am not sure on sieve sizes. Chad had mentioned it. I just run a net that I picked up at Petsmart that came with a sponge on a handle. It was like $4. I just pulled from my colony the last 3 days everyday about 750-1500 with one sweep of the net. I first shut my pumps off and slide the glass top forward. I bring the net full of pods right over to the tank and let the netting part sit in the water while holding the handle. Take a turkey baster and suck up the tank water and pods swimming around in the net. Then squeeze the turkey baster full of pods in different areas along the back glass where my green mandarin hangs out the most. About 2 minutes later all the fish up front are chowing down on them while he sits in the back chowing down on the pods.
I have used a mysis net that is a very soft cloth like material. That one I did not care for. The soft material the pods seem to like to hold onto. I found that one I picked up at Petsmart works great. Takes the adults and leaves the little guys. Also they maybe only about 8-10 stubborn ones that want to hang on, but a couple quick swishes of the net back and forth they are all gone. Maybe 1-3 will be stuck.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

I use a 90micron to capture everyone and a 300micron to separate out adults and later stage juveniles from the rest. This is my method because I harvest an entire tank when I am ready to bottle. @40B Knasty also has the net method that works well for pulling out adults from a continuous culture. I run my cultures as batches.

Chad

 

[Kyl]

Thanks Chad. Yeah I'm just going to go the sieve method for now, don't want to mess with nets as they all just seem to hang in the seams, etc. I got the numbers a bit mixed up, thanks for clarifying, and for helping us out with the cultivation tips.

 

[Kyl]

Here's one question for you @Reef Nutrition . How do you deal with ammonia with those huge cultures?

 

[Reef Nutrition]

Here's one question for you @Reef Nutrition . How do you deal with ammonia with those huge cultures?

I honestly don't pay attention to it anymore. Tigriopus californicus and Apocyclops panamensis are not sensitive to it. I've seen ammonia higher than 8ppm in a tank and they were alive and breeding. Some copepods aren't affected by ammonia like others.

Chad

 

[Kyl]

Hmm, interesting!

 

[40B Knasty]

Pulled 4x this week and still have a massive amount. Colony is doing great!

 

[Kyl]

I see the petsmart combo locally, is that the foam you're using on the drain line? I was using a piece from the brine shrimp nets stretched over the end of tubing but it's letting tiny, but visible ones through.

 

[40B Knasty]

I see the petsmart combo locally, is that the foam you're using on the drain line? I was using a piece from the brine shrimp nets stretched over the end of tubing but it's letting tiny, but visible ones through.

Yes. I cut out a square with scissors. Then place some frag glue around the tubing(not covering the hole). Then put the foam/sponge piece cut out over the top of it over lapping the airline hole. Then press and hold with my fingers for a bit. Then dip it in some water so it sets.

 

[drcole]

Awesome stuff guys, best thread out there for culturing these pods. I want a mandarin so badly so I hope to eventually get this stuff going. Any BBS threads you have @40B Knasty ??

 

[Kyl]

I've put a (totally scientific term) couple of swishes of pods into the refugium over the past two weeks, and it seems they've taken hold. I had the return running at minimal flow tonight and noticed a bunch of them zipping around. In terms of the culture, even pulling quite a bit out, it's really getting crazy in there now.

 

[501Reefer]

Any updates?

 

[40B Knasty]

Any updates?

Well my pod population is low, because I have been busy with setting up a Pea Puffer tank and Betta tank. I have pulled a net full out 2 times. There is still pods alive in the 20g, but it is about 3 weeks overdue of a water change and I haven't fed them in a week and letting them just eat the detritus. I will get them back up to par in a week. I am not to worried about it. There is still plenty in there to have a good bounce back in a month. If I had taken care of it the whole time. I would post an update.

 

[Kyl]

My primary culture crashed somehow a few weeks ago, I have to think ammonia got too high. Thankfully it was split off and I dumped about half of the other culture back into the tank after a good rinse out and new water, and I'm finally seeing a bit of a mass forming in the "reboot" culture. I did get some helpful things in the mail today, only took 7 weeks from the UK. Congrats Royal Mail / Canada Post, slower than something from mainland China.


stacking_sieves_4 by Kyl, on Flickr


stacking_sieves_2 by Kyl, on Flickr


stacking_sieves_3 by Kyl, on Flickr

Hoping this makes things much easier, 250 / 125 / 50 micron, stack-able sieves. I wanted to be able to simply take one of these, swish it through the tank and go right into the DT. While the little shrimp net from petsmart worked, they'd get stuck in the seams and it was just a hassle. This is about as simple as you can get. Could have made something similar, but after factoring in sourcing the mesh and my time, it was worth the 15 bucks to buy a set.