How do I raise pods in their own container?

I caught some adults and put them in a 2 cup black plastic "margarine" type tub. Will they reproduce in this if fed, do I need to give them a substrate or a rock etc? This gives me some time to find a bigger black bucket (I've read they breed best with a dark plastic container.) Thanks.

 

If you feed a margarine container, your water quality will suffer in that small of a volume in no time.

I've honestly never seen anyone succeed using the method you are proposing.

 

Hope this is ok, but here is a link for you.... http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=281264

Read and enjoy. It covers most aspects of what you are thinking of doing. Also, I'm about to start it just waiting for some healthy cultures to get in. I'll be having two tubs going. One for my DT and one for my fuge. After the get to a large enough population I won't have to any more but I want a mandarin so more work for me hope this helps.

 

That's a cool link. Make sure you read through the entire thing to get the most out of it, as some people were having trouble sustaining their cultures.

I think they were saying the problem was being able to feed your culture enough while maintaining water quality.

 

Well, I just checked on them and they're still alive, but like I said I plan on getting a bigger container pretty soon. After reading from that link maybe I don't need a dark container. I've only got maybe 10 adults right now. I overfed the refugium from my old nano tank (yeast and phytoplankton) and they all died. I managed to salvage a bunch as they were hanging out near the surface and I scooped them out. I learned a huge lesson about water quality that day. Most of them I put in my DT but as an experiment I kept the last scoop in the little tub.

 

Although all of the information in that post is extremely good I have found that a 2 liter pop bottle or a 1 gallon glass jar, like a restaurant sized mayo jar is the best thing to use.

That and a real porous sponge for them to live and breed in if your going to use the 1 gallon jar, this makes it really easy to transfer them to the tank. All you have to do is drop the sponge into the water and swish it around washing the pods out of it.

Or you can do like I do and drop the pod infested sponge into your sump and put another one in the bottle, which in several weeks will be covered in pods again and you can just switch them out.

Every couple of days your going to want to do a water changes as stated in the post and then feed them. I also use a air line but keep the bubbles down to a small size and just a few every second to keep them from getting buffeted around to much, unlike brine shrimp who do better when blown around.

Somewhere I have a link to a grow station using PVC pipe, 2-ltr bottles and fluorescent lights. Its a rather elaborate affair but allows you to grow pods on one side and the Phyto needed to feed them on the other.

 

How long were you able to sustain a single culture for?

What kind of phyto did you use?

Do you know what kind of pods?

 

I have been culturing pods for quite a while, and discovered a few things by reading and by trial-and-error.

First of all, the best containers for breeding are those that are broad and shallow (such as a shallow rectangular plastic tray for holding paint when painting with rollers - available at any hardware store). The shallowness increases oxygenation and also surface area for the pods. This is much better than margarine tubs or mayonaise jars, or 1 gallon jugs - these have little surface area to volume ratio.

Second, although most pods can thrive at a variety of temperatures, they multiply faster with warmer water. So I advise keeping the temperarure around 78-81 degrees. Third, feed with live phyto (not dead phyto- pollutes the jar faster). Have a short day cycle of light (around 6-8 hours), and the rest of the time in darkness (when pods thrive, eat, and reproduce).

Periodically test your water for nitrates, and when they start to climb over 20, do a water change. Keep some sponges in the tank, which will become houses for helpful bacteria that will keep ammonia and nitrites at zero.

Hope this helps!

 

Here is the link for that Green water setup I was talking about, I know someone who is currently using one to culture pods on one side and Phyto on the other.

This is another really good link with all kinds of info on culturing live foods for marine tanks. on this one they tell you how to culture foods for all kinds of baby fish and stuff.

I actually kept my Tigriopus going far almost 12 months. But ended up dumping the whole lot into my tank because I got tired of dealing with them. They are an every day kind of thing, what with water changes and feedings. I got so busy at work by the time I got home I was just to tired to mess with them.

At first I made the mistake of using DT's Phyto to start my culture but could not figure out why they would die off rather fast until I was told that when they are mixed like that they tend to turn cannibalistic and kill each other off, which is why DT's live Phyto starts to stink after a couple of weeks. But I will tell you that using a little DT's it got real green real fast.

I also made the beginners mistake of trying to grow Rotifers in the same room as Phyto, they very quickly got cross-contaminated and all I had was a bunch of bottles of Rotifers, Lots and lots of Rotifers which made my corals really, really happy and me not so much, LOL.

I then bought some starter cultures from Florida Aqua Farms Inc. , both Nanochloropsys and Isochrysis. I had much better luck with the Nanochloropsys . I still have a culture of Nano going that originally got started about 8 months ago. Basically I take some of the original and start another one growing and use the original to feed with. If I don't they start to get old and are of no food value. And I keep doing this every couple of weeks.

Both Tigriopus and Tisbe sp, although I had the best luck with the tigers, I think thats because they are much easier to keep alive. The tisbes are much smaller and need warm water. The tigriopus are larger and need cooler waters to keep them alive and breeding. When the water got warmer in the summer (even though they were in my basement) they would stop breeding. I even considered setting them up inside a refrigerator I have in the garage and seeing if I could keep them going like that but the wife nixed that in a hurry.

I also want to mention that I used Algae pastes bought from Brine Shrimp Direct when feeding both Pods and Rotifers but you have to make sure that you get the Glycerine-Free ones which I think is only the Nannochloropsis Algae Paste.

 

It must have been another reason why you had trouble with the tisbes because they are the warmer water species. We heat their tanks and cool the Tigs.

Great info. thanks!