'pod Farming

[TimS]

I would like some advice on what media you use to raise 'pods.

I am raising them to but back in my main tank for my Mandarin. He seems to be getting plenty to eat from the 200 lbs. of LR, but you can never have too much food, plus it is an inexpensive project. I think the shrimp in the main tank may be eating the 'pods, too.

Right now, I have two sources of 'pods other than the main tank. I put sponge filters in the overflows to catch debris and raise the water level in the overflow. There is always a healthy population in the overflow. Also, I turned my 10 gallon Q-tank into a 'Tang Heaven' farm for my Tangs. The 'pods are teeming in that tank. However, almost all the Tang Heaven is gone and so are the hiding places. I am looking for a new system of hiding/breeding places for the 'pods. Some sort of inert/inexpensive media that they had grow and breed on that I can move back and forth to the main tank.

I have some ideas, but any ideas or experiences out there so that I can cut down on my experimentation time would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

TimS

[Biosystems]

Tims:

I have begun trying to research this extensively as I am interested in preparing large pod populations for rearing certain marine fry. I have found several articles on this subject, most are not all that informative. When I go back to work tommorow, I will try and get the librarian to pull (or more likely order) some of the references I have found and will share the data in them if it is of interest to you/helpful to either of us. Drop me an email as a reminder.

Most of the articles I have found say to harvest rich organic muds from marine flats and set these up in an undergravel filtered system (with panty hose over the gravel plate). Others say to plant these with marine plants (similar to your tang heaven experiment). Many also recommend feeding phytoplankton or to devlop nice lawns of hair algae (which shouldnt be too difficuly if you use high organic muds).

Hope to talk to ya soon. Let me know if you have any info that we can share.

TIm

[TimS]

I am doing some low tech experiments. I took some mesh, like bridal mesh, shredded and tied around a piece of PVC pipe to see if they populate it. I have been squeezing the gunk from the sponge filter in the overflow into the 10 gallon tank. Sound like a small scale version of the suggestions in the articles.

Of course, I am not trying for any commercial production, just trying to supplement what is already in the main thank.

TimS

[Agu]

My caulerpa tank has a ton of copepods. I use water from water changes from the reef and feed daily. Put a piece of PVC pipe in the tank, by looking in the end you'll be able to tell how the population is doing. You harvest them by picking up the PVC with both ends blocked. Usually I can move 15 to 20 pods every two weeks,

[Michelle]

I'm curious - 15 to 20 pods a week doesn't sound like much. Is it actually a good number to put into your tank each week? Is it that those 15 or so pods, which I'm assuming are adults since you can readily see them, reproduce like crazy before they get eaten by the tank inhabitants? If you were doing this to feed a mandarin, would that be enough? Sorry for all the questions, just trying to put pod populations into perspective. At the moment I've got tons of the adults running all over everything in my tank to the point where they're irritating the polyps.

Thanks,
-Michelle

[TimS]

My less scientific method has produced a population so think that squirming over the substrate and rocks in my 10 gallon tank. I shredded and tied bridal veil to PVC pipe. The material is getting colonized very well.

[Biosystems]

TimS:

One of the most extensive (and not very extensive at that but it was referenced)reviews that I have found on copepod and amphipod culture was Hoff's Plankton Culture Manual from florida aquafarms. I have been looking for references on culturing Euterpina acutifrons, b/c I have read that it is a good food source for larval fish-it doesnt give much information on this particular pod, but it does talk about culture of others.

Suggestions from this and other references are:
1) Good water quality with little dissolved organics (interestingly, the systems used protein skimmers on them)
2) High oxygen content (Skimmer helped with this)
3) Constant low levels of light 40W cool white fluor
4) low bacterial levels (there are ways to accomplish this biologically [ciliates], but can watch feeding of foods like Rotirich, yeast based mixes, bran)
5) feed microalgaes and especially diatoms (boy if I would have known this when I had first started marine aquaria some time ago I could have supported a few trillion cops)-feed levels are approx 100,000cells/ml-isochrysis good for larval nauplii stages, not as good for adults.
6) Suggest short term continuos cultures
(removal once per day screening adults (200micron sieve), copepodites (100 micron seive) and nauplii(45micron seive). Donot keep too much of one population. Maybe just feed subadults.
7) Reported maximum densities of about 5000/liter of culture taking up to a month to achieve this density.
8) salinty:12-20ppt; pH 8.0-8.2; temp 20-26C
9)Replace with new tank once per month, restarted with 10% old water 90%new plus adults from 250micron seive
10) use higher surface area tank rather than taller tanks

For the benthic amphipods:
Good growths of macroalgae substrate is important, although artifical substrate is fine (suggests bioballs, plastic netting, etc.)
Feed flake food (something that can actually benifit from flake food), but eat mostly bacteria and algae, so these may be a result of flake food decomposition
Adults sorted on 450micron mesh, juveniles on 250micron.

HTH,
Tim

[JCurry]

TimS,
You could use that black mesh that comes with DLS material for wet drys. Just a thought.

[This message has been edited by JCurry (edited 05-03-2000).]