culturing copepods
 

i have a mandarin and several other plankton feeders so i was interested in growing copepods as a food source and was hoping someone had experience with this and could give me the benefit of there knowledge? what would i need? parameters of the container and that sort of thing.

Hi,

If you have a refugium and macroalgae in the refugium then you probably already have copepods, aphipods and isopods among other inverts. Your signature indicates a 180 gal reef that has been up for a year so there is probably a decent population, though not enough to sustain a mandarin for very long. Assuming the "fuge" they will reproduce there and some will get swept into the main tank on a regular basis, you can increase the amount that goes to the tank by pruning some of the algae (chaeto, calupera, etc.) and putting it in the main tank. Though I have a large population of pods in my refugium and tank I am thinking of setting up a pico with sand, water and algae from my refugium as a separate, predator free environment for them to reproduce.

I don't think it would be very difficult to keep them in a separate tank and siphon some off for the main tank on a regular basis. The parameters would be the same as your reef, with live sand, algae and some live rock rubble I think they will be fine.

Hi again dadonoflaw,

I did some research and here is some info on copepod propagation and a pdf that you can download. From some reading they are cannabalistic - but I think for our application a small separate tank without other predators should produce a good supply for the main tank.

[url]http://www.flseagrant.org/program_areas/aquaculture/copepod/index.htm[/url]

Regards,
Marlene

thank you. you know i never see amphipods anymore but like i said i have alot of zooplankton feeders so they have likely been consumed. i guess i have some reading to do