Rotifers

[shakara_b]

How do you know if your rotifer culters have crashed? And how do you keep ammonia down when your not ready to harvest?

[Ploppers]

I believe if you see lots of small fast moving male rotifers you know you're about to crash. If you don't see any rotifers at all then it has crashed.

To keep ammonia down just do a water changes every few days.

["Umm, fish?"]

Also, a lot of ciliates in the culture is also a sign of impending crash.

I know Reed's advises changing roughly 1/3 of the culture water every day. You can also add one of the ammonia neutralizers like ClorAmX.

[FMarini]

I agree---
ChlorAmX is the key.

Once you figure out how much/many rotifers you'll need daily, scale up/down your culture accordingly. Then ensure you remove at least 1/3 even if you have to throw it away. This exchanges clean fresh water, and reduces any potential pollutants

[GreshamH]

Removing a third also keeps the culture young and not old and sterile. Like most life, old ones produce little to zero eggs. Since their life cycle is so short not keeping up with it will create a sterile culture ("crash").

["Umm, fish?"]

How much ClorAmX should one use per gallon of water? I don't have a dry weight, low weight scale so I'm looking for something like "1/4 teaspoon/gallon" or something like that.

Thanks!

[GreshamH]

Originally posted by "Umm, fish?"
How much ClorAmX should one use per gallon of water? I don't have a dry weight, low weight scale so I'm looking for something like "1/4 teaspoon/gallon" or something like that.

Thanks!

Me too

It's not how much water but rather how much food used (=ammonia) to gallonage. We have a feed calculator (MS Excel) that will tell you that IIRC on the RMI site.

It's like most other stuff we add to out tanks. You kind of need to test first and know your starting point so you can add enough to get to your ideal spot, or go by what others have tested and come up with. That being said, it's hard to over dose. I just mix a solution up that I can do a 1:1 feed ratio with and do just that (1:1). I'll have to dig that up as it's on an old dead laptop that I'll have to remove the HD from and get the files off if I can.

We have a IA feed > ClorAmx ratio someplace on our site. I'll run it down later this week for you (no time right now).

[shakara_b]

Thank you all. I guess my culture has not crashed yet. I'm doing a run to see if I can keep rotifers alive before I decide to collect my clowns next eggs.

[GreshamH]

Originally posted by "Umm, fish?"
Also, a lot of ciliates in the culture is also a sign of impending crash.

Oops, missed that comment. It can also be a sign of gross over feeding (uneaten food).

["Umm, fish?"]

Thanks, Gresham! That certainly makes way too much sense--how much I would use would depend on how much ammonia I have. I should have figured that answer out myself.

Happy halloween!