The joys of breeding as a hobby in OZ...

Fishy Something · #1 03/09/2004, 12:27 AM

Just thought I would share this as I had to laugh...

Getting hold of a rotifer starter culture here in Australia can be one of the biggest challenges & is never cheap with about 1 litre of what I have found to be a pretty sparse culture costing about $80, shipped interstate from a government research body.

Well it goes from the sublime to the ridiculous when I was given contact details for an aquaculture facility (also interstate for me) & they only talk in quantities of 100's of millions of rotifers. When they guy finally stopped laughing after I explained that I was working out of my bathroom culturing in 20 litre containers as opposed to the 250 litre ones he was suggesting he said he would give me 10 million rotifers for free, if I paid for shipping.

Sounds great but $450.00 later I have a stack of "free" rotifers on the way...

I gotta start keeping these little buggers alive...

Morgman · #2 03/09/2004, 12:56 AM

Why don't you get resting rotifers. I guess its to late now.

Resting rotifers are like brine shrimp eggs but much smaller. You just add salt water and begin your culturing. Shipping from the States would be cheap because they can be sent regular mail.
450 is a painful mistake. I am sorry.

Here is a link to resting rotifes. Scroll down a bit to find it.

https://3kserver7.com/~frank/secure/...=LIVE_CULTURES

Fishy Something · #3 03/09/2004, 01:09 AM

Thanks Morgman... On this occassion I needed some for next week & resting rotes weren't going to do that.

As for shipping cysts from the States there are quarantine regs here that make that virtually impossible at the hobbiest level & to get the appropriate permits would probably in fact cost more than the $450 for a one off import.

I can get & have used resting rotes before & found them to be significantly more challenging to get up than BBS - maybe that was my lack of skill (quite likely). BTW I just checked out that link & 1,000,000 cysts would cost me US$395 or about AUD$500 so for 10,000,000 I'm probably doing pretty well.

As for it being a mistake, I did go into the deal knowing what the cost would be, it is just the challenges associated with getting them in the first place that I was having a

at.

James

Louis Z · #4 03/09/2004, 03:02 AM

I hate to say it but you should have asked for every live food organism they had available.

clownfish75 · #5 03/09/2004, 10:13 PM

where are you and what are you trying to breed and what do you need.

christian

Fishy Something · #6 03/10/2004, 05:51 PM

Louis Z - I'm not quite sure what you are getting at... maybe it is just too early here?

Christian - I'm in Melbourne (JamesN on RTAW), and just have a single pair of A. oscellaris with a second pair of a. frenatus/melanops (not sure yet), on the way. Hopefully now I need nothing

but if you can help in the future that would be great!

James

cwbroden · #7 03/10/2004, 07:01 PM

Wow.... if you can get them to stay alive, you could get a nice business going in OZ.

Pumba · #8 03/14/2004, 06:26 AM

James,
Where did you end up getting your rots from?

Micheal from Reefculture sells 1L of rots for $15, + postage
He is also the only source I know of for Reed Mariculture frozen algae. He is quite reasonable for the algae as well, cheaper than growing the stuff yourself.

Aquasonic also sell vials of 10000 resting cysts for about $50 + postage.

Not too late to cancel that rotifer order?

Cheers,
Matt (Pumba on RTAW)

Fishy Something · #9 03/14/2004, 05:58 PM

Thanks Pumba,

I ended up getting them from a hatchery in SA. They sent me a stack (like 33 million) so it probably has worked out very well. The problem with one of the smaller quantity suppliers is that I needed them ASAP, so I would not have a chance to actually build up the culture before needing to use them..That is now not an issue.

You can also get the Instant Algae direct from the importer (Proaqua) & freeze it down into smaller contatiners yourself as I have done. This is very cost effective.

James

fishy&co · #10 03/15/2004, 04:27 AM

Im in Hervey Bay queensland and im going to get my rotifers from reefculture. As they seem quite reasonable, Does anyone know what their address is i cant find it.

Pumba · #11 03/15/2004, 06:23 AM

James,
Things probably turned out best for you then James. Did you have any luck with what you were trying to raise?

fishy&co,
try www.reefculture.com.au

Cheers,
Matt

Fishy Something · #12 03/15/2004, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Did you have any luck with what you were trying to raise

That is a whole different issue, but in short, not at the moment, but I'm sure we will get there...

James

Louis Z · #13 03/16/2004, 01:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Fishy Something
Louis Z - I'm not quite sure what you are getting at... maybe it is just too early here?James

Just meant that you could have saved on shipping costs if they had copepods also.

Fishy Something · #14 03/16/2004, 05:47 PM

Sorry Louis Z, I did think that that was what you meant after I woke up a little more...

James