Copepod breeding?

[gmubeach]

Any thoughts I'm going to try and breed them in a sepreate tank and then send them to the refugium? I see that a company has 8 diffrent species to choose from? I'm a little leary about buying a bag full of pods I heard if you don't condition them just right they don't make it? Anyway if someone is doing this in the club it would be awesome to get some advice?

[Brian Ward]

I didn't know you needed to do anything special. You get some in your fuge with the macro and they just multiply.

[Chad]

Troy, why do you want to breed them?

 

The reason I ask is because there are two large groups of copepods, calanoids and harpacticoids. Calanoids, in general, are free swimmers, and are MUCH MORE useful for the reasons most cite as needed copepods and are more difficult to culture (floaty pods equals floaty food). Hapracticoids are benthic, usually not as useful and are much easier (wide, flat container) and eat most anything including such as flake food.

 

I have articles on both and will dig them up for you when I get home.

[gmubeach]

Yes I was reading about diffrnet ways/ types and I got intregued and was wondering how hard it is to breed them? There was a guy in fairfax that bred rotifers and I think artimia? He showed me his setup it was awesome, but that was a while ago, maybe new technology has made it easier?

[gmubeach]

Yes I was reading about diffrnet ways/ types and I got intregued and was wondering how hard it is to breed them? There was a guy in fairfax that bred rotifers and I think artimia? He showed me his setup it was awesome, but that was a while ago, maybe new technology has made it easier?

[Chad]

One harpacticoid method and a calanoid method

Culturing%20Copepods1.pdf

TP 156_A_guide_to_the_Meso-Scale_Production_of_the_Copepod_web.pdf

[Matt LeBaron]

Chad with copepods such as Tigriopus can you tell feeding levels by monitoring the color of the sample if feeding with green water. I've been making green water using the Reef Nutrition Phyto Feast as a starting culture. It's been working very well, I just use a 5 gallon bucket with an airline and some miracle grow to get it going. 1.5-2 weeks later I have a very nice dark green bucket of green water. Right now I'm just using it to keep a rotifer culture going and keep my brine shrimp cultures going but would not mind experimenting with copepods. Right now I know when I need to feed the rotifers by just looking at the color of the water. Once it starts to turn very light green I add more.

[Chad]

Tigriopus are harpacticoids and are detrivores, meaning that they will eat phytoplankton, but it may not be the best food for them (phyto floats, the tigriopus do not). I had a culture of them sitting on my counter in a plastic paint pan reproducing on a pinch of flake food once a week for about six months. They are pretty hardy and easy to culture (I harvested every other week by removing half the water and replacing it with new salt water).

[Chad]

Here is a link from reef nutrition: http://www.reefnutrition.com/tigger_pods_care.html

[Matt LeBaron]

Might give it a try, not sure how interested my little seahorses may be in them but figure it can't hurt. I might shrink my rotifer culture down and maybe get two 2-3 gallon buckets and use one for copepods since I really don't need a 5 gallon bucket of rotifers, I only feed them to the little babies for the first two weeks and I'm not 100% sure they even eat them but I figure it can't hurt to much.

[Chad]

They will probably eat them, from what I have seen, the "jerky" movement of the tigriopus sp. copepods elicits a pretty strong feeding response. Also, they are a bit bigger than rotifers so they are pretty likely to be eaten. Having a large enough culture to feed them on a regular basis will be the hard part Just remember, shallow containers are better for harpacticoids than something deep like a 5 gallon bucket.