Microfood culture: phytoplanktons, Rotifers, ciliates, Artemia, and copepods

[FMarini]

Hello and thanks for stopping by
As part of The Breeders Net Series
I've tried to assemble a resource for home culture of microfood used by the home fish breeder.
Here are a few of the articles which I feel are useful.


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Some very important background on fish reproduction-terminology-part1 & fish reproduction-part2 by Martin Moe.

Growing Phytoplanktons at home.
Describes useful phyto species, growth conditions, and non living alternatives.

-Rotifers and rotifer home cultures.
It also includes an indepth look at phytoplankton alternatives for rotifer enrichment.

-Home ciliate culture -by Martin Moe

-Brine Shrimp (Artemia)home culture .
Includes a section on nutritional enrichment, and decapsulation of brine shrimp eggs

- Copepods w/ author Dwayne Sapp
includes home culture, feeding, and photographs. A very Interesting read.

I'll update this thread as new enteries are added.
frank

[Reefs1]

COPEPODS!!! ! COPEPODS!!! COPEPODS!!! Hurry, hurry, my little Citron Goby is dying of starvation over here!!

[traveler911]

Thanks so much for the help Food God.

[ozadars]

Frank,
Do u know if we can keep leptomysis mediterranea in our tanks? w/o an anemone? If so i ld like to, they re good source of food

[dwall174]

Thanks for all your links
Looks like I have some reading to do
Thanks again: Doug

[Typhon]

Thanks for all the help. This is exactly what I am looking for.

[dwall174]

Here's a link to another post I made reguarding Phytoplankton & Rotifers http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...hreadid=208836

[marineaquariums]

is it a pain in the but to grow or is it just better to buy dt's

[JB NY]

Growing phytoplankton is probably one of the easiest things in this hobby. Give it a try, it's much cheaper than buying it.

[marineaquariums]

i would like to just dont like the idea of the pop bottles
dose any one you no have any 10 gal diy projects
or do they have to cleaned to often for that

[The Aquarist]

Originally posted by FMarini
I'll update this thread as new enteries are added.
frank

Please Do! This stuff is great! I'll be glued to this thread for as long as it lives.

[rj sd]

Is there any articles on culturing mysis shrimp, or any other larger food items?

[JHardman]

Originally posted by rj sd
Is there any articles on culturing mysis shrimp, or any other larger food items?

Here is one...

http://www.seahorse.org/library/arti...ulturing.shtml

There was also a presentation at the last big national fish convention (don't remember the name). There was a post on RC about it and where to order the transcript/video of the presentation, but I guess it is older than 6 months or has been deleted as it doesn't show up in a search anymore...

I think that Dr. Frank is going to do one in the future too, not sure, but I think he is.

[dwall174]

Wow 13 tanks, 190 gallons just to raise food! Kind of reminds me of when my Dad use to raise guppys back in the 70's & are basement looked something like THIS

[Mako]

Another good reference. FAO FISHERIES TECHNICAL PAPER

[plankton]

nanno setups are very easy to start and fairly easy to maintain. Although mine crashed after 3 months, but I supplied about a 15 miles radius with nano for 3 months. All you need is one nanno disk, some F/2 or equiv, light, air bubbles and a clean environment and you are off. My 100G SPS tank had sponge and feather worms like you would not believe. Plus all that primary food supplied quite a population of copepodes/amphipods, etc.

Go for it!

Mysis shimp are fresh/brackish water. I'd suggest try rearing some ornamental shrimp (peppermints, etc).

Scott

[melsteve]

As I work fulltime and will hopefully have a resonable number of clowns breeding For rotifers and phyto the way I thought of going was,
I was going to culture phyto in 20 litre bottles like the ones you see on water dispeners now these are flat bottomed is that to much of a problem.
I have 10 of these and the intention is too drip feed a 250 litre tub with the rotifers in it and remove around 15%to 20% each day and water change about 5%to10% every couple of days and also have a sponge filter in there and clean this every two days or so.
I figure that this type of set up should only take around 15 to 20 min each day .
I can do bigger water changes in nesesscary as I have a large supply of NSW.
Any comments thoughts appreciated.
Regards Steve

[JHardman]

Originally posted by melsteve
As I work fulltime and will hopefully have a resonable number of clowns breeding For rotifers and phyto the way I thought of going was,
I was going to culture phyto in 20 litre bottles like the ones you see on water dispeners now these are flat bottomed is that to much of a problem.
I have 10 of these and the intention is too drip feed a 250 litre tub with the rotifers in it and remove around 15%to 20% each day and water change about 5%to10% every couple of days and also have a sponge filter in there and clean this every two days or so.
I figure that this type of set up should only take around 15 to 20 min each day .
I can do bigger water changes in nesesscary as I have a large supply of NSW.
Any comments thoughts appreciated.
Regards Steve

Hi Steve

Checkout this thread...

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...hreadid=234037

Basically I think a bunch of us have pretty much decided to give up growing phytoplankton and use a paste or concentrate instead. I am not sure if there is an equivalent product down under, but it really might be worth your time to find out.

Do you filter your NSW? If not you might have some contamination issues with your cultures.

Also, I would not try to do a continuous rotifer culture. It is easier, especially if you have free NSW to just do batch cultures.

[melsteve]

I pretty sure we cannot get thers concentrates here I have been making enquires and it is hard enough to get green water starter and resting rotifers.
They are pushng, some the aquaculture supply persons I have talked to the super hufa as the only food for rotifers, but I am a little sceptical on that one .
I suppose I could try and get some disks sent from the US I would have to check our quaratine laws which are pretty tight but I know that Singaporen reefers have it sent that OK so may be an option.
Steve

[Anguila]

Dr. Marini,

Thank you very much for providing such a wealth of information for us. I will definately have my hands full trying to absorb it all, but hopefully it will answer all the questions, and prevent me from posting superflous threads.

Thanks again.

[Atticus]

Has anyone seen a smaller home scale method of culturing mysis shrimp? I would really like to start adding these to my brood stocks diet, but cannot afford to add on to the house.

[FMarini]

atticus:
reedmariculture is selling mysis shrimp and you can start them at home using the condiution i describe in last months Breedersnet (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...03/breeder.htm), the problem w/ using mysids as food is primarily, time, and costs. I say time becuz the reproductive cycle for these critters is much slower then we are used to (say in regards to rotifers, BBS etc), so patience is a virture here, espcially if you want a constant supply of juvieniles for a food source. Cost of course is always a factor and a fair number of adults can be more expensive than a rotifer starter pack, lets say. However reeds product is cost effective (as you do get alot of adult mysids) and is prolly a very good producxt based on their other items
frank

[Atticus]

As always thanks for your help Frank. Travis

[Paul B]

I think you need to add all kinds of natural plankton to have a successful tank. I know most people do not live near a beach but I just came back from a muddy beach In New York to collect some food at low tide. Here the tide goes down about 8' and the beach is full of rocks. Under the rocks are loaded with plankton, amphipods, copepods, shrimp, worms and all sorts of food. I swirl these rocks in a bucket then get rid of most of the mud and dump the entire thing (except for the crabs) in my reef. I have been doing this as long as I have a reef and I never had any problems, disease or otherwise. I think this stuff should be collected and sold. It's not like it is endangered or anything.

[Paul B]

I think you need to add all kinds of natural plankton to have a successful tank. I know most people do not live near a beach but I just came back from a muddy beach In New York to collect some food at low tide. Here the tide goes down about 8' and the beach is full of rocks. Under the rocks are loaded with plankton, amphipods, copepods, shrimp, worms and all sorts of food. I swirl these rocks in a bucket then get rid of most of the mud and dump the entire thing (except for the crabs) in my reef. I have been doing this as long as I have a reef and I never had any problems, disease or otherwise. I think this stuff should be collected and sold. It's not like it is endangered or anything.