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- How to get and maintain a pure rotifer culture
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| How to get and maintain a pure rotifer culture; Is it possible? | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 27 2008, 12:32:26 PM (299 Views) | |
| Post #1 Aug 27 2008, 12:32:26 PM | Amie |
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Some people, who I will not name, say that it is impossible to keep a pure culture of rotifers and copepods next to each other without having them contaminate each other. I believe that you can keep them seperate and so I'm going to attempt it and log my results here. Any comments or help would be appreciated because so far, I've always had rotifers and tiggerpods together. To get a pure culture of rotifers I have already taken the following steps this past week. 1) Syphoned a rotifer/pod culture through 2 seives, 180 micron and then 53 micron. I place the 53 micron contents into a 1-quart plastic container with new saltwater with a couple of drops of nanno paste. Then I placed 7 clean 1 quart containers next to the rotifer culture. 2) Every day I syphoned the rotifers through a 180 micron seive and into one of the clean 1-quart containers. 3) After the 7th day, I ASSUME that the culture is clean. I've read that this is how to get a pure rotifer culture. I'm about 4 days past this process and don't see any rotifers yet, so ... so far so good. Here's how I got a pure tiggerpod culture. After syphoning the mixed culture through a 180 seive and putting the contents into new salt water setup a 1 gallon bucket with new saltwater. Then I took a pipette and picked out 10 pregnant copepods one at a time a placed them into the 1 gallon bucket. There's actually no guarantee that this is rotifer free because I think I should have filtered it for several days through a 180. I may have to do this again. It's been 3 weeks and there are tons of pods in the container. Maybe I'll just check the water first. Once I know I have 2 clean cultures, I will move them to 5 gallon buckets that have been chloroxed and cleaned well and place them right next to each other and start my experiment. In order to try and keep them from 'jumping', I will have to have 2 of everything. 2 seives, 2 hydrometers, thermometers, syphons, and anything else I'm not thinking of. I can never let anything touch one bucket that has touched the other bucket. How long do you think I should give it to see if I have had a successful experiment. Or in otherwords, how long do you think it will take for them to get mixed? |
stormy, stormy nights
  ![]](http://z4.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)
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http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mammals/interns.html Tell them Adam sent you. | |
 
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| Post #2 Aug 27 2008, 01:31:08 PM | Larry H |
| I have my fingers crossed for you. I think the rotifer culture should stay pure with what you have done. I hope your copepod culture will stay pure also but maybe some got through and if they did I would think it would take a month and a half before you could really tell. Maybe less than that. I think I remember hearing it takes copepods about 45 days to go from egg till they start laying eggs. I know my rotifer culture is pure unless the water I get from my sump area and add to the bucket to keep it full has something that gets passed forward to the rotifer culture. I guess I should have run it through the sieves. I never thought too but after reading what you did, it made me think I missed a step. I do have a 53 micron sieve, in addition to the 180, 300, 560 and 900 ones. |
breeding stock
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| Post #3 Aug 27 2008, 02:35:16 PM | Amie |
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It's been exactly 20 days since I seperated out the 10 copepods and I looked at it today and there are significantly more than 10 in there that are carrying babies. I was surprized. My only concern is if there are still rotifers in the water. I may start another bucket and syphon it better. Maybe run water through the seive a couple of times and repeat the step for a few days. If you are using water from your sump, you could definitely be adding things to your culture...who knows what. But I know alot of people use tank water and haven't had any problems. I change the water on the pods so infrequently that I don't mind using new water. |
stormy, stormy nights
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http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mammals/interns.html Tell them Adam sent you. | |
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| Post #4 Aug 27 2008, 04:16:55 PM | Suzy |
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Ok, go ahead and name names! I still believe that rotifers are the bane of the hobby! Yeah, yeah, yeah, they deliver nutrition to our corals and fry. But, if you have one, one single solitary rotifer, it is going to crash your pods. It's in their blood. It is their mission on this planet! At this point, I am not growing rotifers so I have a very non rotifer culture of pods. I will give you some and hope it works. If my new pipefish breed, I will need rotifers! I really hope this works, but every time I have had rots, my pods suffer.....and I love my pods...they are so cute and yummy! |
Seahorse Whisperer
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"i was informed of some dolphin related testing going on up there" Too Funny! | |
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| Post #5 Aug 27 2008, 09:40:58 PM | Amie |
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I was trying not to point any fingers. But since the cat is out of the bag, Suzy seems to have somewhat of a skewed few of rotifers. I've grown rotifers and pods together for years. I have to admit, I've had a hard time keeping them seperate, but I haven't had my pods die because of my rotifers. But I have lost my rotifers several times. I'm hoping that I can figure out how to keep the cultures seperate so there won't be any issues to worry about. But, with the new development from Crystal that she just got her maroon's through meta on baby pods, and I saw my maroon babies eating the baby pods off of the sides of the tank, I'm hoping that rotifers can become a thing of the past someday soon. |
stormy, stormy nights
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http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mammals/interns.html Tell them Adam sent you. | |
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| Post #6 Aug 28 2008, 07:05:22 AM | Suzy |
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Ok, I will admit that rotifers are a great way to deliver nutrition to fry and corals. But, I had them kill my pods twice! They get in and suck up all the food! Maybe I just didn't have enough food in the culture? |
Seahorse Whisperer
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"i was informed of some dolphin related testing going on up there" Too Funny! | |
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| Post #7 Aug 28 2008, 12:27:49 PM | Amie |
| Hmmm, that could be. Rotifers are said to die in 4 hours without food and I have switched my pods over to a new bucket with clean water and forgot to put new food in with them until the next day and they were still there. So I think pods are hardier than rotifers. What else you got? |
stormy, stormy nights
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http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mammals/interns.html Tell them Adam sent you. | |
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| Post #8 Aug 29 2008, 05:39:33 AM | Suzy |
| Maybe too much food! If the rots will de in 4 hours, then when one evil little stinker gets in my pods, I could let them go hungry for a day and have my pods back? Maybe I will give them one more chance! |
Seahorse Whisperer
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"i was informed of some dolphin related testing going on up there" Too Funny! | |
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| Post #9 Aug 29 2008, 11:06:11 AM | Crystal |
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I've got pods and rotifers in both my cultures. I was however keeping separate cultures before right next to each other with no problems. The pods seem to be doing really well in the conical hatching jars. Maybe they reproduce quicker in a bucket, but for now there seems to be new recruitment which is exciting! good luck suzy! |
breeding stock
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| Post #10 Aug 29 2008, 06:23:28 PM | Amie |
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That's great Crystal. How big are those cones? It's hard to tell in the picture. Where did you get them? They would be great for hatching clownfish eggs in. Suzy, yes, that's a good way to get rid of the rotifers. They will starve quickly and the pods can last a long time without food. I don't know if it slows the growth of the pods down or not, but I haven't lost a culture yet and I tend to forget to feed them all the time. |
stormy, stormy nights
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http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mammals/interns.html Tell them Adam sent you. | |
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