Help needed for Culturing Rotifers for clownfish fry (1 Viewer)

[mwilliams62]

Okay I am in need of some help here….. I am in the process of culturing some Rotifers for my future clownfish fry and need to know what I am doing wrong…..So I can get it corrected before my female lays her second batch.. I lost the first batch my fault…
They are sinking to the bottom of the bucket I have my air flow kind of a slow but when I would scope the top of the water there is no rotifers in there..
When I stir it up and scope again then I have some in there..

My question is if I have it on slow flow which is way more than what you are supposed to have in the fry tank so how do I keep them afloat so the fry will find them and eat them?
The fry tank has to have one bubble per second and that is way slower than what I have going on now in the buckets…
And if I have to scope from the bottom of the bucket then I will be getting all the detritus in the mix of rotifers and I don’t think that is supposed to go into the fry tank.

Please any advice will be greatly appreciated….

 

[mike13oy]

How long has the culture been going and what is the salinity?
If you just start the culture, It takes a week for your culture to be very dense.
If its over a week already and u dont see any swimming then its crashed already.
I have my salinity at 0.015


Did u get a rotifer sieve yet?
When sieve rotifers to feed fry, you dont stir or scoop from the bottom of the bucket. just scoop normal and sieve it to another bucket then dump that water back to the rotifers bucket.

When rotifers are in fry tank, u will see it swims all over. If not then its just detritus.

 

[mwilliams62]

Salinty 1.018. Just got them a few days ago. I know they want be dense right now but I barely see any at all. No sieve was using the coffee filters.

 

[mike13oy]

Give it more times. After a few days, use a glass cup and scoop the rotifers water then look in it. you will see tiny rotifers in it. If none then its crashed.
How much do u feed them and how many times a day?
I feed mine 2 times a day(morning and night before going to bed) and each time is 1ml per bucket.
My rotifers bucket is filled halfway though.

 

[mwilliams62]

I feed mine same as you do in the morning & at night. 4ml of the stuff Cat gave me the other. Should I increase the amount? I am hoping for a nice size culture by the time the next batch comes along..
If she lays her eggs in 4 days from the first hatching that will be tomorrow if not then no later than Tuesday then 8 days to next hatch time. So I was counting at least 14 days of culture brewing time.

 

[Ostentum]

What are you using to feed them, since I thought that you were going to get some of the rotigrow plus and cloram-x from me this weekend. It will take a week or so to get a dense culture. You want the water at 1.015 cause they reproduce the fastest around that salinity. 1.018 and they significantly slow down. I had 3/4 of a bucket full of water going. I too would feed twice a day. I used I believe 7-10 drops out of a 5 ml syringe to tint the water green and use the same corresponding amount of chloram x.

 

[mwilliams62]

I am still getting the stuff from you on Saturday but Cat gave me some rotifers & rotigrow plus mixture to get a small culture started with the other night till I could place my order for more live rotifers.

 

[mike13oy]

4ml of rotigrow(rotifers food) per bucket is too much.
I only use 1-1.5ml per bucket and it will last till i feed them again at night. If u feed too much, your rotifers will crash

 

[tektite]

Its diluted rotigrow. Rotifers have no problem with sinking to the bottom though, if anything they tend to go to the top a bit more thickly than the bottom with low flow. If you have to stir the culture it may be crashed and not live.

 

[Ostentum]

Mike 7 drops for me is roughly 1ml. The goal is to just tint the water green and its kinda neat coming back a few hours later and the water gets lighter and lighter and eventually turns clear. Agree with Cat if your getting alot of sinking to the bottom they have probably crashed.

 

[mwilliams62]

They have not crashed. Got some water in a clear cup and looked under a magnifying glass and they are there just so very tiny.

 

[ClarkiiCircus]

I see we talked about salinity and feeding. What is your temperature? Do you have a heater? Im not saying its required but if your culture is in the garage, daily fluctuations may inhibit your culture from quickly growing dense.

 

[mwilliams62]

Temp would be room temp. No garage we live in an apartment.

 

[mwilliams62]

I just checked the water temp today and it said 70.1 is that too low for them to mulitple? Since it is now getting close to winter time and we very seldom run the heater do I need to put heaters in the cultures to help them multiple? The room will get cold that they are in.

 

[mike13oy]

I never use a heater during winter time and my culture is still doing good right now.
Like i told u in your pm, you can try using a heater and see. If it works good then leave it. If it doesnt work then take it out.

Are u having problem with your culture? Is your culture still alive?

 

[mwilliams62]

I was just concerned since the temp has dropped even more since we last spoke...
I have not checked them since the weekend just been adding the rotigrow/chloram-x stuff in the Am & in the PM. The water color is a light green I just hope it is not too light. I will check them tonight when I get home from work.

 

[mike13oy]

Light green is good.
This is how u know your rotifers are still alive. When u come home tonite to check on them and u see the water is not green anymore, u know they are still alive.

 

[mwilliams62]

It pretty much has been staying a light green color even when I get home in the evenings. Don't know if I asked you this but do you use the filter floss for the rotifers that Reed Nutrition sales for them?

 

[tektite]

If the green color isn't getting lighter your cultures are probably dead unfortunately

 

[mike13oy]

Like Cat said...your culture is crashed.
you need to restart again.
how many are u culturing right now?
I always have 3 cultures running. If 1 crashed, i still have 2 left. I dont have crashed sometime.

****if u need more to culture, lmk. FREE so come and get it.. I only have S-type rotifers right now. My all L-type rotifers crashed while i was on vacation 2weeks ago.****

About to go out of town next Friday for 12days so u can have all my s-type rotifers since it will die anyway. I will just restart again when i come back.