Talk to me about phyto, rotifers, and copepods.... (1 Viewer)

[merkurmaniac]

So I see a post by the manager of Petco at the Brazos center and his saltwater stuff. What the heck, its near where I live, I'll swing by. I ended up buying a 6 line wrasse for $22 and a neon goby for $11. I had read about them and was thinking about getting both of them anyways.

So, I know that the 6 line wrasse likes to hunt, and I don't know how much stuff is truly living in my fuge. I know that amphipods are big, and copepods are quite a bit smaller. I also know that at night, I do see critters climbing on my live rock, but they are likely amphipod sized. Dunno IF I have any pods or not.

So, I also read quite a bit about the neon goby, and I know he was tank raised. Articles on the internets say that it was one of the first tank bred species back in the 70's, and that they are some of the easiest to breed. I am sure it would be tuff, but might be interesting.

So, you can grow phyto from a culture and grow it in 2 litre bottles. You can feed it to rotifers, then gut load them and feed them to fish in the display tank or baby neon gobies. Flexrac says that the phyto colonies stink (literally.) It all seems terribly interesting to me, and I may have a go at either growing some phyto, or getting some phyto paste and raising some pods to dump in my fuge to give the 6 line something to do all day.

Advice,... experience..... sources... ?

Seems that it would, at minimum, be an interesting life lesson for teaching my kids about the building blocks of life.

 

[rxonco]

Not sure how big your tank is and how much live rock you have. With the average tank, if you're seeing pods, you've got plenty. Six-line will hunt them out, but if you feed it on a regular basis you won't have any problems. I'd go with something like frozen mysis.
As for culturing, it can be a pretty big undertaking. It's much easier to just by something in a bottle like DT's and dose it in your tank or fuge once or twice a week.
If it were me, I'd just stick to the frozen mysis and call it a day.

 

[flexrac]

I would not dose phyto unless you have filter feeders, mysis for your fish will be good enough.
add chaeto to your sump if you have one and you will have more pods, as the breed in there.
rotifiers are generally used when your fish have spawned and you are raising the babies.
do you really want to start breeding fish, you will need a refrigerator for the phyto, and a seperate tank for the new borns, and dosing pumps. pretty expensive setup.

here you go:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/jan2003/breeder2.htm

http://www.reed-store.com/shop.cfm/RotiGrow/RotiGrow-Growout-Feeds/

http://www.reed-store.com/shop.cfm/Reef-Nutrition-Products/Rotifers-Live-and-Concentrate/RF-LRG:1/

 

[soymilk]

I used to dose phyto Alot when I was just starting out. Super pod explosion shortly afterwards followed by high nitrates, phosphates and subsequently algae by the fist full. Tons of pods right against the glass of the tank.

watching the different types of liveforms all on my front glass was very interesting. Cleaning the algae wasn't lol

 

[CBBSteve]

Hi, merkurmaniac.

I say go for it. What have you got to lose beside a few $$ and we all lose that regularly in this hobby. If nothing else comes of it, you will learn a lot.

The trick might be getting a mated pair of neon gobies.

good luck,
Steve

 

[merkurmaniac]

So I stopped by Citypets and dropped $20 on a bottle of Tigerpods. I felt like I was buying magic beans. On a per ounce basis, they are probably the most expensive thing I have bought. Less than a gram of meat, if I was to stir fry them. heh heh.

So... 1/4 of the bottle went into my fuge to seed it. I have cheato and a couple pieces of Texas Holey rock that have been in there for months. I probably need to upgrade my lighting for the fuge. I have a blue and a red LED, but the leds are so wavelength specific, they may NOT be doing the needful for my cheato.

1/4 of the bottle into a clear glass container, about 2 liters worth. I put into it a couple of pieces of Texas holey rock (from my folks palce in Wimberley) that has been in a closed bucket of saltwater in my backyard for about 1 year. I dump it out each week, and dump my extraced water change water into it. I also put a bit of hair algea in there, and some cheato. I'll add an airstone and see what happens with no predation. It'd be nice to have a ton of the little buggers in there in a few weeks.

I put the rest into the fridge. Good thing there is no price tag on the bottle. heh heh.

I aso have a bottle of Reef Nutrion PhytoFeast in a small bottle. I have had it since last January. I just saw today that it should be refrigerated. :0 I'll maybe set up another culture using some of it and a few pods to see if its still viable. It actually has never smelled bad.

Oh, and the 6 line is doing fine, the neon goby is nowhere to be seen.

 

[flexrac]

Look in the sump for the neon goby, i have a wheelers goby that always makes his way to the sump.

 

[merkurmaniac]

This morning, I am happy to report that he is out and about in the DT. I am glad to see my neon goby is doing fine.

 

[Lou]

Glad to know the babies are doing well! Copepods look like little itty bitty dashes on the glass moving around. The amphipods are much more substantial and look like clear baby shrimp. I have a ginormous amount of chaeto in my refugium and all i use to light it is a 100 watt flood lamp. I grow it so fast that I was able to bring some to work to feed the scooter blennies and seed my towers so now there are both living in the tanks and feeding my critters! Let me know how you do on the others. I might think about trying it too. For the most part I just thaw out mysis, brine, and blood in a bath of phytoplex and microvert with a drop of garlic and target feed my sun coral every other night and then let everyone else have it. Good Luck!

Luisa