Has anyone had sucess with raising copepods and do they work well with feeding baby clownfish?

unintentionally yes I do VERY well at it :) I got pods comming out of my ears (not litterally ya wierdos!). Basically they "infest" my cheato and I shake that out every other day when my sun coral is open, feeds that and my clam, it's loads of fun watching all them buggers as well.

I'm looking for people who culture copepods in a tank of their own and are they able to raise enough to feed baby clownfish and others.

IMO a well set up refugium is the best way to grow pods. Most people add them back into the reef but I see no reason why you could not isolate them to have a bumber crop.

I have a side culture of pods and it does pretty well. Seems like it's a bit cyclical in nature, but it is growing all the time. (Especially when I remember to feed it)

http://www.theculturedreef.com/welcome.gif to Talking Reef Community, bandit.

Glad you stopped by and joined our growing family of reefers.

I think newly hatched copepods might be too big for baby clown fish. I believe they need rotifers as a first food.

Dick

I think I might try starting 1 culture of each. After listening to the podcast about copepods it has got me interested in culturing them. I'm going to be trying to raise my clownfish again since they keep putting out eggs every 2 weeks. I was concerned with the density that I would be able to get with copepods. So I guess I should start out with both of them. I also have a question about microalgae. I'm trying to get away from using much artifical light with them. I'm going to get one of the window sill extenders and put my cultures in the window. Do you think the indirect sunlight would be enough to keep them going. I live in florida but there are a lot of trees around me. The window I'm putting them in does get direct sunlight in the morning but I plan on keeping the blinds closed. What do you think?

Hi firebirdbandit,
:welcome: to TR. Have you listened to the copepods podcast? It is #69 and I think it would answer a lot of your questions.

I'm gonna listen before we set up our new fuge. I am new to the whole podcast thing but think it is a great resource.

I think newly hatched copepods might be too big for baby clown fish. I believe they need rotifers as a first food.

Nope. They are absolutely suitable, and higher in nutritional content.

Thanks everyone for your help. Yes, I have listened to the podcast and that is why I'm wondering if people have been able to culture enough of them to feed baby clownfish? Like am I going to be able to relay on a culture of them or should I have both a culture of copepods and another culture of rotifers? I've been the rotifier route and I know it works but I'm not sure about copepods. I know I need a lot of rotifiers to feed my baby clownfish but how many copepods will I need and are the baby clownfish able to eat them when they seem to just crawl on the glass? Example, I notice most of newly hatched baby clownfish are driven to light and eat in the water colomn? Thanks to everyone for the welcomes to the Talkingreef forums. I found about about the podcasts through reefcentral. And I found out about the forum from the podcasts. I love listening to them. Rob keep up the good work.

Actually many copepods are free swimmers and would be readily available in the water column as a food source.

There can be no doubt about one thing... raising rotifers is cake compared to pods.

Right now I am pretty much doing it for the fun of it, although I am hoping to have the opportunity to someday raise clownfish. I have had two catastrophic incidents with my pods where they just totally crashed. One time I overfed, the other time was a temperature issue. I have been fortunate that a friend and I both decided to try culturing them at the same time so each of us is a back up culture to the other.

Culturing pods is a fairly new thing. The problem with copeopds is stability. Anyone who works with them commercially will tell you this. The bottom line is that comparing pods to rotifers is like comparing a 76 AMC Gremlin to a 2007 BMW. But if you can't produce enough of them, you're correct... they're worthless.

Thanks for the help JeffDubya. Your experience is what I'm looking for. I'm thinking of using cultured algae as the food since you can't really overdose on that. Since I plan on raising my clownfish young I might take a 2 culture approach. One of each. I hope to get this started soon.

When you were referring to the pods that are climbing through your cheato, I think those are more likely isopods, although they could be copepods. The tough thing about pods is there are literally hundreds of species, and they all do different things. As far as *where* fish will eat them, I don't think being on the glass will mean diddly to a hungry fish.

I would strongly recommend listening to the podcasts on culturing Phytoplankton, especially the one where Rob interviews the guy who runs alga-gen. That's where I buy my starter cultures.

I am currently culturing isochrysis and tetraselmis, both very high in the nutrients fish and other organisms need, unlike the more popular (and easier to grow) nanno. Learn to culture your phyto first, you will need it to grow anything else.

Then, listen to the entire podcast on copepods (it's a long one) a few times, buy you starter culture. Good luck and have at it!

wow cool info

i am doing this now for my clowns, the thing is you have to have the right kind of pods,
i thought i posted to this thread, but my response is n here.

there are two types, Harpacticoid, and calanoid you want the calanoid as they are more free swinging (i hope i didn't mix that up)
and they are generally small enough to feed.

the problem as alluded to is density, since baby clownfish cant see well, and they cant hunt, they needs to be LOADS of them in there. basically a baby clown will curl its tail, open its mouth, and shoot forward. your job is to keep so many pods/rotifers in there that every time one does this it gets food. that means you need ALOT of copepods, levels which i have NOT been able to reach yet so i reley on rotifers still.
i am working on the copepods too though because they are MUCH more nutritious

Thanks Rob. That info helps alot. Basically currently there is no way to raise copepods to a density that will be enough to feed baby clownfish alone. I will culture both of them and use as much copepods as I can. Thank you to everyone for all your input. Great podcasts keep up the good work.

i want to be clear on one thing...
im sure there is a way to raise to the right density, i just haven't figured it out yet

FYI, i have asked Adelaide from Ocean Pods to throw in her 2 cents on thats since she is the copepod expert.. :)

I think generally that is the problem right now.... density and stability. And if Adelaide has the answer, she's gonna make millions. :) I mean, Pods are CLEARLY so much better than rotifers! But pods are much more difficult to raise. Rotifers, on the other hand, are basically hard to KILL. I mean, wow they are a snap.

But if you have baby clown fish NOW, it's going to be tough to do pods.

My culture is up and down with seemingly no explanation. I am not going to give up, but I am certainly frustrated.

there are two types, Harpacticoid, and calanoid you want the calanoid as they are more free swinging (i hope i didn't mix that up)
and they are generally small enough to feed.

I think you have them mixed up, Rob. Not positive... but I think Harpacticoid are the free swimmers.

Then there was the guy on Reef Frontiers who kept calling them "cocopods"

So now every time I think about copepods, I also think "I'm koo-koo for cocopods!"

I need help.

lmao.. koo-koo for cocopods...i love it...

anyways, i just went back through my notes from that podcast and i have that the Calanoids are the free swimming cocapods...lol (copepods)

HI there - There are three orders of copepods which are "free swimming", meaning mostly non-parasitic. (Most copepods have been discovered due to their attachment to other animals.) There are actually thousands of species of copepods that have been described, and it would be impossible to try every fish/copepod combination, so I just try to go for the most likely candidates. It is a difficult task to have sufficient numbers for larval fish, this is something I work on during my day job, and I know that we are still far away from the convenience of rotifers.

However, unlike rotifers, copepods are nutritionally complete and will stay in your system and reproduce. You may want to try the more common types of copepods first, the harpacticoids, and see how the clownfish react. If that does not seem to be helping, then switch to calanoids -- but I just have to warn you these are much harder to grow in large numbers without an entire system set up to product phytoplankton as well as the copepods. Harpacticoid copepods can eat inert foods, so you can get away with just a pod system for them.

It´s good to do your research, and I would suggest baby brine shrimp in addition to the rotifers, because I have heard of many successful attempts at raising clownfish that have been fed enriched brine shrimp. You would want to get an enrichment that contains astaxanthin pigment, as this will keep your clownfish nicely colored.

Please provide updates on how it goes and thanks Jeff for pointing out this thread.

Adelaide

adelaide, thanks for dropping in.
regarding the types, what i was refering to when i say free swimming (my bad for mixing up the terms) is the difference in that some stay on the surfaces and others are more swimming n the water column. the ones that perfer to stick to surfaces are not optimal for small larvae as they aren't easily eaten as described above, at least until the larvae develop hunting skills

what i am doing is im going to be supplement the rotifers with the copepods.
you bring up a few great points though.
in some cases when you have a weak hatch you have to culture your rotifers in your larval tank, this is very challenging as rotifers are very messy and pollute the water quickly.
Keeping copepods in there too provides a healthy food source when they can be found and eaten, but also work to clean up the tank.

regarding baby brine shrimp, these are not suitable for newly hatch clown larvae. bbs have very sharp edges, not sure exactly what they are called, but if given to a larvae under 5-7 days old, they can literally slice the larvae's stomach open.

so my plan is for the first 5 days it will be rotifers and copepods, then i will add bbs for the next couple days. after a few days i will start working towards pulverized flake food while weaning of other stuff. and by nature the the copepods will still be in there cleaning things up hopefully.. :)

I've ordered my microalgae and rotifers from florida aqua farms to get my cultures back growing again. I stopped when I moved from MA to FL. It will be nice to start raising my clownfish again since they are laying eggs every week and a half. I'll take some pics of my culturing station to share. I do plan to have one 5.5 gallon dedictated to copepods and I will see how they go and keep you posted.

I thought I read somewhere (or heard on the Copepod Podcast) that you didn't need to light a fuge if it had pods and LR only...but I could be wrong. I have a small spot in my sump that I could use a fuge (maybe 1/2 gallon??...see two center compartments in the front of my sump in pic below) ...and would like to have some pods in there. Is it necessary to light the fuge? Do pods require light? Would the pods do ok in a fuge with no macroalgae?

Thanks.
Pam

You can have a dark fuge that will serve as a pod breeding area. Check out this article Reefreaders - Refugium (http://www.reefreaders.com/content/view/25/1/).

Thanks Carmie! Your article was great...and thanks for another great resource to check out (reefreaders). Article answered my questions. :)

Have a good one.
Pam

You can have a dark fuge that will serve as a pod breeding area. Check out this article Reefreaders - Refugium (http://www.reefreaders.com/content/view/25/1/).

Well I haven't had much sucess with growning copepods outside of the refugium but recently there is an explosion of free swimming copepods all from the bottom of my refugium up to about 2 inches. Its a 20 gallon refugium and I'm sure there is plenty to use as supplemental feeding to clownfish larvae. I'm guessing that dousing my tank with microalgae has helped them grow.

i just wanted to clarify something.
copepods do not need light to live, "pods" in general dont wither (copepods, isopods, ampipods, etc)
light is important for a few things though, its good for macro algaes which can server as breeding grounds and micro algaes which are a foods source for many types of copepods.

does your fuge "need" to be lit, no...
will it help.. it might, but it sure wont hurt.. :)

Thanks Rob. I've been listening to your podcasts over the past several days. Have already listened to about a dozen. VERY informative. Thanks for taking so much time to make the podcasts. Such a great help. Pam....Reefer in Training.

i just wanted to clarify something.
copepods do not need light to live, "pods" in general dont wither (copepods, isopods, ampipods, etc)
light is important for a few things though, its good for macro algaes which can server as breeding grounds and micro algaes which are a foods source for many types of copepods.

does your fuge "need" to be lit, no...
will it help.. it might, but it sure wont hurt.. :)

If I added macro to my fuge built into my sump, would I be better off going with Caulerpa or Chaeto? What are the benefits of one of the other? If you look at my sump below, would you put the macro in one or both of the two sections in the middle front of my sump? Is one or both of these sections big enough to make it worthwhile adding macro? If I have macro and pods in one or both of these sections....would I want to shake the macro into the display tank every couple of days to help get popds up there...or just rely on them getting into the water column via the return pump? Thanks! Pam

If I added macro to my fuge built into my sump, would I be better off going with Caulerpa or Chaeto? What are the benefits of one of the other?
these are discussed in these shows IIRC
http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/podcast-episodes/3257-intro-macroalgae-podcast-episode-86-a.html
http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/podcast-episodes/1161-refugiums-podcast-episode-54-a.html

If you look at my sump below, would you put the macro in one or both of the two sections in the middle front of my sump? Is one or both of these sections big enough to make it worthwhile adding macro?
as ling as its away from getting stuck in a pump either should be ok

If I have macro and pods in one or both of these sections....would I want to shake the macro into the display tank every couple of days to help get popds up there...or just rely on them getting into the water column via the return pump? Thanks! Pam
nah, they will populate the display on there own.. :)

Thanks Rob!!

On the subject of refugiums, after reading Anthony Calfo's "Reef Invertebrates" book and seeing the results of my refugium with my tank, I agree with his assessment that bigger is better on fuges. My current tank is a 25g with a 15g fuge. The fuge also has a 5" DSB.

It is swarming with pods, amphipods, and mysid shrimp which can be siphoned out (you *do* have a turkey baster, right?) and dumped directly in addition to flowing into the water column.

When I set up my 60 cube, I'm planning to do a 55g upstream fuge with it and eventually add a wave/surge (like a Borneman surge device) that will wash greater quantities of bugs into the display tank for feeding.

Hey George. I don't have any fish, coral or water...but I DID buy a Turkey Baster for the tank. :) Wouldn't have known about that if I wasn't in these forums researching every single day! :) Thanks for your input. Pam

On the subject of refugiums, after reading Anthony Calfo's "Reef Invertebrates" book and seeing the results of my refugium with my tank, I agree with his assessment that bigger is better on fuges. My current tank is a 25g with a 15g fuge. The fuge also has a 5" DSB.

It is swarming with pods, amphipods, and mysid shrimp which can be siphoned out (you *do* have a turkey baster, right?) and dumped directly in addition to flowing into the water column.

When I set up my 60 cube, I'm planning to do a 55g upstream fuge with it and eventually add a wave/surge (like a Borneman surge device) that will wash greater quantities of bugs into the display tank for feeding.

Good advice George. I use my turkey baster at least once a day!

Hey Carmie. What other uses do use your Turkey Baster....besides blowing debris, sand, etc off the rocks? Countdown is on.!! About 10 days away from adding water...and hopefully will be able to get a shipment of live rock delivered on that day too. :) :) Been holding off till I return from my Dive trip. It's been hard looking at an empty tank for two months. But at least now, I have everything I need. (except for the lights....hope to get those delivered also on May 1st). Have the day off after I return from my trip....so trying to coordinate this all for that day.

Bye
Pam

Good advice George. I use my turkey baster at least once a day!

I use my turkey baster for feeding my fish. I squirt the food out so that it isn't all in one place and target feed my corals. I also use it for nudging rocks in my tank, turning snails back over and of course blowing off the rocks.