Well... I may have killed all my pods. And I had a very healthy collection going.
With my rotifers, I would literally dump a liter of nanno into the tank, and within a week, the water was clear.
I have been feeding smaller amounts of tetraselmis and isochrysis to my pod culture, and things were moving along so well. Then, last thursday I split all my phyto cultures and dumped a large amount (probably one liter) of isochrysis into the tank.
Four days later, there is no activity. I spoke with Adelaide tonight, and it seems that I am guilty of pod geoncide.
So what did I do wrong?
Well, apparently pods need higher dissolved 02 levels than rotifers do. So, I smothered them. Additionally, Copepods are constantly recycling wastes in the tank that rotifers don't pay any attention to. So less food is needed.
So yeah, I am a pod killer. But I have already lined up a new, healthy starter culture to begin again with. I'm posting this here so someone else doesn't make the same mistake.
Cheers...
__________________ "Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study Hard. Be evil."
The Palouse Region Aquarium Society is now PALOUSE REEFERS - http://www.palousereefers.com/
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Jeff - I am so sorry to hear the news. I am glad you have a back-up culture, that is definitely a good practice if you are going to change any part of your copepod regimen.
I find it difficult not to overfeed. I look at a culture, it is thriving, my first instinct is to pour in more food for more pods.
After getting stung a few times doing this, I have learned that the saying "less is more" holds true in the world of copepods.
As difficult as it may be, pod keepers out there, try to keep your phyto additions to a very light tint of green or brown (depending on phyto species) and if you are using crushed up fish food, just a few pinches will do.
Good luck Jeff on the restart, let us know how it goes.
__________________ "Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study Hard. Be evil."
The Palouse Region Aquarium Society is now PALOUSE REEFERS - http://www.palousereefers.com/
Abolish the IRS! Bring transparency and accountability to tax policy - close all loopholes and brings fairness to taxation. Support the Fair Tax plan... visit http://www.fairtax.org
__________________ "Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study Hard. Be evil."
The Palouse Region Aquarium Society is now PALOUSE REEFERS - http://www.palousereefers.com/
Abolish the IRS! Bring transparency and accountability to tax policy - close all loopholes and brings fairness to taxation. Support the Fair Tax plan... visit http://www.fairtax.org
I just wanted to say that this site is great. I appreciate all the work which has gone into it. I can't get episode 69 to download...is there something I'm doing wrong???
__________________ It takes a Big man to cry....but a BIGGER man to laugh at him.
Thanks Ladygator...I've been reading your bio on some of the various sites. If you're ever in the Florida Panhandle, let me know. I'd love to make arrangements with my local reef club to have you as a speaker. We recently formed ourselves as a non-profit and the club is growing. One of our goals for the year is to grow the club to the point we can bring in special guest speakers. Until then, I'll keep studying pods via these forums and Dr. Fenner's site.
Thanks again for passing along the word about the podcast. When it's working again, I'll check it out.
Wm. "Scooter" Moody
Pensacola, Fl
__________________ It takes a Big man to cry....but a BIGGER man to laugh at him.
Just spotted this one out of the corner of my eye and am glad others are hoppin on board with the pods!! It's always fun for me when Adelaide wanders out of the woodwork and does a podcast or post!
I notice here (and a lot of other places) that the overfeeding peice is pretty prevalent and I think it stifles most attempts at culturing. Luckily the answer resides fairly cheaply on ebay ($20-$60 on average) in the form of an enteral feeding pump.
These pumps are used in medical scenarios to continously pump intraveinous food from an IV bag to a patient. They range in complexity from super simple to way too technical, tend to last a lifetime, most feature a backup battery, and the important part... meter and deliver based on ml per hour!
I've been able to increase both the production of my cultures as well as raise the water quality immensely by using these pumps and they have helped a lot in my studies and documentation by helping me meter and document actual food delivered. Take a look around for one!
I'd love to make a solid recommendation on amounts to feed but it's one of the areas I'm currently focused on and what I say today might well be wrong tomorrow!
Luckily the answer resides fairly cheaply on ebay ($20-$60 on average) in the form of an enteral feeding pump.
These pumps are used in medical scenarios to continously pump intraveinous food from an IV bag to a patient. They range in complexity from super simple to way too technical, tend to last a lifetime, most feature a backup battery, and the important part... meter and deliver based on ml per hour!
I've seen them on Ebay but don't know the complicated ones from the simple ones (other then the amount of buttons). Might you be able to recommend some user friendly models that are also budget friendly?
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