Harvesting Copepods

[rroselavy]

Hey all,

I've got a three pronged question regarding harvesting Copepods. I've listened to the Copepods TR podcast, and I assume the easiest way to actively harvest Copepods is by using an dedicated container that makes harvesting less complicated. Nevertheless, here are my questions:

1) When pruning Chaetomorpha, do most of you rinse out the discarded Chaeto with tank water to retain any pods therein for the DT? I tossed some Chaeto out last week, and afterwards it had me thinking...

2) I have a chamber in my sump where I grow my Chaeto, and I see Copepods and an occasional Amphipod in there. I am wondering if I should actively harvest these things in order to transfer them to the DT, or if I should let them passively get sucked up through the return pump to the DT.

3) I also have an 10g offline refugium (fed by my DT water change SW) set up that is already producing copepods (and hydrozoan jellyfish), and I would like to get these Copepods back to the DT. Should I be scraping the pods off the glass and somehow collect them (ie.. using a sieve during a water change) to transfer them back to the DT?

Eventually, I will have a inline 20g refugium for this purpose, but for now I would love to hear anyone's techniques.

Thanks so much!

[THEJRC]

all great questions! I personally dont rinse macro before getting rid of it, I'll dip it in and out of the water, do a little shake, and the hokey pokey in the water while removing it but otherwise I'm not too concerned.

as far as actively harvesting I guess my question would be do you have a reason to? Typically they will find they're way into the display without problems (unless your running a needlewheel pump) and you will already have a pretty well established population in the display already. If you want to you can, but it might be easier to farm them elsewhere and let the sump critters stay sump critters... they do good there!

On the separate tank and harvesting... Welcome to what could be an addiction...

you could build a "pod collector" using a jar, a powerhead, some airline and screen as I used to. Scraping them off typcially damages them and doesnt do you much good.

I've since found that manually siphoning using a peice of airline tubing and directing the tube to what I want to suck up has been pretty much the easiest way to harvest. If I'm harvesting from a culture and don't want to carry around the high nutrient water i'll use a 53um or a 250um plankton collector from http://florida-aqua-farms.com to catch the adults and dump the culture back in.

The jar with powerhead and tubing was more of a goofball experiment that I thought twice about posting, it was quite the difficult to use contraption he he. I've found the squeeze pumps like those for camping kerosene and such work very very well, and probably the easiest thing I've found is to culture the critters in jugs with spigots at the bottom so no actual work is involved in hunting them down, just open spigot and pour! (in pointer to your first thought, your on the right track but yeah... that 10 was probably a lot handier than a new container)

I think I might have pictures or something up on the copepodgeek site Copepod Culture Handbook (slated for rework) | handbooks but that paper was drug over from a much earlier version and is in desperate need of rework... maybe I'll do that this weekend before the madness of reefstock hits next week.

[Skurvey Dog]

My personal thoughts and more JOE! I'm a pod freak also.

[rroselavy]

Wow Joe, that was mighty helpful. I see that Zooplankton is your middle name..

Originally Posted by THEJRC

as far as actively harvesting I guess my question would be do you have a reason to?

I have a Sixline and a Red Scooter Blenny to provide for. I am paranoid that I haven't enough pods to go around for the Blenny.

Typically they will find they're way into the display without problems (unless your running a needlewheel pump) and you will already have a pretty well established population in the display already.

Yeah. The ones I have seen are in the slow-flow chamber of my sump. They may not find there way up to the DT unless dislodged. Dr. Adelaide Rhodes's website instructs its customers to vigorously shake the bottles of copepods before releasing them into the aquarium/refugium/vessel. I could periodically use a turkey baster to dislodge them from the walls to promote their "ascension".

If you want to you can, but it might be easier to farm them elsewhere and let the sump critters stay sump critters... they do good there!

Agreed.

On the separate tank and harvesting... Welcome to what could be an addiction...

you could build a "pod collector" using a jar, a powerhead, some airline and screen as I used to. Scraping them off typcially damages them and doesnt do you much good.

Understood.

I've since found that manually siphoning using a peice of airline tubing and directing the tube to what I want to suck up has been pretty much the easiest way to harvest.

What about the "shaking method". If the vessel was small enough to shake (like a jug), then wouldn't this be easier?

If I'm harvesting from a culture and don't want to carry around the high nutrient water i'll use a 53um or a 250um plankton collector from http://florida-aqua-farms.com to catch the adults and dump the culture back in.

Very cool site. Thanks. I'll have to dig through there...

The jar with powerhead and tubing was more of a goofball experiment that I thought twice about posting, it was quite the difficult to use contraption he he. I've found the squeeze pumps like those for camping kerosene and such work very very well, and probably the easiest thing I've found is to culture the critters in jugs with spigots at the bottom so no actual work is involved in hunting them down, just open spigot and pour! (in pointer to your first thought, your on the right track but yeah... that 10 was probably a lot handier than a new container)

The 10g tank was more of an experiment to see what life remained in some LR I had from my ld 24g tank. The LR was is dark >30ppm Nitrate water at 70 degrees F for over 2 months with no circulation. Sees as if the peanut worms survived, and the algae is even rebounding (which to me makes the method of turning off your lights to rid algae quite questionable). The pods came in with the bath water, so to speak, of my 55g.

I think I might have pictures or something up on the copepodgeek site Copepod Culture Handbook (slated for rework) | handbooks but that paper was drug over from a much earlier version and is in desperate need of rework... maybe I'll do that this weekend before the madness of reefstock hits next week.

I am going to pour over this info this weekend. I may just culture pods at work since I have the work space...