Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (fishboy13)

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 21:37:43 GMT

He is such a cute little baby

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (Fishtal)

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 20:09:45 GMT

Hard to tell in the pic but he is more of a brown'ish color now instead of clear. A little over 1/2" now.

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (Arc Katana)

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 20:03:27 GMT

Nice! Glad he made it. Guessing its a regular shrimp that get about 1-2" long over time, as the tinier ones usually stay clear/whitish.

Glad he made it!

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (Fishtal)

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 19:59:01 GMT

There was a tiny shrimp in the culture I got from Arc. I thought he was a goner long ago but he turned up yesterday.

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (THEJRC)

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:25:58 GMT

lol it's an inexact science but yeah thats the typical method.

FYI for your scope... try and invest in a dissection scope first if you can, it's better for watching things live. Lower magnification but does well. I use a Konus Opal and have been very happy with it.

http://www.opticsplanet.net/konus-microscopes-opal-stereoscopical-20x-5418.html

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (Arc Katana)

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 19:26:19 GMT

Thanks for that tip Joe!

So a quick plunge of four this evening revealed an average of 52 (rounded), so 10 million?

Sheesh thats a crap ton... And I think I was too conservative - probably should be closer to 70....

Any event, a whole lot of naups!

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (THEJRC)

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:12:07 GMT

lol Brett,

you've done a more scientific count than you know... next time fill to the line, I beleive those api tubes are 5ml. take a few samples and average them out, divide by 5 and theres your population per ml!

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (Arc Katana)

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 22:50:26 GMT

Ok so I wanted to do a totally unscientific test to determine density of pods in my 10G culture vat of doom (of what kind, no idea

So I turned the lights and the filter off and let it sit for about 5 minutes. I grabbed an API test tube from one of my testing kits (and yes Tal, I rinsed it ). I turned a flash light on the top of the water for about 30 seconds and did a quick dip. The water is about an inch over the line.

So in that amount a rough count is about 60-80 pods, probably closer to 100. If I had to guess these are all naups - the adults can be seen diving when the lights come on.

The "vat O doom" full tank shot

Its in my bathroom, on the floor with a couple of dead bugs floating in there for effect. Keep in mind this is in a basement so temp is probably 68-70 degrees. I have a heater in there, it is not plugged in. Salinity is 1.23-26 depending on how much freshwater I put in for evaporation.

Side shot of the nastiness:

Ignore the date, too lazy to change the date on my 8 year old digital camera.

By rough count must be a couple million pods in there, probably closer to five.

Cheers!

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (Arc Katana)

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 19:55:55 GMT

So this may be a long shot, but anyone know of a place that sells dirt cheap scopes (like 20 to 40x) ? Heck even something like a strong magnifying glass (5-10x) would be awesome.

I just can't afford to drop $100-200 on a scope right now.

Thanks

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (fishboy13)

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 07:40:39 GMT

Brett, I have also found that in the most disgusting water the pods thrive. I checked my culture last week and there were some pods still alive I'll check it again today to see what is happening in there.

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (THEJRC)

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 07:27:54 GMT

awesome to hear, especially that they survived on DT's. It makes me want to re-think over the counter algaes.

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (Arc Katana)

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:53:18 GMT

Just an update:

Everything survived on DT's Phyto - lots of tiny stuff, some bigger pods and a couple things that look like shrimp larva (that look like a saltwater version of a waterboatman)

Working on getting a microscope asap - (although trying to finish my broodstock system and pond as well )

One thing I forgot to add - my other cultures have survived - not really taking off like the 10G did. There are still some in there, just not a lot. Hopefully after a few more days they will start to increase in size like the main one.

I do have to say tho - I dump all my waste water in there, don't clean it, its nasty, nasty water - and the pods are thriving.

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (JimWelsh)

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 02:03:19 GMT

So, do you own a microscope? It would be nice to see what they look like at 40 or 100 X.

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (Arc Katana)

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 01:05:20 GMT

So I spent some time tonight going through the bigger culture tank - there are pods in there, but not nearly the level as the 10G. I'd wager these are A. tonsa - simply as thats the biggest percentage of what I collected. (Although for full disclosure, I only collected during the day, so the amount of adult 'pods collected was very, very low, so I could have free swimming harp naups too I suppose).

Regarding the other culture - the sheer amount of whats in there, and the fact my greenwater is nearly gone makes think it has to be rotifers - but I don't have any rots anywhere else! Maybe Tal can chime in and see if he has any contaminating his phyto cultures.

The weird thing is how they would just show up now - I don't have any in my apartment in another culture, the one fish store I go to doesn't even have any (and I haven't gotten anything wet there in two weeks).

If this truly is a pod naup then I must have hit on the only one that can reproduce like mad - the really weird thing is I only seem them at the top of the water column - normally when I have cultured rots before they are fairly spread out in the container. It could be that since I have lights on 24/7 for these guys the naups spend all the time at the top - but shining a flashlight at the sides does seem to get them to move albeit slowly.

Jim - got your PM - there is no way I can get them out before I leave for my trip - I work 12 hours tomorrow, and leave sunday evening after work. I have to think that if they can go two-three weeks without food in the bigger culture container, then two days shouldn't be an issue.

I'm going to throw some F2 into the smaller one to see if that will help get a phyto bloom going, else it looks like I'll be dry on phyto.

Thanks

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (Fishtal)

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:23:50 GMT

Very cool!

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (THEJRC)

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:29:34 GMT

excellent news!!!

never underestimate the resilience of the copepod man

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways - Updated 6/25/2010 (Arc Katana)

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 02:46:40 GMT

So after splitting my bucket o' fun with Kevin and Tal (Fishboy and Fishtal here on the web), I took the leftovers back with me to Chicago.

After a week or two of just leaving it in the bucket with an airstone (yeah I know its too much, the bubbles make them fly out of water, etc) I had pronounced the culture dead - there just wasn't anything moving in there, despite the 2 liter of Phyto Tal gave me.

As an experiment, I filled a 10 gallon about 3/4's full with the leftover water from the culture, and some new ASW (Artificial saltwater). I left a light on this 24/7 with a cheap-o hob powerfilter. I did dump some cuttings of chaeto in there as well, to see if I could get that to reproduce too. At first not much was in there -I think I found a shrimp larval at one point (big eyes, looked like a saltwater water boatman - about 1/10th an inch). Not much else was moving. After four or five days the phyto that I had fed to the culture of wild zooplankton started to take over - it was pea green soup city. About two/three days ago I figured I should at least put some kind of media in the power filter - at least I could catch the crap that was dying from the chaeto since the phyto had pretty much won that battle. I ended up putting a spare sponge filter over the intake tube, as I couldn't find my spare bag of filter floss.

Tonight (well this morning actually) while brushing my teeth, I figured I'd take a look and see whats going on in there - the past day or two the phyto was starting to clear up. I'd guessed that I burned the culture out, and seeing a lot of crap on the bottom of the tank (now that I could see the bottom!) I'm probably right. I turned everything off - lights and HOB filter, bathroom lights as well. I did this as the stuff I collected was VERY phototrophic - a flashlight would bring everything to the edge. So I got down and looked at it with lights off, flashlight in hand.

First thing I noticed was how dirty the water was. Not just the water, but the surface - almost a scum. No water movement really showed how nasty the water had become.

There was an occasional flatworm (its on the chaeto - but no corals so I really don't care) and that was about it. It wasn't until I shifted the light from the side to the top when I saw it. Not it, them. Millions. I've got millions and millions of free swimming naups in those 7 gallons of water. They are so thick that I swore I had a band nearly three inches thick of them.

At first I thought they could be rots - after all maybe Tal's phyto was contaminated. But if it was, wouldn't they be multiplying in the phyto itself? (The two liter bottle has nothing but phyto in it, and I've since split it into three new cultures. So without a scope (looking in to that) I have no idea what I've got. But it looks like what I collected from Florida, but holy jeebers, those eggs are potent!

So my goal now is to get some instant algae and start a branch culture to see if I can keep this going - after all something this tough, that reproduces like MAD and is a free swimming pod has to be useful for breeding fish, dontcha think?

I just wish I had some larval to try feeding them to it!

What makes me really, really happy is that I had a bucket of sand with some live rock with an airstone that I dumped part of the old bucket of cultures in as well - I may very well have another culture, but this one would around 25 gallons or so, but not nearly as well fed.

I'm on a trip from Sunday - Wednesday, but I hope to have a 'scope waiting for me when I get back.

Cheers,

Brett

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways (Fishtal)

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 20:49:34 GMT

Thanks for the link Joe. Hopefully I'll be able to keep these guys going at least for the summer.

I did keep some of the pods in a separate container for culturing on their own.

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways (THEJRC)

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:21:33 GMT

hrmm wow small world....

Guys I want you to ponder this.... some of those species you have received may be more important than you know:

http://www.reefstewardshipfoundation.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2630

Take good care of them....

Re:Copepod ID'ing - Indian River Lagoon intertidal waterways (Fishtal)

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:29:27 GMT

Originally Posted by THEJRC

lol the snail is awesome, I'm still quite jealous over here!

looks like theres some brine mixed in with the pods on the night vid... you add them to a multi culture or were those captured too?

LOL You're correct. There are brine shrimp in with the pods. They've been out there for a month or so.