Eatfrenchfries

@islandVib3s Negative. Moina are too large for your clown fry the first couple months. Your best bet is still L-type rotifers unless you can culture your own Isochrysis daily for Parvocalanus pods.

So my moina macrocopa cultures are doing much better than expected. Easier to setup than brine shrimp and they move similiar to copepods. No aeration, just water changes if that. A water flea that can live in brackish conditions let's it live for hours in saltwater. Gutloaded with marine phyto to bring up the nutritional content. I have a few containers with stagnant RODI water. First I harvest. Then I feed phytoplankton (Nannochloropsis/Tetraselmis) diluted to half strength with RODI once every other day.....if that. A substitute food would be yeast + sugar fermentation (few drops will suffice) + spirulna (needs to be stirred to keep in suspension). PNSB and PSB can be used as well but sparingly. If the culture crashes. Just dry it out completely. Collect the grunge and start again. The moina will come back from it. I hope to promote more reefers to do live feeding. Currently offering white worm and moina cultures for free. Location: Raleigh Hills 20230726_193450.mp4

The heat has slowed down production immensely for my white worms. I keep mine room temperature with a backup in a cooler set to 65F Grindals do grow faster than white worms in general. They're also better adapted to the heat. You could get a cheap plastic cooler and put them in with frozen water bottles as needed.

They last a few days in saltwater. If your fish/inverts haven't gobbled them up. While I wouldn't make this main source of nutrition I highly recommend the enrichment value it has on your fish. Never seen a fresh/salt fish not be enticed by something alive and wriggling. It's awesome to feed to coral because anything your coral doesn't eat will wriggle away and be foraged by fish. I usually do this for foraging fish that need to be adopted to frozen. Also the worms are able to be gutloaded to an extent. Screen_Recording_20230720_083822_Facebook.mp4 Old video from my FB

Surprised no one has scooped this up. Unlimited live food with minimal input. Sounds like an awesome deal.

Getting ready to start a new batch of PNSB this weekend. If you let me know before Sunday I can make larger quantities. Rhodospirillum rubrum becomes colorless in dark + aerobic conditions. I like to store my masters in a cooler with liquid culture medium. Seems to work better that way. The culture still has a pink hue from aggregate. Originally I kept everything the way it arrived in agar plates but those proved to be a hassle. Liquid media has been easiest to keep it running. Slowly getting better at developing darker pigments in the final blended product. Someone told me sucrose wasn't utilized by PNSB but I think the molasses are doing a pretty good job of enriching each batch with B12. Plus I think it's more probable that other bacteria aren't as good at processing sucrose as non sulphur. PSB crushes it everytime when I use treated molasses. Untreated seems to be best for non sulhpur. Started culturing EM (efficient microbes) again to compost my macroalgae. Mainly lactic acid bacteria but there's some other stuff as well that came with the original batch (cultivator). Suspect some PNSB and PSB made its way in. *probably going to make a poll later for what culture techniques people are interested in seeing* AMA

Managed to isolate some copepods from seawater harvested after the June meeting. For zooplankton I chose an area with low to middle tide zones. The rest of the seawater was collected when the tide began to rise. Pods are isolated so they can lay eggs in peace. Those that didn't have eggs were kept together. caught my eye because it was green and very visible to the naked eye. Very fast. Also it is visibly laden with eggs. Multiple individuals obtained Different body shape. Much larger. Visible egg sacs. very similiar to the first but it seemed to be photophobic whereas the others were drawn to it. Possibly because it is further along developing its egg sacs. this picture is from a couple days ago. This pod was separated because it didn't have eggs and now it does. I do have moving white flecks on the culture walls so I'm hopeful in raising them. ------- Experimenting with new live foods for enticing finicky fish. I must say the yield is much higher than copepods. Main issue is having to gutload them enough to make them worth feeding to saltwater. -already have a few cultures available -feeding portions available soon Daphnia sp. (Water Fleas) - a freshwater live feed raised between 1.015 - 1.020 salinity. Will survive for hours in reef aquaria but not reproduce. -gutloaded with Nannochloropsis, Tetraselmis, Thalassiosira, PNSB - 200 to 3000 micron size. Slow moving with jerking motions. Easy prey. Moina macrocopa -another freshwater live feed raised closer to 1.018 salinity. Will survive long enough to be destroyed by fish. -fed Nannochloropsis, Tetraselmis, PNSB. -350 to 1000micron.

@obrien.david.j to culture marine ostracods would be rather intensive but would functionally be the same as copepods. Primarily benthic creatures that inhabit surfaces with free swimming naupli. It would require lots of surface area with phyto + detritus deposits. They love to eat bacteria + algae. -it is possible to collect natural sea water to isolate ostracods. They do rather well in jarrariums after other critters die out. -can be quite prolific in a reef tank. -no personal luck maintaining them in density outside of a reef tank. Haven't had time to develop the local PNW species and the original seed from Florida always dies out in isolated culture after a couple weeks. Unsure if cultured bacteria additives help but natural seawater does. Culturing any of the vernal varieties for live freshwater food is quite easy and a unique expierence. @DaveZ Amphipods are suckers for diatoms but can be really annoying if allowed to reach swarm status. They also contribute to detritus. (I call them the bane of berghia breeders) Curious if your diatom + bubble algae issue are related to leaching from dissolved organic matter in the sand bed. Getting your hands on a vortex would be nice. Always nice to see how nature fills the void.

If interested in natural remedies I can offer Thalassiosira W (diatom) to help consume organic waste, silicates, and form aggregate (easier to export) + Purple Non Sulphur Bacteria would act as a probiotic, consume organics, and compete for space on/in the sand bed as it establishes itself. Together it would help balance the diversity of your sand biome. Personally using Thal as a delivery system for PNSB to the sand bed. I'm all about biological solutions and trying new things. Happy to send some your way just to see what happens. *also got some ostracods that might help. If you can't force the migration of dinos/diatoms at night then these guys like to do that for you.

Well they all have the same +/- 2.4dkh variance but I've been personally leaning towards JNW because it is readily available and the color palette is better than API. Aquavital is good but supply is not consistent yet they are very forthcoming about what goes into their products. I like test strips but it can be hard to tell if you are high or low in the range based on color. But since it provides ph I can more or less discern what is happening. *bought API strips on Amazon and they were expired*

I've used API and Aquavital to do the same thing. Not as accurate as titration but for the ease of convenience and # ranges provided it does a good job of letting you know what your doser is up to. Got some JNW strips from Amazon a couple of weeks ago. No complaints on Alk consistency but I mainly use it to see if detectable nitrite messes with nitrate testing on Hannah.

I've always been fascinated by the relation of solar radiation to water depth. Particularly how turbidity affects the euphotic zone (coral building - light) and upper photic zone (deep sea coral - minimal to no light). Photosynthetic organisms can be inhibited by persistent turbidity while zooplankton can thrive from it. On the other hand some corals are designed to handle transitionalt/fluctuating turbidity. Studies have shown corals that face natural turbidity are more resilient to environmental stressor such as bleaching due to the adaptations being made than those situated in clear water. Anthropogenic turbidity affects coral a bit more drastically at different depths because those closer to intensity will be more light driven as sedimentation rises while those in the deep will become less dependent on light as they become "covered." If they can adapt that is. Phytoplankton and zooplantkon move between zones carrying much needed nutrients (proteins) to organisms that cannot facilitate their own. (Example: Pyrocystis Fusiformis is a dinoflagellate that regularly travels down to 100m. It is capable of fixing carbon and travels back up to 20m during the day. Not sure if they isolated the chromaprotein for it yet but I know they've already done so for a few others). Big fan of Koji Wada and the pink nepthea. Frags coming soon haha.

A very enjoyable expierence. It was a lot of fun reading SOPs for culture work. Glad to know I'm on the right track. Already got myself a copy of the AALSO Field Guide. *learned that the basket star is fed mysis and brine versus particulate matter. High possibility it suspension feeds from the natural sea water pumped in but glad to know it can be target fed some foods. 20230624_112926.mp4

So I always work phytoplankton first. Change clothes. Zooplankton 2nd. I use dedicated equipment where possible but rely heavily on rubbing alcohol, autoclave, and bleach to clean between species. Disposable materials help cut down on sterilizing. Reef Nutrition opened my eyes to intense safety measures. It really sucks to lose a culture and have to replace it somehow. Also the expansion into gram negative bacteria was reason enough to have stricter methods. To me it is all about knowing your variables to be able to say why a culture crashed and possibly learn to correct it. Even then it's hard to give a straight answer. Crashes and contamination happen despite all of the precautions. We just do our best to prolong the inevitable and make sure to have backups in place. Ambient lighting that has a rough day/night cycle is enough for pods. Whenever I work hands on with the cultures I do it in the dark and use light sparingly so as to manipulate them better. They shy away from bright light but will choose points that recieve subdued lighting that barely allows some photosynthesis to occur. (Red light makes their eye pop. I think it messes with their orientation if too intense) Pods aren't generally photophobic if they feed primarily on phytoplankton. In the ocean there is an abundance of algae cells that end up in the aphotic zone due to water cooling. Pods will migrate between the zones depending on where the food is + age. The only zoo cultures I have that purposely receive Direct light are adult brine, amphipods, and backup Tigriopus. They are under T5s that heat the water enough to maintain greenwater/macroalgae without a bubbler. (Note: brine and Tig thrive in constant greenwater where others do not. Amphipods are photophobic but love macroalgae) Adult brine under T5s. Gets turned on at night.

Bad news first. I'll be ramping down copepod production as I am redoing my entire zooplankton room. No longer doing 4blend and 7blend phytoplankton. Good news is to streamline the process I just made it 7blend phyto and lowered the price. After doing bulk sales I realized I already do a bunch of culture work weekly so why not make it easier on me and better for you. Also expanding pod production to include three new species to better support our local breeders. The more diversity I try to maintain forces me to increase biosafety measures. I can't risk any cross contamination since procuring certain single cultures is no longer possible. Not exactly sure when I will start producing 7 species pod blend for sale. With the way things are looking it'll be a month before I can start sampling it out. Euterpina Acutifrons - a pelagic species used for its small naupli size to feed a wide range of fish. Particularly fond of suspension feeding close to surfaces enabling it to jump between water column and sand bed. Acartia Tonsa - a pod that enjoys cooler waters but is quite prolific. Found worldwide and in open waters making it a large part of the food chain Pseudodiaptomus Pelagicus - covering all the bases in pod size with these orange giants. Nearly double the size of Tigriopus at 2000-2500 mircrons A few people have been keen on how I produce copepods. Nothing special to it. Make sure ambient temperature is suitable for pods. Salinity varies between 1.018 - 1.026. One or two bubbles per second. Add pods + appropriate phyto diet (meaty food for big pods) Feeding frequency is more important than quantity. Depending on pod type will influence how they consume food. I feed at least three times a day if the water clears between feeding. Some pods will happily eat settled phyto. Some will need live, fresh, nonrefrigerated phyto daily to maintain themselves. (Example: Running 7 x 16oz Iso cultures to cover feeding Parvocalanus daily) *Know how you pod consumes phyto. Does it hunt, ambush, graze, or need to be coddled?* Maintenance involves weekly harvest or water change depending on culture density and water quality. Every so often I will reset the culture by harvesting it and sieving all the detritus out. Hate doing this as the detritus has a large number of pods + cysts so I just throw them into any tank that needs feeding. Replace the water with pure phyto if the pod can handle it. Don't take it with a grain of salt but do your research please. The hardest part about zooplankton is having the appropriate live food in abundance because those little buggers are hungry and messy. P.S. Please do not ask for individual cultures of everything. I offer basic green phytoplankton (2) and zooplankton (4) species in single culture regularly. That should more than cover the average reefer's needs.

Mainly kept mollies in macroalgae tanks. Any that go to my reef get eaten over time. Big fan of latipinna and schenops. Latipinna are better suited for faster water. Schenops will graze more. Currently working on saffron sailfin lyretails, black sailfin lyretails, and wild green sailfins. Mollies are great dither fish for a reef tank because they are so "dumb."

Wholesale phytoplankton blend *contact directly for pricing Minimum 5gallons. (Maximum 30g weekly) Location: Portland

Going 1000x smaller into the culture expansion has been quite the ride. Every success met with several failures as the purple bacteria is slow to culture leaving it prone to contamination despite all the hoops in place. What is Purple Non Sulphur Bacteria? Bacteria that use light to convert carbon sources into food. PNSB differ from nitrifying bacteria that inhabit live rock and DSB since they can use photosynthesis. Purple/green bacteria uses hydrogen and sulfide to convert carbon while PNSB prefers not to use O2 if there is a choice . Often associated with detritus or sludge eating bacteria. Why PNSB? -metabolically diverse (chemoheterotroph, photoheterotroph, photoautotroph) enables them to function in places where others may not -a form of organic carbon dosing that sources organic compounds already built up within aquaria -improve water quality by uptake nitrite, nitrate, ammonia and organic compounds which can accelerate the cycling process -food for bacterivores (coral, NPS, zooplankton) coming in between 600 - 1000 nanometers ( 0.6 - 1 micron) -depending on growth condition can be influenced to be rich in red pigments (aerobic vs anaerobic) -used in waste water treatment, improving soil quality, large scale aquaculture (shrimp) -compounds consumed and secreted fuel plant growth Why do you culture PNSB? Simply put. I enjoy culture work. But in truth it has to do with keeping macroalgae long term. Maintaining a reef tank is no simple task and it can vary greatly on what the goal is. Not to get into all the problems of growing macro but the worst has to be Old Tank Syndrome (OTS) regarding built up organics (indigestible plant matter, yellowing from terpenes, plants going through seasons, residual traces). Regular cleaning maintenance + propagating smaller cuttings only goes so far without having to sterilize the tank every so often to reset the balance in maintaining #s. Organics can be hard to keep track of long term and an imbalance could be the reason cyanobacteria/dinoflagellates smothers all your photosynthetics. PNSB methodology -These bacteria are quite special in marine aquaria since their ideal environment involves low dissolved oxygen but high light. This would place it deep enough in the layers of sand without O2 but shallow to still receive light. A perfect spot to tackle organic waste in built up as mulm but also close to other microbes (good or bad) leading to competition for organics (good). Some of these other microbes can produce harmful substances such as hydrogen sulfide. -PNSB need light but will shy away from oxygen to maintain their ideal mode of fixation. They need to adapt to drastic lighting changes because of this naturally in the water column, The bacteria contain special pigments called bacteriochlorophyll that can operate at higher wave lengths of 740 - 925nm versus plant chlorophyll which absorbs 660 - 680nm. Able to handle fast lighting changes. -the organic carbon gets tackled PNSB in a much more pleasant way without depleting O2 like heterotrophs. This keeps tank inhabitants healthy and a steady supply of nutrients to fuel algae growth (coral, macro, cryptic) What PNSB strains do you work with? -Rhodobacter capsulatus: found in muddy, stagnant, nutrient rich waters. Primarily in freshwater but does have some tolerance in saltwater. One of the first strains to be cultivated and produced on a larger scale for study. In the absence of oxygen it will be brown in culture but in aquaria it can appear red in the water column. -Rhodospirillum rubrum: found in rivers, streams, marshes, stagnant, and used in waste treatment facilities. Its tolerance to salt is related to its method of nitrogen fixation. It will grow in a tropical environment shying away from oxygen but maintain contact with light. If dissolved oxygen is high then it will produce at a reduced rate to keep from building O2 and appear colorless. The red pigments will build in low O2. -Rhodobacter sphaeroides: found in deep lakes and stagnant waters. Compounds sequestered are believed to be essential in plant growing hormones. Produced largely for use in waste water treatment. It doesn't really have a preference and loves to tackle any situation. *will provide more details after getting some testing done and maybe some more expansion work. Time is the limiting factor for me. ....................... For those of you who have been helping me test this. I appreciate your contributions greatly. Your feedback is critical in further understanding PNSB use in marine aquaria. -a couple people have told me it got rid of their cyano problems -skimmers having increased output -one reefer had success administering PNSB to fuel xenia growth enough to export for phosphate. (no baseline here so hard to say what happened but they were happy with the result so I'll take it) -several have mentioned steady deductions in nutrient values but this could also be from them upping efforts in other areas. -adding phyto and PNSB seems to reduce time between glass cleaning (personal observation in my tanks) -adding PNSB to zooplankton cultures is ill advised if they do not have access to substantial light to trigger the bacteria. If not the bloom will be too dense among the detritus reducing space for pods to grow, capping their population/growth size. -No more yellow water in water changes

Lye is caustic but powerful stuff. Pretty good for raising pH and Alk but takes some work to keep going on a doser. Used it to clean a tank wipe before. Residual amounts are okay in a system. It would be best used with plastic marked #2 (HDPE) or #5 (PP) code in recycling. Food grade can be a few different materials so please verify as thing like PET or LDPE are not safe to be used with lye. Wear protection and be ready for the heat when mixing.

Looks like a tunicate (soft gel feeling) or possible sponge (firm but flexible). *look into pineapple sponges (sycon). Mine have never reached that size but supposedly they can get a few inches. Usually not harmful unless they are fast growing and smothering other livestock. Irritable to human skin as well. Probably best to remove it from the zoa cluster outside of the tank since it is irritating and you don't want to release whatever nutrient it has built up.

Nutrient export with some color. Can be tumbled or attached. *Chaeto is a bit more ideal for pod population with how densely packed it can get. Does not require much of a dark period to recover. *Ogo grows almost as fast and can be fed back to your tank. Can handle intense lighting. *Ulva is extremely fast growing and highly palatable. Very adaptable making it a nuisance for some. Macroalgae function differently so what may not work in one environment will thrive in another. $10 a portion (2+oz).....................open to trades Raleigh Hills

Excited to be there. +1

KISS is what I was taught in regard to water. That being said, it depends on the quality of your source water and intention. Request your local water quality record for your zone but be wary because things change. Also your mileage with this may vary depending on your actual piping. Some people run 3 - 4 because it fits the budget and tackles majority of what they would typically see. 5+ would be for efficiency (water waste, easy recharging media) and to pull specifics. Getting into resins is it's own world but you would need your mixed DI (color change) to catch whatever your other filters do not. I'd only focus on water if it has been narrowed down as a problem. In SoCal I ran a 3 stage unit. Moved to Portland and had to upgrade to a 5 stage unit based on water reports (Silicates, hardness, chloramine, TDS etc) Ran into issues with making certain microalgae and the need to minimize waste water led to me setting up a 7 stage system. My location has me burn through anion a bit faster so I will probably add another stage to prolong maintenance.

Try acrozoanthus or Parazoanthidae.@elperron

I should be heading over to SE PDX on Thurs if they are still available. Happy to offer phyto / zoo / bacteria in exchange