pipe fish feeding

[willjay]

i'm currently culturing rots and pods and would welcome your advice of what i could do to feed my pipe fish.

The current culture set up i have is not producing very many pods so i'm not going to harvest again for a while and see how the culture does.

While im waiting i'm thinking of sterilizing a new set up and starting again, would welcome a suggestion of what i should get and culture from you ?
brine shrimp or pods or these river shrimp that your trying.

My pipe fish are 4" long so would be great to hear what i should culture and be feeding, rates and amount etc

Thanks very much in advance
Will

[FUGU]

Hi Will

For cleaning pod equipment hot water and a nylon bottle brush is normally sufficient followed by air drying. I haven't tried retail sterilising tablets so can't comment. On a small scale water can be heat treated in the microwave for 7 mins on high and then allowed to cool before use. On a larger scale shock chlorination followed by treatment with sodium thiosulphate is used for both tank sterilisation and water treatment; a quick chlorine test is done at the end to make sure all's safe. For further details the Plankton Culture Manual is a good read.

For your pods try upping the light levels and duration. This doesn't always need to be high tech - even by just moving a culture close to a window can result in a more productive and stable culture. Also, don't get paranoid if algae develops on the side of the tank as the pods will love it.

Try using a 250 micron strainer to avoid stripping out the juveniles from your culture. We normally have 53, 120, and 250 micron strainers in stock.

Our pods are up to approx 2mm and have proved reliable here anyway. The river shrimp work is just experimental at the mo so no youngsters available for distribution. Have you tried hatching brineshrimp for your pipefish? I will have some hatched brineshrimp listed early next week if you wanted to try some.

Will your pipefish only take livefood?

Cheers

[willjay]

Thanks for your extensive advice, i think from what you have mentioned i'm going to do an order from you for brine and a new pod culture and start a new system for each and increase the volumes.

I may try to see if the pipes start to take cyclopeze or similar soon, but i like having live and constantly available food in the tank.
Also the fact that the food (pods and rots) benefit the tank and also don't degrade until its eaten and passed again. Like natures larder!

will look forward to seeing how your experiments go with the river shrimp.

Thanks again

[FUGU]

Great - we're considering mysis as well so there should be plenty of food options for you if all goes to plan. August will be probably the earliest we'll do anything too different as we have a busy fortnight ahead.

You can consider using the Roti-rich liquid invert feed to rear both the pods and brineshrimp - especially if don't have live phyto.

What species of pipefish do you have, how long have you had them, and have they taken frozen mysis or similar?

Cheers

[willjay]

Ah yes think i'll add the roti rich to my order as been using live phyto concentrated stuff.
The pipes are the orange banded and only had them for three weeks.
feeding them with my mixed zoo culture so far and haven't tried them with any dried/frozen food yet.
Look forward to august and your mysis developments maybe by then.
Thanks again

[FUGU]

Hi Will - I can include the brineshrimp as a subsititute for the phyto normally included with mixed rotifer and pod culture. Alternatively I can offer half 250 ml phyto and 250ml brineshrimp. I'm suggesting this as an offer today as I haven't decided yet what prices/quantities to do the brineshrimp at. Let me know if you have any questions. Cheers