View Full Version : Using Tank Water to topup Rotifer and Pod Culture
Is there anyway I could topup your rotifer/pod culture with tank water rather than freshly made salt mix? Is there a mesh I could run it through first to remove any unwanted life entering the culture?
As I don't rely on regular water changes to maintain my mineral levels I need to maintain my display salinity and I'd rather do this by recirculating water into the culture vessel and letting it overflow (with pods/rots) into the sump.
My only other recourse would be to remove the same amount of water from the display but this requires two dosing pumps and a collection vessel.
Hi - sounds like an interesting exercise and should be possible to use your tank water.
What size of 'life' are you aiming to stop? We have 53 and 120 micron strainers available should you want to manually strain the top up water.
I'm assuming you want the pod/rot mix in a culture vessel so you have control over their feeding before juveniles drop into your sump? And then you'll be allowing them to populate the sump with the potential for livefood to be delivered to your main tank? You'll need to screen the outlet from the culture vessel to ensure semi-mature to adult pods are retained for further breeding.
If you are pumping water to the pod/rot culture what is expected flow of water to/from the culture vessel? .
What are the respective volumes of culture vessel, sump, and tank?
What lighting, aeration, and temperatures will the culture vessel have?
Correct me if I've misunderstood your proposed setup!
Cheers
Many thanks for the reply! Ok, that sounds like it might be possible.
I was originally going to use pre mixed saltwater mix into a phytoreactor and then a zooplankton reactor. The problem for me at the moment is I want to still run my system without water changes. Obviously I'm not going to be able to run tank water into the phyto as it will crash (even through a filter I assume...??).
So... I'm going to be using just the zooplankton reactor and was hoping to recycle tank water into this. I'm a bit ignorant as to what can "crash" the culture? So I wanted to try and filter out anything from the tank water to prevent contamination... ...hoping that is possible :)
If it is I'm also assuming running tankwater through the little beasties may prove beneficial to water quality (even if in a small way) and would offset any negative effects of the phyto feed (was going to try the dried - not sure if it contains any phosphates).
I was looking at culturing your rot/pod mix but I'm confused as to what filter mesh size I would need on the in and out feeds.
Hmm, pic time...
http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploader/2008Q3/Culture.png
The culture vessel is 3 litres in total but probably only 2l will be available up to the water level before it overflows into the sump.
Flow can be a max of 15 minute on/15min off cycle from the dosing pump. I was assuming I would topup a lot less than this. I would aim to keep the culture at a constant density...
Aeration will be supplied by a small dedicated air pump (AquaOne 2500).
Lighting was only going to be the splash from the macro algae light, but I do have a spare 20w(ish) light fitting in the sump.
Hope that makes some sense :confused:
Thanks for taking the time to add a drawing.
Currently you have 3 options to culture the pods:
1. To add a culture directly to the sump and allow to it populate and take advantage of the space/macro algae and food that is already available.
2. To set up the 3 litre culture vessel (with effectively 2 litre holding capacity) with automated water supply/exchange and feed daily.
3. To culture them in a separate vessel (with potentially larger than 2 litre capacity) and feed daily and decanting some each week into your sump. With this option you can potentially feed more heavily and strain out the culture water before adding the pods to your sump.
The first option appears the easiest and potentially more productive due to the space available. The pods will appreciate living amongst the macro algae and the lighting you’ve already provided. I would be concerned that the proposed 3 litre culture vessel is simply not be large enough to effectively setup, operate, keep clean and most importantly produce enough pods.
The exercise to compare how production levels between cultures with automated water exchange vs a standalone with just aeration and a weekly partial water change is still an interesting one.
I’m still not certain of the flow rate from your dosing pump. If you did set this system up start with a minimum daily water exchange of 10-20% i.e 200-400ml per day and see how it goes. It will be a balance between maintaining water quality, happy pods, and retaining sufficient juveniles in the culture vessel.
Other suggestions include having the filter screen/cup on the pump intake instead of where it discharges into the culture vessel; this filter mesh can be 53 micron and for the screen on the outlet of the culture vessel start with 120micron.
Tank water into a phyto culture is not an option without filtering and sterilising it first. Ideally phyto cultures should be kept in separate rooms to any fish/invert culture to avoid any cross-contamination with rotifers and bacteria.
I hope that helps - it’ll be good to hear from others on how stable pod cultures in a sump with macro algae can be.
Cheers
Cheers again for the swift reply.
Yes - the filter screen on the dosing intake side would make much more sense! I run an auto-topup in the sump so the only time this would potentially have been a problem would be during a power outage/return pump stoppapge. I believe your cups are 15cm tall so in fact this should easily cover the increase in water volume during return pump outtage. I see no reason not to go for the finest mesh size...
I can substitute the 3 litre container for a 9 litre one. Would this make more sense?
I can dose up to 40 litres a day through a single profilux pump and I have three spare so I think flow should be fine :) If I used 8 out of the 9 litres in the larger holding vessel what flow rate per day should I be aiming for (I can play by ear to a large extent ofc, start low and increase...)?
Do pods benefit from light? Would it be worth using the spare inspection light on the holding vessel?
I will probably direct the pod output straight into the return section. I have a lot of pod life in the macro section and I'm happy to dose the culture directly into the tank. Not sure how friendly the OR6500 is to pods :/
No worries - I can check the dimensions of the larger strainers on Friday. If you need the smaller ones cut or lengthened to size this is possible as we’ll be fabricating more over the next 2 weeks.
Switching to a 9 litre culture vessel makes sense providing access is still adequate. Start with a daily flow rate of 0.8 – 1.6 litres per day and include aeration. Daily feeding can be done with live phyto at a rate of approx 10ml per litre, or 1 drop of Roti-rich per litre.
Our pods do seem like the light as they always seem to be stuck to the side the lights on – or maybe I’m being daft as they’re eating the algae off the side!
As for the pump delivered food surviving you should find out pretty soon!
Let me know if you need the strainers made to size.
Cheers
Order placed!
Went for the 1 litre culture, dry phyto mix, 58 mesh cup and a 120 screen (cups were out of stock, but thinking about it I'm probably better making up this section for the outlet so it is just push on pipe and replaceable).
Many thanks for the advice, I'll let you know how it progresses.
vBulletin® v3.8.7, Copyright ©2000-2012, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.