Culture Journal: Parvocalanus crassirostris

Ummfish

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#1
Culturing Journal DataSheet
This first post should be updated regularly to include new information as events take place or changes are made to your system


General
Species: Parvocalanus crassirostris
Species description: Tropical marine Paracalanoid copepod
Culture source (link if possible): Algagen: http://174.122.148.130/~ndavid/prod/?category_name=aquarium&paged=2
If algae, CCMP # (ref http://ccmp.bigelow.edu/ ):

Culturing Vessel Details
Salinity: 1.025
Temperature: Ambient room temp; ~ 73 - 74 F
Vessel description: 2 gal. HPDE containers
Lighting description: Shaded ambient room light
Lighting cycle: ~16 on
Aeration description: About the same as rots

Methodologies
Split methodology:

Culture medium description:
Daily additions of Oxyrrhis marina

Cell count:

Reference links:
Handbook for the Cultivation of two Hawaiian Paracalanid Copepods
Kyle VanderLugt and Petra H. Lenz
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.170.4937&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Additional Information
Notes:
Information below comes from VanderLugt and Lenz (reference above).

These copepods have been successfully and exclusively used to get flame angelfish past metamorphosis.

The copepods move through 6 naupliar stages and 5 copepodite stages before their final molt into adulthood. Males do not feed, though they possess rudimentary, non-functional mouthparts. Females are broadcast spawners, casting eggs down to the substrate. Eggs hatch in less than 12 hours. (No diapause eggs.) The first two naupliar stages do not feed. Actively feeding naups show a colored digestive tract.

Stage (W, L)
Egg (58, )
N1 (39, )
N2 (47, 73)
N3 (53, 106)
Adult female (162, 403)

Naups reach N3 in just less than one day (and begin feeding). Copepods reach adulthood in 6 days.

Best food for Parvocalanus is a mixture of Isochrysis (T-Iso) and other microalgae, though the authors maintained the copepods with just T-Iso. Algae paste did not work for these authors as a culture medium. I do not have those live microalgae available so I will try with Oxyrrhis marina fed a diet of algal pastes. See my O. marina culture journal: http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/showthread.php?5334-Culture-journal-Oxyrrhis-marina Copepod starvation occurs quickly. B. similis (the other copepod in this study) starvation is at 24-48 hours.

Algagen says the lifespan is 12-15 days.


You will be required to provide photographic evidence and as much detail as possible about your project in this thread.
If your thread does not contain detailed enough photos and information the MBI Council will not be able to approve your reports.
 

Ummfish

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#3
The naup pictured above looks to me like there is food in its digestive tract (second row, first picture from left). That puts it at least at N3, which is about the right size range. My culture also has adult copepods. Given that starvation is likely only 2 days, it looks like O. marina is a successful food for this copepod in the short-term. Only time will tell whether it's good enough nutrition to take care of these long term, but I'm cautiously optimistic at this point. I ran across a post from Adelaide Rhodes a couple of weeks ago stating that O. marina is good at concentrating lipids from algae and making them bioavailable for copepods.

That naup is very, very small. I'm psyched! :)
 

Zooid

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#4
Am I looking at that right, Andy? The naups are almost the same size as O. marina? Holy crap! I'm going to need smaller mesh LOL
 

Ummfish

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#5
You are looking at it right. They are tiny. Look at the table with sizes. The N1 naups are barely twice as wide as O. marina. You want a small food. This is a small food. :) Any larva that can't eat these could probably start with the O. marina itself.
 

Ummfish

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#7
Well, let's talk about it. What do you see that's hard to digest?

In the meantime, I'll summarize:

These are the tiny copepods that researchers in Hawaii found when they were looking for something to feed Centropyge and Paracentropyge angelfish larvae a few years ago. Right after finding this copepod all of the small angel species were captive-bred, most for the first time. Some info: http://www.centropyge.net/captive.html

The reasons these copepods are so important is because all life stages are pelagic (so the fish can choose different prey of good size when it's the right time for them) and because the early life stages are teeny. The larvae of pelagic-spawning reef fish tend to start out with particularly small mouths and fish (unlike crustaceans) can't take bites out of bigger food. At that age, fish either eat it whole or they don't eat it at all.

The crazy thing is that now anybody can get a culture. Algagen will sell them to anyone. Before, people who wanted to work with these had to track down someone who had cultures and then beg them to send out a split. I've never found anyone that had any. You pretty much had to go to Hawaii to get them before.

Any other questions?
 

Wicked Color

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#8
Thanks for the clarification Andy, I wasn't too sure why you were doing this either.
 

Ummfish

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#10
Well, the immediate goal is to try to do something with those sixline wrasses that still spawn all the time. But heck, who wouldn't want a tankful of flame angels, right? :)
 

Ummfish

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#12
Oh, heck. I wouldn't put them in the big tank. I'd need them somewhere that I could collect the eggs. Maybe in the barrel tank with the sixlines or something.
 

hurrafreak

Orca
M.A.S.C Club Member
#13
Andy, at a way to bring the MBI journals back!!! Hopefully people remember that this is still here!!! Hopefully you keep up the success though!!!
 

Ummfish

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#14
Thanks, man! I need to go do the webform report so I can get some more points for MASC. Give me a month with these suckers and I'll be looking for little mouths to feed them to. :)
 

Zooid

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#15
I still owe you some cash for those Parvos, Andy.
Do you want me to paypal you or just wait till I get a chance to come up that way?
 
#16
wow gale has smokes me for points... hah...

Andy, your gonna haveta hook me up with a culture when you hit continuation, otherwise... I'll deny yer report...


bwaaaahaaahaaaaahaaaaaa
 

Ummfish

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#18
Gale: No hurry man. Any time.

Joe: If you try that then I'll ... go take a nap. :) They are pretty cool little guys. Hard to see though.
 
#19
Ummfish;89844 said:
Joe: If you try that then I'll ... go take a nap. :) They are pretty cool little guys. Hard to see though.
Proof that being a breeder is all about the heart and the care and not about money and power.... see what I get... a nap....
 

prolawn_care

Sting ray
M.A.S.C Club Member
#20
Some very interesting info there!1 Let me know when you decide to split your cultures, i'd be more than happy to buy a starter culture from you!
 
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