I appreciate the continued support Steve. The brine are looking good, they are still quite small, but their are quite red and they ate all the phytoplankton I gave them rather quickly! I just re-dosed their holding tank.
If several people wanted to pitch so that I could obtain 2 or 3 starter cultures quicker, then that would be great! I just borrowed several books about raising copepods from the university library so raising them shouldn't be too much of a challange. After I receive the shipment, they should be ready approximately 3-4 weeks. From what I've heard, the "large" starter culture only contain 150-200 copepods and they take approximately 1-2 weeks to progress from copepods eggs to mature copepods. Arctodiaptomus salinus (sold by AlgaGen as Tangerine Pods) take 16 to 26 days for the babies to reach maturity [1]!
Anyone that pitches will receive priority for first batches of copepods and will receive an equal dollar credit for orders.
The 3 strains of copepods I am looking at are
Tisbe
Tangerine
Moina Salina
[1]http://plankt.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/6/553.full.pdf
Shipping costs approximately $20 for overnight and 16 oz starter cultures are $24-$36 each.
http://www.seahorsesource.com/cgi-bin/shop/search.cgi?&category=Foods-Live