Any cultures of N. Lacustris in Canada?

[dcartier]

My local supplier of live food (in Canada) closed and I am hoping to get a culture on Nitokra Lacustris going. They were the only provider of these pods in Canada (that I am aware of).

Anybody on here have a culture that I could get a starter from? I am in the Toronto area.

Thanks,

Dennis

[Luis A M]

But...are you sure you really need N.lacustris?
Because they are just another benthic harp,misleadingly promoted as larval food.

[dcartier]

Doubts about larval applications aside, I am only using them for feeding my Mandarin. I had a culture going earlier this year and found them to be really easy to get a dense culture going.The way the adults would crawl on the sides while the nauplii swam in the water column was neat to watch (with lots of magnification!). Unfortunately I got lazy and both my N. Lacustris (out of tank) cultures crashed.

Back then I did not even have a purpose for them, I was just doing it out of curiosity. Now that I have a fish that needs live food, I thought I would try to get a culture going again incase my tank runs low on pods.

For the moment I have siphoned some gravid females out of my fuge into a small culture tray. I can't tell if they are Tisbe or Nitokra, but they could be either as I seeded my fuge with both when I had cultures of both going.

Anyway if anyone has a culture in Canada, I would love to get some starter pods.

Dennis

[Luis A M]

Ok,I also share your interest in live food cultures.
yet,it is hard to sustain a mandarin with in tank produced copepods,unless you have a large rock packed tank.Or with cultured ones for that matter.
Nowadays mandarins are trained to take pellets like Oto C1.

[dcartier]

I am still on the hunt for a source of N. Lacustris, preferably in Canada, but at this point I am not picky. Since reefcrew.com shutdown locally, and oceanpods.com has went offline I am struggling to find a source.

I noticed my Mandarin hanging around the outflow of my in my display tank. I guess he figured out that big white pipe, extending to the bottom is a drive through, or in his case a swim by. I have twenty gallons of Tangerines in my outside culture. I think I am going to go filter out some and add them to the fuge and see if they interest him.

Dennis

[clayton447]

Can you get Tigger-Pods in Canada? Tigger-Pods are also a harpactacoid copepod; they are an excellent, live food source for mandarins. The species is Tigriopus californicus. Maybe try J&L aquatics. They are in BC.

[rsisvixen]

You can try copepod.ca, they opened an online site recently

[dcartier]

Yes, Tiggers are available here. I have even tried them before. I just never seem to have any luck with them though. I have tried a few times.

The last time was when I had N. Lacutris and Tisbe along with Tiggers. The Tisbe culture was fine, the descendants are probably still in my fuge, the N. Lacutris bloomed like there was no tomorrow, and the Tiggers, well they just faded away ... and there were so many in the bottle, by far the most dense of all the store bought pods, but they just never seem to flourish for me. Pity, they are quite huge pods. My Mandarin would have a hard time missing them.

That is why I am looking for N. Lacutris. They are really hard to screw up.

Dennis

[dcartier]

Well I am going to take another stab at culturing T. Californicus. After reading Fishtal's thread (on another site) about how he culture's them outside (in Michigan) and gets very dense cultures, I went ahead and bought 2 x 40G stock tanks. Hopefully I have the same luck with them as I did with my outdoor tangerine culture and can set it up and forget about them until they bloom. The photos that he provided where amazing, the whole surface of his outdoor tanks were filled with red T. Californicus.

I do have one question about this plan, (as far as I know) T. Californicus do not produce resting eggs so I will have to re-seed them in the spring, is this correct? Hopefully I can keep some alive indoors during the months if that is the case.

I am not sure if I am going to set them up now (the LFS is out of Tiggers currently), or if I will wait and start in spring.

Dennis