Copepods - North Sea

[sophos9]

Hi

I live 20 seconds from the north sea. I was wondering, if I was to get a load of sea water and drop it in a seperate heated tank - would I have captured a load of pods that I could culture

I'm sorry if this is a thick question...

 

[AK77]

I'd have thought it highly unlikely to capture them from just scooping up some dirty old sea water. You'd probably have better luck in rock pools and the like.

However, since you don't know exactly what you are collecting, the water isn't sterile and contains god knows what, I seriously wouldn't recommend feeding your fish anything that came out of the UK waters.

By far a better option would be to get a starter culture from eBay together with a starter culture of phytoplankton, and grow both.

 

[sophos9]

Thanks for confirming!

Will look into those tonight. I'm going to be getting one of my smaller tanks preprepared to grow brine shrimp and copepods over the next week, so much for a relaxing hobby!!

 

[Matthew5664]

One thing you could collect is rockpool shrimp and Mydsis shrimp. these can be kept in a heated tank and fed on phyto/small flake then fed to your fish/seahorses live. My Vampier Tang loves them.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Thats a great idea. I live about 5 minutes walk away from the sea and just up the road I have lots of cliffs and rock pools. Never thought of using them for a source of free live food

I was thinking about a UK "rock pool" biotope which is something I would like to try in the future (when I know a lot more about keeping marine tanks). Wouldnt be quite as pretty as a reef set up but could still be very interesting.

 

[AK77]

Yeah I can picture it now, a used condom, a hypodermic needle and a turd floating in the tank. Wanna keep it natural looking

 

[xxBarneyxx]

That would be funny if it wasnt true

 

[Matthew5664]

I can point you to a thred on another site about a UK rockpool nano. give me a PM if your interested.

 

[thefirethief]

Ahhh, you've just mentioned my dream aquarium. A temperate rockpool setup, full of shannies and blennies and prawns and barnacles. If you want a good book then pick up Great British Marine Animals by Paul Naylor. While not specifically aimed at aquarists it is full of information on species identification, feeding habits, habitats, size etc. Its got everything from fish and shrimp to sea slugs, sponges and worms. Another good place to look is in the 'cold cuts' section of Marine World magazine which is out every month. A few of the back issues would be a good place to start when it comes to seriously thinking about getting this going. You've got me all excited now.


Mark

 

[thefirethief]

Oh, and while I'm here, here's some links you might want to read through. The wet thumb page on the British Marine Life Study Society website is full of a lot of info.

some other useful links
Step By step guide
FROM ROCKPOOL TO AQUARIA
Details on a setup at home

 

[xxBarneyxx]

There's some good links there thanks!

I haven't actually got any issues of Marine World magazine yet (my local WH smiths and news agents seem to be a bit rubbish when it comes to fishkeeping magazines and only ever seem to have 1 or 2 copies of PFK). If its a good magazine though I might just get a 6 month subscription.

 

[Matthew5664]

A new mag on the market is Ultramarine. I have to say I like it more than Marine world. More scope to the articals

Links sent