Re:2 questions cirlced around Hippocampus Zosterae

Dear Dylan:

If you are culturing your own copepods, sir, the usual procedure for harvesting the pods of various sizes and ages is to strain the water from your culture container through one or more screens with a suitable mesh size. In other words, Dylan, you need to obtain screens and sieves of proper size from places that provide equipment for aquaculture and mariculture.

For example, suitable screens can be purchased from Miami Aquaculture Inc. (see the following link):

http://www.miami-aquaculture.com/screen.htm

I would recommend about of 38 micron screen for harvesting copepod nauplii in the first or second instars and a 110-125 micron screen for gathering large pods.

Florida Aqua Farms (https://www.florida-aqua-farms.com/) also used to offer a variety of plankton collector’s and plankton screens that would be suitable for harvesting copepods from your culture tanks, sir. The plankton socks can be used for collecting wild plankton from the ocean, if you live near the shore in a suitable area to consider harvesting wild plankton.

The seahorse trees that work so well for dwarf seahorses are very hard to come by, Dylan. Back in the day, you used to be able to get them from the collectors in Florida that provided the wild dwarf seahorses. The seahorse trees are actually the dried skeletons of dead gorgonians that have washed up on the beaches and lost many of their branches. They are safe for aquarium use and the dwarfs love to use them for hitching posts and perches.

Nowadays, your best bet to obtain a seahorse tree would be to contact one of the old dwarf seahorse vendors and see if they can possibly provide one for you.

The only one I know of offhand that is still around from back in the day is Aqualand, and they might be worth a try. You can contact Aqualand as follows:

Aqualand

<http://www.seahorseworld.com/&gt;

[email protected]

Best of luck culturing an harvesting copepods, sir!

Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Tech Support