Long island, yes I have a culture going, I keep it on the window sill with natural daylight and it does great. all you need is some live phtyo to start, water at 1.019 salinity and food to feed it.. called f2 fertilizer, you can get it on eBay. 10 drops of f2 in each of my cultures lasts over 2 weeks before I have to touch them again.
I spent the last 15 minutes reading up. I will have to put together a phyto station. I am thinking of using glass pickle jars or something that is clear and can be washed easily. I guess I would need to have three going at any given time. But this may not product enough to keep a healthy 5 gallon copepod culture going. (Needs to be fed twice a day)
I don't get enough sunlight on my windowsills to do this, so will need to pick-up some plant lighting. (Better than regular output bulbs I guess)
I use small acrylic tubes i made. I have two cultures going. been going for over a year now no problems. I also breed berghias and have bred clowns in the past.
i got a culture running of phyto at alfredo if you interested am about to start culturing copepods for my tank and trade i never knew these things are so expensive and easy to breed.