0 pods in the tank

[jrlg]

heres my wordy question, its a 220g tank that is about 10 months old, did a 4 month fishless cycle with dry rock and sand, and have had fish in the tank since July with only 10 snails, 4 hermit crabs and a shrimp. I am running Reefbrite LED lights and am waiting a few more months before upgrading to a better reef light and putting coral in the tank. I have put in reef stew from LFS and a bottle of Tiggers and a jar of 5280 pods the last couple of months, with the result of ZERO pods running around the glass at night. They do not dwindle down to nothing, after a day they are gone never to be seen again I do not have a mandarin fish and I acclimate the pods before I dump them in. I also have a refugium and dump majority of them there. When I did my aquascape I felt there were plenty of nook and crannies to keep the pods safe to grow. I do not use socks so can't find any that way. I run a carbon reactor and a protein skimmer. My question is there a way to check their population or would there be any reason they are not thriving. here are the stats for the last few months

Nitrates 100 or less majority 50
salinity 1.026 was 1.023 in August once
PH 8.1-8.3 (salifert)
Phos 0 -.5 (salifert)
calcium 420-460 (salifert)
Alk 8.7-10 (Hannah)
Magnesium 1350-1500 (salifert)

got Ammonia to 0 before fish, and fish are doing fine (salifert)
nitrites 9 ppb (Hannah)

 

[JoshH]

What kind of fish are in the tank now?

 

[jrlg]

sorry, that's a small detail,
4 clowns
1 lawn mower blenny
1 diamond goby
1 stary blenny
*side note i thought the stary was dead but after 2 months showed up in the refugium

 

[ZoWhat]

Just bc you dont see them doesnt mean they're not there.

I don't see pods at 3am...yet if I pull a small LR to drymount a frag....with the LR out of water there's pods coming out bc the LR is out of the water.

 

[Hair Algae Wizard]

Interesting, I have the same issue. I add multiple jars of pods from Algae Barn every 4 weeks, but have never once actually seen any! My tanks has inverts and and 3 Anthias at the moment. No clue where my pods are!

 

[jrlg]

my first tank was a pod party when the lights went out, it was only 60 gallons maybe they just have more hiding spots in the new tank. Thanks for the help.

 

[ihavecrabs]

It might be a tank maturity issue. It took my tank (also started with dry rock) about a year to be able to support a meaningful number of pods.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you have them as @skimjim mentioned. It is just likely taking longer to sustain a larger population based on available food and habitat for them.

 

[Kzang]

It's going to take a looong time since you have a huge tank. One jar of algaebarn pods is a drop in the bucket wise for your size of the tank. You'd need way more than 1 jar

 

[mfinn]

I have multiple wrasses so I add pods every month from AlgaeBarn.
It's just part of the routine.

 

[tehmadreefer]

Your not going to see pods running around everywhere... They typically are hiding within holes in the rock and most certainly won’t be running around on the glass. Best best is to check at night with a flashlight and then you will see them. Also check in the various holes in your rock in areas of low flow and you will see them. Pods are prettt simple life forms and really don’t need anything g special to make them populate on their own. Just feed the tank and they will come, it’s really that simple.

 

[jrlg]

thanks for the input everyone, I feel the jar a month will be something I need to help keep the population up.

 

[mfinn]

thanks for the input everyone, I feel the jar a month will be something I need to help keep the population up.

I buy the combo packs of 3 species of pods and phytoplankton.
They are a great fish food and are a very good part of my clean up crew.