Advice for starting a POD and snail farm

[bjmartie]

So I am looking to start my own POD and snail tank. What I am hoping is for them to breed and to feed to my wrasse and puffer.

I have a 10 gallon tank I'm looking to set up for them.

Is there any kind of snails that produce quickly that would be good for the tank? And same question for pods.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

So I am looking to start my own POD and snail tank. What I am hoping is for them to breed and to feed to my wrasse and puffer.

I have a 10 gallon tank I'm looking to set up for them.

Is there any kind of snails that produce quickly that would be good for the tank? And same question for pods.

I’ve heard that Stomatella and Collonista snails do well, and there are a handful of other snails that reproduce well in our tanks too (but we don’t seem to know how to ID them well enough to differentiate them from similar species that don’t do well) - some people on the forum here may be willing to give/sell you some of their snails that do well (I’ve seen mini limpets, a Nassarius species or two - definitely not all of them - and some kind of turbo snail - I think they called them Tiger Stripe Turbo Snails, but I don’t remember for sure - reproduce well here on Reef2Reef). For pods, if I recall correctly, I believe that Tisbe and Tigger pods are considered easy to culture (I just remember that Parvocalanus pods are considered more difficult because the phyto they need is supposed to be harder to culture).

 

[Kasrift]

Lightning Dove Snails reproduce and don't have a planktonic stage, which I think is important. I have seen my nassarius and my cerith snails lay eggs, but both have a free floating stage and I believe they all get sucked out into mechanical filtration. I have maybe a third as many baby ones running around my tank as I do colonistas. I bought 4 hoping they'd reproduce and they did. I have some that get sucked out each water change, but there are so many I make a half hearted attempt to pull the ones out and put them back in the tank as I see them.

As for pods, I culture those. Tigs are bigger, but have a longer lifecycle so they are harder in my opinion. Longer cycles means less cultured and more likelyhood of a crash. I harvest them bi-weekly, but have to feed frequently. I'm actually switching over to either tisbe or apoc pods since they are supposed to reproduce quicker. I'm adding a phyto to my culture routine as well, since I had heard that nanno isn't as good with some of the smaller pods since it has a harder "shell"/membrane.