Best Pods and source for Detritus and Algae

[MichaelP]

Looking to boost my tanks Pod populations for the purpose of clean up crew. I used to see larger amphipods all the time but now it’s only occasionally so I think my wrasses have cleaned them out.
I am not worried about feeding the wrasses since they eat frozen food.

What would you recommend as best pods for detritus and algae removal? And where to buy?

 

[brandon429]

pods produce detritus vs remove it. all cuc's produce detritus, none remove it. these motile animals always output whole waste pellets/detritus

the only animals that remove detritus are those like fish that busily kick it up into suspension, while at the same time adding to that very waste cloud they kick up. physical removal is the way

you can see posts where people don't clean their sumps for years, and its pretty much reduced to ash by the action of oxidation and reduction by heterotrophic bacteria and pods etc, but it stays there compiling until removed. pods don't help much with algae.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

agree with above, pods are not clean up crew

 

[shakacuz]

@AlgaeBarn is where i go for pods.. i am sure there are other sources, but i have no experience with those.

i supplement the pods with phyto also from them.

 

[brandon429]

I think there's decent anecdotal patterning to state pods can help prevent or assist with dinos issues but not as the total fix, as part of a few steps all tied together for mitigation

 

[jda]

You need more than pods. Worms, starfish, cucumbers, snails, crabs, etc. Macro and micro. Bacteria too - not just what comes in a bottle. Each time food is consumed, about 1/3 gets kept and the rest passed on. Pods do indeed use up some of the available building blocks and energy from detritus. They also produce their own. The goal is to continue to break it down until nothing is left but inert stuff.

The pods and worms do the micro work that is also important, along with the bacteria.

IPSF.com has a wide range of clean up critters.

If you want to keep a wide range of micro fauna, then don't believe the message board mob that higher N and P are better - these critters will suffer.

 

[MichaelP]

Thanks everyone good feedback. My previous tank was a 150g so never really put much thought into it since they were always there and there was plenty of room for them to reproduce. Since downsizing to a 40g their numbers are way down but maybe that doesn’t matter as much.
I like the idea of adding more worms and micro stars as my tank is lacking those as well

 

[Jekyl]

Study was done where everything was high temp treated before it was added to a new tank. Pods still found their way in. Unless buying as a food source for mandarins or alike, they're not needed.

 

[Kenneth Wingerter]

While Jekyl is correct in that copepods often randomly arrive in tanks as hitchhikers, I would add that there nevertheless is good reason to seed with additional, select species. Particularly when using pods as part of a CUC. The reason is resource partitioning. Consider that all pods occupy a specific niche in their natural environment and are thus specially adapted to exploit certain resources under certain conditions. For example, we see trophic partitioning (different species prefer to eat different things), spatial partitioning (different species occupy different parts of the tank) and even temporal partitioning (different species exhibit different levels of activity during the day/night). You undoubtedly will see an overall larger pod population and more efficient clean-up when seeding a multi-species pod product such as EcoPods (AlgaeBarn).

 

[jmwreef]

IPSF.com has a wide range of clean up critters.

I ordered a package from IPSF.com for the first time last week and it was great -- generous portions of diverse macro, pods, worms, and snails. Price was good, well packed, etc. Ships from Hawaii, but arrived on the east coast (Boston area) with no delays or problems.