Best source of pods?

[JNalley]

Sadly, I am 3 for 3 with AlgaeBarn pods... they're so small my eyes can't tell if they're alive when they arrive, but I've yet to see any bug action in my tank since adding 3 separate jars on 3 separate occasions. I can only guess that they either didn't arrive alive, or something is wrong on my end (I have nothing that eats pods that I am aware of, and I'm wanting to use them simply for CUC/Biodiversity), but the only way to confirm the second half of that is to try a different source of pods. Also, since amphipods are bigger, hopefully getting a mix of amphipods and copepods will allow me to confirm that they're alive when they get here.

So, what sources of pods do you guys prefer? Are the Aquarium Depot pods good? The price seems reasonable enough, but I have no experience with that site.

 

[lapin]

Are the Aquarium Depot pods good? The price seems reasonable enough, but I have no experience with that site.

Yes, and you can see them. All sizes. If you wait, every month or so they have a bogo sale (buy one get one free) on the 1000 count. I usually get enough stuff for free shipping. I have never ordered them when its below freezing (like now)

 

[JNalley]

Yes, and you can see them. All sizes. If you wait, every month or so they have a bogo sale (buy one get one free) on the 1000 count. I usually get enough stuff for free shipping. I have never ordered them when its below freezing (like now)

Yeh, I plan on waiting till the weather warms up a bit, just trying to plan it out really. Thanks for the BOGO tip. I was just looking at their Small Refugium starter kit that ships for free, 1lb of Rubble Rock, 1 "orange" sized ball of Chaeto, and 1,000 pods for $69.99 doesn't seem bad, especially when considering they offer free shipping on that package...

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

I'm sorry but this is a joke. I don't tell people where to spend their $ but I can't believe ppl buy pods and mini brittle stars! Lol.

They come in time. U want pods? Buy frags. Buy live rock. Go get a piece of nice porus live rock from someone's established tank...
Ty that is all.
D

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Set up a fuge...
D

 

[JNalley]

I'm sorry but this is a joke. I don't tell people where to spend their $ but I can't believe ppl buy pods and mini brittle stars! Lol.

They come in time. U want pods? Buy frags. Buy live rock. Go get a piece of nice porus live rock from someone's established tank...
Ty that is all.
D

I've never had pods come in on a frag, and if they had, they certainly didn't breed and create more pods. I also don't know anyone else in the hobby around me with a tank. Someone somewhere had to buy an initial batch of pods to breed and spread. And why spend $200+ dollars on liverock to get shipped to me when all I need are the pods? What kind of fiscal sense does that make? Sorry man, but you're out of your depth here... If you don't have anything helpful to bring to the table and just want to pee in someone's cornflakes, go elsewhere...

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

I'm sorry I thought I contributed. Take care. ":/
D

 

[homer1475]

Josh from Pod your reef.

 

[Reefing102]

Also, while I haven’t bought from him, I know @hollback sells pods and can’t say I’ve seen any bad reviews

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Its hard to believe that you dont have a single living pod in your tank, I'll bet you do. Do you feed phyto to your tank? That helps feed them so they multiply.

Have you tried looking with a magnifying glass? I use a jewelers loop ($20 on amazon)

Or, next time you order pods, keep 10% and dump it in a small tupperware with saltwater, and put in a little phyto, as an experiment. You'll see, they'll be alive and you'll be able to see them with a magnifying glass or a loop.

Assuming of course you are receiving live pods. Next time, hold the bottle against a bright light, you should be able to see them, if not, definately would see them with a loop

 

[dmsc2fs]

Floridapets also sells them wild collected.
https://floridapets.com/epages/047c...h=/Shops/047c0125-dd4b-4d34-97de-30717de1adee

 

[reefsaver]

I've been thinking about buying a Dragonet for some time although only have a 25 gallon.
I'm not necessarily willing to go to my store every 3 days to buy copepods.
I'm kinda in the same boat as our friend here. I don't see any pods in my tank and I've bought them fairly often from my LFS along with Phyto. I think an in-tank self sustaining culture is out of the question in an all in one display tank as small as mine "Waterbox 25G Peninsula Mini".

But I was recently thinking of setting up a jar I modified to culture phyto, to instead house a copepod culture.
The only way I could culture phyto is if I bought it along with the Phyto fertilizer on eBay.
But I could just buy the phyto, fill the jar with salt water, aerate it and dose phyto to grow the pods, then dose the copepods to my tank.

 

[J1a]

The thing about pods is that they are such tiny treats in the ocean, they have no choice but to hide, very well, as much as possible. They could be in the sand bed, hiding in the crevices of the rocks, out of sight.

Secondly, the pods population (if there is a healthy one) is going to make up of pods at different stages of development. An adult pods maybe say 1-2mm long, but nauplii are going to be much smaller.

I can't see any pods with my unaided eye. However, if I were to take a pinch of sand, stir it up, then observe the suspension under the microscope, the pods are there. Along with nematodes, clliates, and a million other things.

 

[Tamberav]

I've been thinking about buying a Dragonet for some time although only have a 25 gallon.
I'm not necessarily willing to go to my store every 3 days to buy copepods.
I'm kinda in the same boat as our friend here. I don't see any pods in my tank and I've bought them fairly often from my LFS along with Phyto. I think an in-tank self sustaining culture is out of the question in an all in one display tank as small as mine "Waterbox 25G Peninsula Mini".

But I was recently thinking of setting up a jar I modified to culture phyto, to instead house a copepod culture.
The only way I could culture phyto is if I bought it along with the Phyto fertilizer on eBay.
But I could just buy the phyto, fill the jar with salt water, aerate it and dose phyto to grow the pods, then dose the copepods to my tank.

You can self sustain them in a 25g if it was heavily planted and fed.

Sadly, I am 3 for 3 with AlgaeBarn pods... they're so small my eyes can't tell if they're alive when they arrive, but I've yet to see any bug action in my tank since adding 3 separate jars on 3 separate occasions. I can only guess that they either didn't arrive alive, or something is wrong on my end (I have nothing that eats pods that I am aware of, and I'm wanting to use them simply for CUC/Biodiversity), but the only way to confirm the second half of that is to try a different source of pods. Also, since amphipods are bigger, hopefully getting a mix of amphipods and copepods will allow me to confirm that they're alive when they get here.

So, what sources of pods do you guys prefer? Are the Aquarium Depot pods good? The price seems reasonable enough, but I have no experience with that site.

It’s unlikely you had 100 percent dead pods three times. Tisbe are super tiny. To find them you probably need to let your glass get real dirty and use a magnifying glass.

You could add a billion bottles but the tank always stabilize to the number based on food in your tank for them.

 

[tautog83]

My opinion lies somewhere in the middle , aquariumdepot is a joke please dont but there . If $60 seems like a good deal for that I'll break down my whole tank and sell it to you .lol jnailey sorry to say your 10000% wrong. Honestly I cant even remember if I dipped any coral in the last 8 years and havent had a pod jump off . To your defense however buying frags isnt going to seed your tank with pods you'll get some here and yea of course they will multiply eventually. I think buying chaeto from a friend with an established tank will give you hundreds , have to remember theres a lot you're not going to see. If you do to decide to buy pods, as mentioned before there is a guy that sells some on here for cheap . Aquarium depot sells amphipods and they're much bigger , so if you need to visibly seee more in order to justify getting a good deal then by all means order them up . However I'd strongly suggest waiting until 2am after lights are off and poke around with a flashlight on glass and in your unlit fuge to see how "barren" your tank is

 

[JNalley]

Its hard to believe that you dont have a single living pod in your tank, I'll bet you do. Do you feed phyto to your tank? That helps feed them so they multiply.

Yep, still going through the phyto that I received with the pod orders from Algaebarn, I'm down to my last bottle, but thinking of doing a culture so I don't have to keep buying it.

Have you tried looking with a magnifying glass? I use a jewelers loop ($20 on amazon)

I have not, I have pretty decent eyesight, I can see the pods in the jars when I receive them, but I can't tell if they're moving because the water inside the jar is moving, or if they're moving because they're alive. I certainly don't see them on the glass (though I can see the occasional hydroid on the glass) in my tank or crawling around on the sand. A loupe might help with that, I'll consider getting one.

 

[JNalley]

The thing about pods is that they are such tiny treats in the ocean, they have no choice but to hide, very well, as much as possible. They could be in the sand bed, hiding in the crevices of the rocks, out of sight.

Secondly, the pods population (if there is a healthy one) is going to make up of pods at different stages of development. An adult pods maybe say 1-2mm long, but nauplii are going to be much smaller.

I can't see any pods with my unaided eye. However, if I were to take a pinch of sand, stir it up, then observe the suspension under the microscope, the pods are there. Along with nematodes, clliates, and a million other things.

You can self sustain them in a 25g if it was heavily planted and fed.


It’s unlikely you had 100 percent dead pods three times. Tisbe are super tiny. To find them you probably need to let your glass get real dirty and use a magnifying glass.

You could add a billion bottles but the tank always stabilize to the number based on food in your tank for them.

Thanks, these make me feel better, I just always hear about people seeing them on the glass and such, and can honestly say I haven't seen that for sure...

My opinion lies somewhere in the middle , aquariumdepot is a joke please dont but there . If $60 seems like a good deal for that I'll break down my whole tank and sell it to you .lol jnailey sorry to say your 10000% wrong. Honestly I cant even remember if I dipped any coral in the last 8 years and havent had a pod jump off . To your defense however buying frags isnt going to seed your tank with pods you'll get some here and yea of course they will multiply eventually.

How can I be 10000% wrong when I said exactly what you did?
"I've never had pods come in on a frag, and if they had, they certainly didn't breed and create more pods."

I think buying chaeto from a friend with an established tank will give you hundreds

If you had read the entire post that I italicized and highlighted in red, you'd know I don't know anyone around me in the hobby.

, have to remember theres a lot you're not going to see. If you do to decide to buy pods, as mentioned before there is a guy that sells some on here for cheap . Aquarium depot sells amphipods and they're much bigger , so if you need to visibly seee more in order to justify getting a good deal then by all means order them up .

It's not about visibly seeing more, I can see them in the jars when they arrive, I just cannot tell if they're moving because the water in the jar is moving, or if they're moving under their own locomotion, and I certainly cannot see them in the tank or on the glass. I've gotten 2 Jars of 5280 Pods, and a Jar of Tisbee, and still haven't seen anything going on on the sandbed or on the glass. Maybe they are too small for me to see, though, I had no trouble seeing the Hydroids and all their little appendages with my naked eye when the tank was new. So, I'm not sure...

However I'd strongly suggest waiting until 2am after lights are off and poke around with a flashlight on glass and in your unlit fuge to see how "barren" your tank is

Thanks, I'll do that.

 

[Tamberav]

Keep in mind your dottyback will also eat them. A pod on the glass during the day is a snack.

If you keep your glass clean then no food = no reason to be there except to become a snack.

If your tank is new and not a lot of film algae then lots will perish or prey on each other (it is a pod eat pod world) until the numbers match the food available.

Continually adding pods is indeed a big waste of money

Amphipods will eat the more desirable little tisbe pods.

 

[JNalley]

Keep in mind your dottyback will also eat them. A pod on the glass during the day is a snack.

I've only ever seen the clowns go after hydroids on the glass, and the dottyback isn't interested in the sand or the rocks at all, but I'll keep an eye out.

If you keep your glass clean then no food = no reason to be there except to become a snack.

I only keep the front panel clean for precisely this reason, the sides and back panel have plenty of film algae (my snails love it)

If your tank is new and not a lot of film algae then lots will perish or prey on each other (it is a pod eat pod world) until the numbers match the food available.

Continually adding pods is indeed a big waste of money

Amphipods will eat the more desirable little tisbe pods.

Well, since I have a brand new tank (not the tank in question) that has a refugium built into the sump, the plan was to buy one last thing of pods, along with chaeto, and a pod hotel, to add to the new tank, this will give me a controlled environment with which to see them. Then, once I've confirmed I have a nice pod population in the new tank, I'll be able to use the pod hotel to seed the other tank, and then I'll know for sure that live pods were added.

 

[Tamberav]

I've only ever seen the clowns go after hydroids on the glass, and the dottyback isn't interested in the sand or the rocks at all, but I'll keep an eye out.

I only keep the front panel clean for precisely this reason, the sides and back panel have plenty of film algae (my snails love it)

Well, since I have a brand new tank (not the tank in question) that has a refugium built into the sump, the plan was to buy one last thing of pods, along with chaeto, and a pod hotel, to add to the new tank, this will give me a controlled environment with which to see them. Then, once I've confirmed I have a nice pod population in the new tank, I'll be able to use the pod hotel to seed the other tank, and then I'll know for sure that live pods were added.

Here is a different supplier... I did like them better than Algaebarn

Copepods, Phytoplankton, Rotifers, and More | Pod Your Reef

Pod Your Reef Strives to provide a wide range of excellent quality copepods, phytoplankton, and algae. Let our experts assist you! Free shipping $60+

www.podyourreef.com