Breeding Copepods in a 5 Gallon Tank

[Squeven]

I have an old 5.5 gallon tank with a heater, HOB filter and lights. I am interested in breeding Copepods to supplement the ones in my BioCube. I have a couple of questions.
1) Is this feasible for breeding Copepods?

2) Is there different equipment I need?

3) Do I set it up with live rock and sand like a normal tank?

Any help on this would be great!!

 

[dbowman5]

i am breeding copepods in a refugium. you need saltwater, food, and copepods. the equipment you have is sufficient to grow them. have you figured out how you will harvest them? mine just get flushed into the DT where they live too. rock and sand are helpful to live in, macro-algae is good shelter too. detritus is their normal food source. this is just off the top of my head. look for videos and articles, they are out there.
Welcome to R2R

 

[Squeven]

Haven’t thought about harvesting yet, just playing with the idea. I was thinking about putting some Chaeto in a small soap dish on the side of the tank. For food, I was thinking Phyto Feast, but I’m still researching that.

 

[ThePurple12]

You can culture copepods in anything. You won't need sand or rock, but it would help with biological filtration.

No need to put the chaeto in a soap dish, just put it in the tank and let it grow. Once you have pods crawling all over the glass, it's harvest time!

For food, Phyto Feast will work, and I've heard you can also just sprinkle some flake food in there and the pods will eat bacteria that feed on the flakes.

 

[Squeven]

Good idea about just keeping the Chaeto in the tank, should just be able to shake some into my cube when it’s harvest time.

 

[R.Weller]

No need for the heater, filter, lights, rocks or sand.

We’re harvesting 1.5 gallons & adding to our refugium or display every 21-28 days. The tank is the rinsed in vinegar & mixed with 1.5 gallons of fresh saltwater. The other 1.5 gallons is re-added to the culturing tank & the process starts over.

We feed the Pods 100ml of live phyto every 2-3 days that is also cultured at home. We’re also feeding this to our main system as well.

Both cultures are fed by a small air pump (3 watts).

It’s very important to start with a quality seed culture for the phyto. We’re using Mercer of Montana. Copepods are easily picked up from the community or can also be purchased online. If you are wanting to continue culturing, it’s important to use glass & clean it with vinegar or acid then an RO rinse between batches.

In the end, it’s pretty easy & very cheap. The system will also love you for it.