Cheapest way to continually seed pods?

[djryan2000]

I have a captive bred mandarin that I’ve been spot feeding 3-5x daily. So far she looks really well. However, I believe I should be continually be adding pods to keep up with her and my wrasse as I only have a 45gal AIO tank.

my LFS sells what I believe are 4oz bottles of pods for $10 or $20. I’m curious as to if this is the best way or if I should try to purchase a bunch from algae barn periodically.
Another option I considered was setting up a tank specifically to culture them and purchasing something like a pod hotel to just open it and dump them in the tank periodically. Would this be enough? The tank would have to be a 5.5 or 10 gallon.
Which one of these seems to be the best option? Or is there another option I’m missing?

 

[Pillahump]

throw some cheato in your AIO in the back and seed the pods in there. they can flow into the tank periodically

 

[iamacat]

I have a captive bred mandarin that I’ve been spot feeding 3-5x daily. So far she looks really well. However, I believe I should be continually be adding pods to keep up with her and my wrasse as I only have a 45gal AIO tank.

my LFS sells what I believe are 4oz bottles of pods for $10 or $20. I’m curious as to if this is the best way or if I should try to purchase a bunch from algae barn periodically.
Another option I considered was setting up a tank specifically to culture them and purchasing something like a pod hotel to just open it and dump them in the tank periodically. Would this be enough? The tank would have to be a 5.5 or 10 gallon.
Which one of these seems to be the best option? Or is there another option I’m missing?

Phyto tank with the pod option has been great for me. Pods are very easy, phyto I’m learning

 

[ZoWhat]

1) brew phytoplankton (tons of how to DIY YouTube vids on the subject)

2) Feed the phyto to culturing pods (again tons of DIY vids)

3) each month put 50% of phyto and pods in tank while holding back 50% to reculture

Once you get the hang of it, you just keep brewing phyto and culturing pods month in month out over and over again with only needing new SW and fertilizer to grow the phyto.

Super easy, inexpensive once you nail the process. Im currently on 6mos of my original batch if phyto and pods, recultivating everything over and over.

I find it FUN as heck to grow pods that I can see with a flashlight in my pods containers.

I could spell out exactly what I do but it would take me 45mins to type it all out.

I've posted some stuff on my method if you search my past posts.

Here's a YouTube video thats pretty short and sweet on culturing pods...doesn't really go into brewing phyto. But its ALL on YouTube if you look for it

 

[Silent]

Pods and phytoplankton are super easy to culture. Many good videos to learn from and many different ways to do it.

 

[ichthyogeek]

I think it depends on what you consider as "cheap".

Money wise (as long as you don't count the time you spend doing it), it's most likely cheapest to just culture your own pods. If you do, make sure to either stick with one species, or go with one species per tank to save yourself having to constantly add in one or the other of multiple species as different ones get outcompeted. For culturing pods, you can either buy live, culture live, or buy dead phytoplankton.

Time wise, it's cheapest to just buy the pods and add them to your tank. A mix like ecopods can't hurt. Keep in mind that dragonets go through A LOT of pods (to the point where you probably wouldn't be able to keep up with adding enough bottles over time unless the pods naturally reproduce).

There's also the option to hatch pods? Algova and C-feed both have brands of Acartia tonsa eggs which you can hatch. This is a very new option, and I'm honestly not sure how efficient it is. It's probably similar to feeding brine shrimp, but copepod-ier.

You could also look into making a brine shrimp feeder ala PaulB. It just requires hatching out large amounts of brine shrimp.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

I have a captive bred mandarin that I’ve been spot feeding 3-5x daily. So far she looks really well. However, I believe I should be continually be adding pods to keep up with her and my wrasse as I only have a 45gal AIO tank.

my LFS sells what I believe are 4oz bottles of pods for $10 or $20. I’m curious as to if this is the best way or if I should try to purchase a bunch from algae barn periodically.
Another option I considered was setting up a tank specifically to culture them and purchasing something like a pod hotel to just open it and dump them in the tank periodically. Would this be enough? The tank would have to be a 5.5 or 10 gallon.
Which one of these seems to be the best option? Or is there another option I’m missing?

Let us know if you need phytoplankton or copepods. Our Phyto-Feast Live is 20 times as concentrated as our top competitor with 6 species of microalgae and is used by hobbyists that are culturing copepods and other live feed organisms. While we recommend that you purchase from a store that carries us, we do have an online shop with subscription options. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out.

Chad

 

[Bluenote]

Are you already running a refugium? The suggestion to throw chaeto in the back of your AIO is a start, but you could also add a hang-on refugium, with pump, and light. Seed this for a while and they should take off. The whole concept of a refugium is to give the pods a refuge from constant predation.

 

[Nick063]

1) brew phytoplankton (tons of how to DIY YouTube vids on the subject)

2) Feed the phyto to culturing pods (again tons of DIY vids)

3) each month put 50% of phyto and pods in tank while holding back 50% to reculture

Once you get the hang of it, you just keep brewing phyto and culturing pods month in month out over and over again with only needing new SW and fertilizer to grow the phyto.

Super easy, inexpensive once you nail the process. Im currently on 6mos of my original batch if phyto and pods, recultivating everything over and over.

I find it FUN as heck to grow pods that I can see with a flashlight in my pods containers.

I could spell out exactly what I do but it would take me 45mins to type it all out.

I've posted some stuff on my method if you search my past posts.

Here's a YouTube video thats pretty short and sweet on culturing pods...doesn't really go into brewing phyto. But its ALL on YouTube if you look for it

Thanks for this!

 

[DothanReefer]

Ok, so im a rookie reefer still but I can share whats worked for me in this arena...

I ordered twice from @AlgaeBarn. The first time I just poured them in per instructions. Needless to say, they didn't last...the second time I took my spot feeder and injected them into the sandbed and the rocks, then fed phyto for a couple weeks. That was 4mos ago and now I have a healthy population of pods thriving in my tank - big ones, tiny ones and all in between. My wrasse picks at them all day and my hippo picks them off when they get into the water column. They are most active and visible just before lights-on and pf course just after lights-out. Its a lot fun to see the countless numbers now when the lights go down!! Tank is WB Reef 100.3

 

[Jen1978]

I have been culturing in a separate tank for a little while now. Fairly simple. I make around 30 oz of phytoplankton every week in a mason jar. Keep 10 to start my new culture and put the rest in a gatorade bottle in the mini fridge to feed the pod tank throughout the week.

 

[Nick063]

Ok, so im a rookie reefer still but I can share whats worked for me in this arena...

I ordered twice from @AlgaeBarn. The first time I just poured them in per instructions. Needless to say, they didn't last...the second time I took my spot feeder and injected them into the sandbed and the rocks, then fed phyto for a couple weeks. That was 4mos ago and now I have a healthy population of pods thriving in my tank - big ones, tiny ones and all in between. My wrasse picks at them all day and my hippo picks them off when they get into the water column. They are most active and visible just before lights-on and pf course just after lights-out. Its a lot fun to see the countless numbers now when the lights go down!! Tank is WB Reef 100.3

What photo brand are you feeding? Do you turn off your flow/skimmer during feeding the phyto?

 

[DothanReefer]

I'm not feeding phyto anymore. When I was, I turned off the skimmer for about an hour or so. Left flow as is. Fed the green stuff from algae barn...

I did a water change today and out of curiosity bc of this thread I went looking for pods. Man! They were shacked-up under every rock/coral I picked up off the sandbed. There must be millions of them. Ill try for some pics of them on the glass this afternoon.