Copepod culture in tank

[mryan04290]

Hi there I currently have a (fairly new 4 month old) 14 gallon cube and would like to have a healthy pod population in the tank I’ve added a bottle of pods so far (half at night half during the day) 3 months ago and haven’t seen a single pod since then which I’m assuming my clownfish decimated them all. I don’t have a sump or a fuge and ideally would not like to add either. If anyone has experience with keeping a healthy population of pods as a food source and as part of the clean up crew without a fuge please give me some tips!!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

They eat phytoplankton, add a bit to your tank once in a while, it will keep their populations up. But otherwise, they are likely there. Get a magnifying glass and look at the corners of your tank, you might see a few tiny white dots moving. Almost impossible to see with just your eyes.

 

[Hawgpharm]

To get adequate numbers in a tank that size you might want to consider raising them and then adding them on a regular basis. The majority of my fish love pods and they certainly don't seem to last long, even after adding decent amounts every 3 days or so.

Growing your own phyto isn't very difficult and you'll love the reaction you get any time you add live food.

Good luck with the tank.

 

[PotatoPig]

What type of pods did you add?

 

[mryan04290]

What type of pods did you add?

I believe they were tiger pods I got them from my LFS

 

[mryan04290]

To get adequate numbers in a tank that size you might want to consider raising them and then adding them on a regular basis. The majority of my fish love pods and they certainly don't seem to last long, even after adding decent amounts every 3 days or so.

Growing your own phyto isn't very difficult and you'll love the reaction you get any time you add live food.

Good luck with the tank.

I have definitely considered this but don’t know what the initial investment/time commitment involved is

 

[Hawgpharm]

Very little effort once you get comfortable doing it. There are multiple ways of going about raising pod cultures, and without doing some scientific experimentation (which I'm too lazy to do), you can see what others are doing and either copy or try something similar. My setup is three 2.5 gallon containers for phyto. I think I got them at Wal-Mart. Right now I'm growing tetraselmis since it seems just as easy as nanno to grow and the pods do better with tetra.

As for the pods, I've got a section of my fuge going for them since I'm still working on the main tank, plus I have a 30 gallon tank on the floor and another 5 gallon container as well. I just alternate sources every 2 or 3 days, primarily for the mandarin in the 40 gallon quarantine tank. But, that tank also has a myriad of gobies, blue green chromis, some firefish, a clown and a few cardinals to boot, and they all seem to love the pods. For that reason, I also supplement with daily baby brine shrimp that I grow in two other containers, alternating them from day to day.

With all the live food, I've never had such apparently happy fish.

Don't be afraid to raise phyto and copepods. It really is pretty easy and is immensely rewarding to provide live food for your fish.

 

[mryan04290]

Very little effort once you get comfortable doing it. There are multiple ways of going about raising pod cultures, and without doing some scientific experimentation (which I'm too lazy to do), you can see what others are doing and either copy or try something similar. My setup is three 2.5 gallon containers for phyto. I think I got them at Wal-Mart. Right now I'm growing tetraselmis since it seems just as easy as nanno to grow and the pods do better with tetra.

As for the pods, I've got a section of my fuge going for them since I'm still working on the main tank, plus I have a 30 gallon tank on the floor and another 5 gallon container as well. I just alternate sources every 2 or 3 days, primarily for the mandarin in the 40 gallon quarantine tank. But, that tank also has a myriad of gobies, blue green chromis, some firefish, a clown and a few cardinals to boot, and they all seem to love the pods. For that reason, I also supplement with daily baby brine shrimp that I grow in two other containers, alternating them from day to day.

With all the live food, I've never had such apparently happy fish.

Don't be afraid to raise phyto and copepods. It really is pretty easy and is immensely rewarding to provide live food for your fish.

That definitely looks a lot more appealing as compared to the actual science experiments I run growing halimeda macro algae for research at my university I love the idea of a spigot on the bottom for ease of access! So it looks like it’s just a bubbler and a light do you need to supply the phyto with anything other than light? I’ve read about some sorts of fertilizer but is that entirely necessary?

 

[jkcoral]

Adding some other pods could be benificial, especially those that are known reproduce well in the aquarium. Tisbe, Apocyclops, etc.

You mentioned adding tiger pods, and you probably still have some if you look at the glass at night. But for reference, I add tigger pods as a treat for my fish every once in a while knowing they will get decimated. They never seem able to reproduce like the others, and the smaller species (barely visible to the human eye) are better able to escape predation. This is just my experience!

+1 for phyto, gives them a good food source and helps them maximize/optimize their population size

 

[slingfox]

As mentioned by jkcoral above, tigger pods are large and therefor are less likely to be able to survive and reproduce in a tank full of fish predators. I m in process of starting a new tank. What I did was buy the $10 pod mix (I think it used to be only $8) from reefcleaners.org. That mix is specifically designed to provide a mix of pods to seed new tank.

 

[mryan04290]

As mentioned by jkcoral above, tigger pods are large and therefor are less likely to be able to survive and reproduce in a tank full of fish predators. I m in process of starting a new tank. What I did was buy the $10 pod mix (I think it used to be only $8) from reefcleaners.org. That mix is specifically designed to provide a mix of pods to seed new tank.

$10 is definitely a lot better than what I paid at my LFS I’ll definitely check that out I’ve been seeing what it takes to start up a culture as well

 

[PotatoPig]

I believe they were tiger pods I got them from my LFS

Echoing other posters : Tigger pods don’t do well in reef tanks. They’re large, they swim in the water column, and don’t really hide out during the day. They get heavily predated on by virtually everything in these tanks, and those that don’t get removed by filter socks. On top of that the temps seem a little too high for them, so even if you provide them with a refuge space they don’t seem to reproduce well in reef tanks.

These are a great treat for the fish and are good to culture and then add to the tank as feed, but I’m not sure if it’s possible to get them to colonize.

Tisbe pods do very well, especially if your goal is to provide food for a Mandarin. IIRC Apocyclops pods also do well. But you’ll never see them without lighting the ones on the glass from the side.

Random pods that come into these tanks via corals, inverts, live rock, etc, also tend to do well, but again are mostly small and hide out on rock so you’d never know there there without looking at the glass with a flashlight from the side.

 

[Hawgpharm]

That definitely looks a lot more appealing as compared to the actual science experiments I run growing halimeda macro algae for research at my university I love the idea of a spigot on the bottom for ease of access! So it looks like it’s just a bubbler and a light do you need to supply the phyto with anything other than light? I’ve read about some sorts of fertilizer but is that entirely necessary?

I just use f/2 fertilizer. After doing some initial experimentation, I now know that my sweet spot is about 5.5 mL of f/2 with each recharge. I have to confess, I watched everyone doing the cleaning process over and over with each new batch, but I've found that if I add a little Microbacter 7 at the beginning of a culture, I can just keep adding new water and fertilizer once I remove around 80 percent of the phyto. My record for a single culture of tetraselmis is 96 days, and that was really my fault since I got distracted and failed to add more water and fertilizer for about 2 days once I was at 20%. At that point it crashed. My new rate limiting factor seems to be the phyto growing on the side of the container and decreasing light penetration. That particular culture is now going on 85 days and I won't have a choice but to clean it soon for that reason. I just added a 3rd culture since I realized my pod farming was consuming much more than I anticipated. But, since I've got probably a grand total of 50 gallons of copepod farming, I guess that much usage shouldn't surprise me. One of these days I'll get brave and try to grow isochrysis. After hearing all the stories about how difficult it can be to culture, I'll go back to the sterile technique with that one. At least initially, until I figure out how to make it easier if possible.

 

[jimfish98]

I hodge podged together a container for pods. Went to Target and they had a 64oz glass pitcher with rubber lid for $10. I cut three holes in the top, two for vents and one to put an airline through. Had a USB air pump I plugged in and added a jar of Galaxy Pods from Algae barn. Put in some Ocean Magic phyto and just kept feeding for 5 days. I still add a little phyto every day, but every 4 days I am using a turkey baster to pull out pods. 2 basters worth to the small tank, 4 for the large tank. By the time I go to pull more, the jar seems just as full as the last time. So far so good.

 

[Jay'sReefBugs]

As others have stated Tig pods are more of a direct food source they don't seem to do well in tropical environments of reef tanks . Add different copepods and see which species sticks in your tank . Remember copepods self regulate their population based on available food source so feed them .