Copepod population crashed

[Silly clownfish]

Right before thanksgiving I had an alkalinity overdose in my tank. At this point, aside from some coral losses, the tank has since stabilized and is doing well. With the exception that my pods population crashed and I am having a hard time getting it to recover. My mandarin is getting thin.

the tank (75 g, with 20g sump) has been running for over 5 years and I have had the mandarin in it for over 4 years. I was never able to get her to eat frozen in quarantine, in fact I cut her qt short when I got her because I was afraid she would have starved herself otherwise. I think the setup was always barely providing enough pods, which is why I maintain a culture in my basement using a couple of plastic jars that pretzels came in.

now that the pod population has crashed, it is like she is in a new tank. I add pods from the culture a couple times a week, but don’t think they get much of an opportunity to start a breeding population. I have been hatching and feeding baby brine shrimp daily in a mandarin feeder to try to take the pressure off of the pods.

any other ideas to boost pod population faster? I cant maintain daily shrimp hatching when I travel.

 

[vetteguy53081]

If alk is in acceptable range, dose in both the tank and refugium and 3X per week add phytoplankton at lights out. The phyto will feed them and allow them to thrive

 

[MabuyaQ]

Dosing phytoplankton to your reef will help boost pod population.

 

[Katrina71]

Order from @hollback healthy pods!!!!

 

[theMeat]

Couldn’t hurt to introduce new dna by getting some pods from somewhere else

 

[Reefin Ryan]

Couldn’t hurt to introduce new dna by getting some pods from somewhere else

^This. Phyto for your remaining is a great idea but adding more I would highly reccommend. Mandarins consume them daily in the thousands. I once had a mandarin in a seperate small tank I was treating for illness and I was buying pods to feed. I could visibly see pods everywhere the day I added them but a few days later and they would be almost all wiped out and I would have to replenish. I was blown away at how much they actually eat dailly. I am not sure what species you are currently working with but I would suggest some good ole Tisbe pods. They are harder to get eaten by other fish in your tank, as opposed to something like Tigriopus pods but the mandarin can get tisbe just fine.

 

[Silly clownfish]

Duh, obviously I feed my culture with phyto, didn’t think of feeding the pods in the tank with anything other than fish crud. I would think feeding the tank with phyto might prompt an algae bloom, but I am willing to chance it. I have been harvesting pods from the culture a couple times a week, so that would be the obvious time to feed.

 

[Crabby48]

Couldn’t hurt to introduce new dna by getting some pods from somewhere else

The place I get pods from recommended mixing up dna and purchase from other sources once in awhile