A couple of things I do: Unless you have a ton of pods, I would either switch to a smaller container, or radically reduce how much water is in the container. It'll just lead to more fouling because you need to add more food to hit the concentration needed for the pods. And the pods will have so much room that they might have a little harder time finding one another for amorous activities.
Good point about them having a hard time finding one another, however I disagree about the fouling because I have the sponge filter for nitrification. I do agree though that a smaller container may be better considering the smaller population I started with.
From my first attempt, liquid phyto just fouls the water too quickly. So I would either add some ammonia binding agent (prime) or switch to flake food. If you want to enrich with phyto the day before you harvest to feed to your tank, that would be good. I plan on enriching with spirulina because its cheaper, and can be stored forever in a powder.
I've got to give flake food a try... Basically I am feeding what RN recommends in their culture instructions (IIRC), namely brown algae, since it's in the Reef Phytoplankton. As for fouling, my understanding is that it really just comes down to how much food is put in versus how much nitrification occurs. I only do 10 drops per day, and in 4 gal of water that's very little.
I don't know if there will be much benefit from the chaeto, but if there is, (if it grows) let me know.
Right now it sinks to the bottom of the bucket, but it's not entirely dying. I may need to suspend it closer to the light.
Lighting: I'm not using any. They just get natural light from the room they're in, but it isn't in direct sun. Mine seem to be doing fine, but again, it might be a little too early for me to say I'm doing things right.
If you have a sponge filter... then that means a couple of things: 1. you probably have WAY more aeration than you need. Tiggers come from basically motionless tidepools. So extra water movement would cause them unnecessary stress and energy expenditure. Also, I don't know if baby tiggers will be sucked into the sponge to die or not. I would take the sponge filter out, and if you want to use aeration, just weight the tube down with a piece of rock or something, and restrict the air to about 1-2 bubbles a second. I'll probably eventually move to aeration, but not in the tiny containers I have now. If your sponge filter IS set at 1-2 bubbles a second.... then you're not really getting all that much water motion through the filter to make it all that practical.
it's a thin wall large pore sponge, very "open" so there's no risk of losing any pods in it. I do disagree about 1-2 bubbles not being sufficient, all I'm aiming for is nitrification to prevent fouling of the water, so as long as water is moving, bacteria will be processing waste. I am a big fan of sponge filters because the water speed is so variable, from extremely slow to extremely fast, plus the aeration. With large pore sponges, there's no risk of losing small animals. I've raised amano fry with live phytoplankton and sponge filters as well.
quick question: Are your pods eating the nori? I gave mine a sliver of nori to eat, and they didn't seem interested, but if yours are eating it, then maybe I didn't leave mine in long enough (over night) for them to eat it, or maybe to finish eating it.
To be honest I am not quite sure if they are eating it. I have too much in there and may need to take some out. That said, when I moved the piece there were a number of pods on it and under it/near it, so I think they may be eating it.
