Dilemma - Too many pods

[WesleyC]

I just came back to the hobby few months ago, and I've been seeding the tank with pods. To my surprise, the pods is doing an amazing job on cleaning up the tank. The drain pipe area is facing a window and usually have sun shining on it. All kind of algae and "stuff" had been covering that water drain area for years. You couldn't even tell there were white pipes in there. Now, look at this! Pipes!!

Someone gave me a coral, and the plug was totally covered by quite a few type of algae. I thought the plug was actually green color. lol. I put it in the tank and it got cleaned up to the point that the plug went back to the yellowish white color, and spotless! My entire tank glass, back wall, everywhere is sparkling clean like brand new. I'm even worry about my normal CUC (snails) are about to starved to death with nothing to eat.

Oh, by the way, I guess I forgot to mention it is a 6 feet 125g tank with just SPS. I have no fish in it. I'm now thinking getting maybe a couple of fish that would hop around the rocks and eat some pods. But then, I will lost this amazing clean up crew (pods). What would you do?

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

For your size tank and your awesome pop population, I'd definitely add either a Mandarin Dragonet male/female pair or a Ruby Red Scooter Blenny male/female pair. I've always loved both of those but haven't had the size and pod population to support one.

 

[WesleyC]

Interesting. I've never considered Ruby Red Scooter Blenny. Do they just hang out at the bottom on the sand or do they perch on the live rocks as well?

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

Interesting. I've never considered Ruby Red Scooter Blenny. Do they just hang out at the bottom on the sand or do they perch on the live rocks as well?

They cruise all over the place. [emoji2]

 

[reefaland310]

Ruby red dragonet- great fish

 

[WesleyC]

Hmm... I guess I should really look into the Ruby Red Dragonet. Anyone know if there are any place selling them in pair?

 

[Flippers4pups]

What kind of "pods" are we talking about? Copepods or amphipods?

I've never seen "pods" decimate entire areas of algae before. This would be a first. I believe you when you say you've had a explosive growth of pods.

Sorry if I'm questioning this, but I suspect something else water chemistry wise caused the algae to disappear that fast and that clean.

What's your water parameters?

 

[WesleyC]

The ones that are decimating the algaes are munnid isopods. I have 2 pods culture tanks. One for copepods (Tisbe biminiensis) and amphipods, and a mix pods with munnid isopods, copepods (Parvocalanus crassirostris), and amphipods, . I harvest portion of the pods into my display tank every few days or so to avoid over population. Dose 0.5 liter of live phytoplankton into display tank every couple of days.

Main tank parameters:
Salinity: 1.024 or 1.025 depends on which 1 of the 2 Hanna salinity meter I look at
pH: 8.3-8.4
Nitrate: almost undetectable using API
PO4: 0.12 by Hanna ULR colorimeter
Alkalinity 8.9 by Hanna colorimeter
Calcium 450 by Red Sea Calcium Pro

 

[Flippers4pups]

The ones that are decimating the algaes are munnid isopods. I have 2 pods culture tanks. One for copepods (Tisbe biminiensis) and amphipods, and a mix pods with munnid isopods, copepods (Parvocalanus crassirostris), and amphipods, . I harvest portion of the pods into my display tank every few days or so to avoid over population. Dose 0.5 liter of live phytoplankton into display tank every couple of days.

Main tank parameters:
Salinity: 1.024 or 1.025 depends on which 1 of the 2 Hanna salinity meter I look at
pH: 8.3-8.4
Nitrate: almost undetectable using API
PO4: 0.12 by Hanna ULR colorimeter
Alkalinity 8.9 by Hanna colorimeter
Calcium 450 by Red Sea Calcium Pro

Impressive! I'm heading in this direction with culturing. Got tisbes in culture as of right now.

I'm back dooring the phytoplankton culture, which is needed to do the copepods, so I'll be ramping up with them next. Just using phytoplankton from the net right now.

Question: are you using miracle grow or gillards F/2?

Btw, nice culture setup! Well done!

 

[WesleyC]

Thank you.

Yes, I'm using F/2. Funny you've mentioned it. When I quit the hobby quite a few years ago, I purchased this mass pack and never used. So, I'm using this from way back when.

When I came back to this hobby, I discovered Kessil grow light. So, I got one to try it on a mass production idea. This is what I got in FOUR days!!!

But I had no use of that much phyto and didn't want to crash the market for people who are selling them. So I had to throw them away...

 

[Greg79]

So you have no fish in there ?
Have you been planning to put any fish at all ?
I believe your algae are gone with lack of nutrients and organics and pods of course help

 

[WesleyC]

Yea, I have no fish in there, but I feed the tank with 5 years old pellets and flakes every day to make sure it has enough waste to simulate a populated tank. My snails still eat them, before the pods can finish them up. The phyto I dose into the tank also contain very nutritious F/2 as well.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Thank you.

Yes, I'm using F/2. Funny you've mentioned it. When I quit the hobby quite a few years ago, I purchased this mass pack and never used. So, I'm using this from way back when.

When I came back to this hobby, I discovered Kessil grow light. So, I got one to try it on a mass production idea. This is what I got in FOUR days!!!

But I had no use of that much phyto and didn't want to crash the market for people who are selling them. So I had to throw them away...

Nice "problem " to have!

Where did you find the munnids at?

 

[Greg79]

Yea, I have no fish in there, but I feed the tank with 5 years old pellets and flakes every day to make sure it has enough waste to simulate a populated tank. My snails still eat them, before the pods can finish them up. The phyto I dose into the tank also contain very nutritious F/2 as well.

I understand but you still need good amonia source to get tank go thrue full cycle

 

[Big G]

For your size tank and your awesome pop population, I'd definitely add either a Mandarin Dragonet male/female pair or a Ruby Red Scooter Blenny male/female pair. I've always loved both of those but haven't had the size and pod population to support one.

++ 1

 

[WesleyC]

I understand but you still need good amonia source to get tank go thrue full cycle

Oh, the tank is at least 10 years old. It just has been running empty for the pass 5 years. I've never stopped the pump when I quit the hobby. Just never do water changes until few months ago.

 

[Greg79]

Oh, the tank is at least 10 years old. It just has been running empty for the pass 5 years. I've never stopped the pump when I quit the hobby. Just never do water changes until few months ago.

Oh,wow your crazy but in good way,lol

 

[WesleyC]

LOL. Tell that to my wife.

When she saw me sucking out the sand to wash, and did all those 90% water change, she was like YOU GONNA DO THAT AGAIN?!

 

[leahfiish]

Following!

 

[WesleyC]

Nice "problem " to have!

Where did you find the munnids at?

I got the munnids from a fellow local reefer. When I came back to the hobby, I ask a few people to give me some chaeto and some rubles to re-seed the tank. I knew there could be some pods in there. So I put them into a small tank and co-culture them with phyto. I still have my old 53um shives from back in the days to filter out the pods. Put them under the microscope and see what I got. That's what I started my mix culture from. Later I added Parvocalanus crassirostris in there since they are the swimming type and should be able to co-culture.

The copepods and amphipods for the other culture tank were from LiveAquaria, since I remember I still had some credit with them.