Online pod vendors
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Matt Carden
Valuable Member
Thanks for the link! I will try this when I set my tank back up.
Osidedude
Community Member
Reef Nutrition has a lot of info on their website...I have been using their products for almost 2 years and cant say enough good things not only about their products but customer service has been outstanding...plus they support a lot of local reef clubs and are big participants at industry functions.
Dkeller_nc
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In my case, a small ball of chaeto was the only other tank addition - just an airstone, seawater mix at 1.020 (some pods do better at lower salinities than seawater), and a drop or two of PhytoFeast once a day.
For harvesting, I poured the whole tank volume through a square of Nitex, then rinsed the cloth into seawater of the same salinity. About half of the pods were then used to feed a tank with some pipefish, the other half was put back into the culture tank with fresh 1.020 seawater. I harvested about once every 10 days.
Reef Nutrition
We Feed Your Reef
Big thanks to all of you that mentioned our products. We offer 2 species of copepods, Tigriopus californicus & Apocyclops panamensis: Tigger-Pods and Apex-pods, respectively. Our products are primarily found in retail stores across the nation but we do offer direct-to-consumer because we aren't in EVERY store in the U.S. It wouldn't be fair to hobbyists that don't have a Reef Nutrition dealer to be excluded from our products. Here are some links:
We've been supplying copepods to the hobby for nearly 15 years maintaining quality throughout. It's no small feat to produce copepods year-after-year. Sound biosecurity techniques, skilled aquarists and adherence to protocols makes for good products.
If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate reach out.
Best,
Chad & Team Reef Nutrition
We've been supplying copepods to the hobby for nearly 15 years maintaining quality throughout. It's no small feat to produce copepods year-after-year. Sound biosecurity techniques, skilled aquarists and adherence to protocols makes for good products.
If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate reach out.
Best,
Chad & Team Reef Nutrition
PhreeByrd
Active Member
I just spent a couple of days searching for an amphipod seller. I really only found two that I felt were worth taking a chance on. One is Aquaculture Nursery Farms in Florida, which sells under at least a couple of different company names (i.e., RU Salty), which makes me a little suspicious. They also sell through Amazon, but the prices are different there than on their other web sites. The other, which I ended up ordering from, is Indo-Pacific Sea Farms (ipsf.com). My amphipods will arrive from Hawaii today, so I can give an update later on my impressions of what they sent.
For copepods, I've been happy with what I get from Algae Barn.
thewalkingdad
Active Member
I would love to hear an update
PhreeByrd
Active Member
I should clarify what I said earlier about sources. The two I mentioned were the most apparently viable ones that G**gle searching provided. And as we know, G**gle prioritizes search results in a way that benefits their best sponsors, so it's really not the best or most complete list of sources. I know there are several other good sources for these critters, and some have been mentioned in this thread.
Anyway, my amphipods arrived mid-day yesterday from IPSF, shipped overnight from Hawaii. Because of how I ordered, I received 3 bags of about 20 amphipods each. Actually there were considerably more than 20 in each bag, with sizes ranging from really tiny to fully mature. The shipping cost was not unreasonable, IMO -- I believe it was $29. The pods were packed in double bags in an insulated box. IPSF also included a big ball of red gracilaria and a large mass of green sheet algae (not sure what it really is -- ulva maybe?) -- this bag of algae is what IPSF calls their 'Pod Mat'. Pod survival seemed very good, and there was a lot of activity in the bags. I spent about 90 minutes getting them temperature acclimated to their new home (a 5 gallon aquarium with heater and airstone and a few fist-sized pieces of porous, dry reef rock).
I may have made a mistake here, because I didn't test water or acclimate the pods for salinity. I had filled the breeding tank with new saltwater at the same salinity I keep my other tanks (34ppt). IPSF, as I recall (maybe incorrectly), said they kept their breeding tanks at 30ppt. I was thinking that was not a big difference and it was getting really late in the evening, so against my best judgement and not following my usual procedure, I just released the pods into the breeding tank without doing additional acclimation. Some of the largest pods may not have survived this, and this morning I have several large dead amphipods on the tank bottom. The smaller pods and several of the really large ones survived just fine, however, and are busy and active this morning.
So that's where I am today. My plan is not to go whole hog into breeding amphipods -- I just want to let them reach a population where I can re-seed my display tanks with them for a while, to re-establish their presence. My plan is to occasionally remove one of the rocks from the breeding tank and either place it in the refugium section of the sump or shake it out in the refugium to release them into the water there. I need to refresh my memory on their life cycle though.
Sorry for the length of this post. It's not my wish to hijack the thread... but hopefully there is some useful info here for somebody.
Anyway, my amphipods arrived mid-day yesterday from IPSF, shipped overnight from Hawaii. Because of how I ordered, I received 3 bags of about 20 amphipods each. Actually there were considerably more than 20 in each bag, with sizes ranging from really tiny to fully mature. The shipping cost was not unreasonable, IMO -- I believe it was $29. The pods were packed in double bags in an insulated box. IPSF also included a big ball of red gracilaria and a large mass of green sheet algae (not sure what it really is -- ulva maybe?) -- this bag of algae is what IPSF calls their 'Pod Mat'. Pod survival seemed very good, and there was a lot of activity in the bags. I spent about 90 minutes getting them temperature acclimated to their new home (a 5 gallon aquarium with heater and airstone and a few fist-sized pieces of porous, dry reef rock).
I may have made a mistake here, because I didn't test water or acclimate the pods for salinity. I had filled the breeding tank with new saltwater at the same salinity I keep my other tanks (34ppt). IPSF, as I recall (maybe incorrectly), said they kept their breeding tanks at 30ppt. I was thinking that was not a big difference and it was getting really late in the evening, so against my best judgement and not following my usual procedure, I just released the pods into the breeding tank without doing additional acclimation. Some of the largest pods may not have survived this, and this morning I have several large dead amphipods on the tank bottom. The smaller pods and several of the really large ones survived just fine, however, and are busy and active this morning.
So that's where I am today. My plan is not to go whole hog into breeding amphipods -- I just want to let them reach a population where I can re-seed my display tanks with them for a while, to re-establish their presence. My plan is to occasionally remove one of the rocks from the breeding tank and either place it in the refugium section of the sump or shake it out in the refugium to release them into the water there. I need to refresh my memory on their life cycle though.
Sorry for the length of this post. It's not my wish to hijack the thread... but hopefully there is some useful info here for somebody.
Scolymite Is My Name
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Algaebarn sells a pretty dope mix of several different pod species, used their stuff to seed my fuge
MixedFruitBasket
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I've bought several times from algae barn A+++
I bought from pod your reef and got containers of water with a handful of pods in each. When I said something about it I was told that the pods were healthy, etc. That wasn't my argument. It was paying 20+ bucks a container and getting next to nothing inside. First and last hundred bucks they got from me.
When I bought from algae barn there were enough pods in the jars that I didn't have to hunt for them. When I've had containers leak they have always been quick to replace. I also routinely buy their algae and it's very reasonably priced for a good amount.
Live pods, rotifers, phytoplankton, and more.
pacificeastaquaculture.com
Reef Stuff
We sell the modern way of starting and maintaining healthy and thriving reef with Hydrospace bacteria products, ICP tests and more. Check out our My Reef Retreat full reef packages.
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