Pods in a biocube without a refugium.

[Illinireef]

Was curious if I could start up and maintain a pod population in a stock biocube 32? I dont have a refugium. If this is possible, what would be the easiest type to keep? I have fish and lps corals. Thanks in advance.

 

[Doctorgori]

Do nothing, they will come if you buy anything from another tank or LFS

 

[Coeurdenuit]

Any rock work will support a pod population in a healthy system. If you can afford it, buy some pods from a reliable source to “seed” your tank.

 

[cryptodendrum]

What kind of fish do you have? Mandarins and some wrasses can easily decimate a pod population. In that event, consider culturing them yourself with the first batch you buy. It's pretty easy, and you can use anything from a 5 liter barrel to a 5 gallon salt bucket (the later is my choice).

 

[Illinireef]

What kind of fish do you have? Mandarins and some wrasses can easily decimate a pod population. In that event, consider culturing them yourself with the first batch you buy. It's pretty easy, and you can use anything from a 5 liter barrel to a 5 gallon salt bucket (the later is my choice).

I have a clown, 6 line and royal gramma.

 

[tnewell]

IMO, the Intake for the biocube is very poorly made and without 15-20 pounds of rock work, pods will not maintain a healthy population to feed fish. I would personally invest in a refugium and attempt it that way. They usually dig into the rock wotk and sand and stuff but right after the pumps turn on I find them all being sucked into the intake.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

Was curious if I could start up and maintain a pod population in a stock biocube 32? I dont have a refugium. If this is possible, what would be the easiest type to keep? I have fish and lps corals. Thanks in advance.

Just get some live rock. I’ve got zillions of pods living in my rockwork. Your wrasse will eat a lot of them thpugh.

 

[cryptodendrum]

I have a clown, 6 line and royal gramma.

Yeah, your wrasse will either beat them back in pop numbers or it'll wipe them out, depending on how aggressive feeder it is. Your most sustainable options for keeping the pop numbers up are refuge or culturing them. There's some guides on culturing them, but it's pretty simple. And old salt bucket with air bubbler will do. Feed them on powdered spirulina, and when your bucket gets full of them, you can start harvesting them periodically a liter or three at a time, replacing the removed water with fresh salt water. Run the harvested water through a nanofilter to catch all the pods and separate from water, and drop pods in tank. If you want to gut load them with nutrition + feed them live phyto or live phyto + rotifer. And then you'll probably want to culture those too. ;-)