pods?

[aerialdronemaster]

Hi all
so I noticed , that I have again those super little tiny animals walking on my glass,
I like them, they can be food for the fish right
how did the emergey and how to keep them alive ? is there any food I can keep adding to keep them alive ? ( I do not have sump or refuge ) it is a small 24G nono tank

I noticed that my phosphate went a little higher and brown alage showed up, did it cause those little tiny guys to show up also?

I will need to reduce phosphate, eliminate or lower brown alage, but I also want those guys to be in the tank

 

[NS Mike D]

phyto plankton like Reef Nutrition Phyto Fest. go easy and keep an eye on the nutrients. live phyto can uptake nutrients. brown stuff is likely diatoms. what are you NO3 and PO4 and what test kits do you use. ?

 

[sixline]

Of course they didn't just "show up" - but were there already and just started to reproduce in larger numbers!

You're right they're good to have. I wish my tank had more. Some of the best fish and coral food there is. There are two major categories; copepods (really tiny, almost invisible) and amphipods (a bit bigger, look like tiny shrimp or bugs). They eat phytoplankton. Some people set up a ten gallon and raise their own by dosing phytoplankton. But I probably wouldn't add photo to your display tank just for them. It tends to pollute your tank a bit.

You could look into making what is called a "pod hotel" somewhere out of sight in your tank. You can google it, but basically it's a place where pods can hang out and reproduce without your fish decimating the population. I've used this kind of plastic sheeting to make them before. That link was just for illustrational purposes, you can probably find much cheaper and a more easy to hide color.

 

[aerialdronemaster]

phyto plankton like Reef Nutrition Phyto Fest. go easy and keep an eye on the nutrients. live phyto can uptake nutrients. brown stuff is likely diatoms. what are you NO3 and PO4 and what test kits do you use. ?

Hanna instruments and API, ammonia ( 0 or close to 0 , hard to tell)
nitrite 0 or close to it ( I hate those colors)
nitrate , always 20 more less
PH 8.1
calcium 420
alcalinity wen to 7.4 will increase
phosphate was always low, it jumped to 0.3

 

[aerialdronemaster]

Of course they didn't just "show up" - but were there already and just started to reproduce in larger numbers!

You're right they're good to have. I wish my tank had more. Some of the best fish and coral food there is. There are two major categories; copepods (really tiny, almost invisible) and amphipods (a bit bigger, look like tiny shrimp or bugs). They eat phytoplankton. Some people set up a ten gallon and raise their own by dosing phytoplankton. But I probably wouldn't add photo to your display tank just for them. It tends to pollute your tank a bit.

You could look into making what is called a "pod hotel" somewhere out of sight in your tank. You can google it, but basically it's a place where pods can hang out and reproduce without your fish decimating the population. I've used this kind of plastic sheeting to make them before. That link was just for illustrational purposes, you can probably find much cheaper and a more easy to hide color.

thank you
yes, I saw yellow square boxes, for them, so, if I buy the phytoplankton, I can keep them ( or at least try to keep them alive) and reproducing, I will do that then.

 

[aerialdronemaster]

I guess I will also buy a small tank like 5 gallon an cultivate poda for food hmm, what do you guys think? It's all about adding dragonet to the tank.
How fast those poda are being born in the tank?

 

[sixline]

In my opinion a 24g is too small to sustain a pod population for a dragonet. They're basically like little aquatic hummingbirds. In nature, they're continuously eating pods. You could start another tank just for cultivating pods. It doesn't have to be pretty, you could even use a rubbermaid bucket.

Or you could try and get the dragonet to eat commercial fish food of some sort. People seem to have had the best luck with cyclopleeze. If you can get your dragonet to eat that, you are golden. But it's easier said than done. They usually don't recognize it as a food source.

 

[aerialdronemaster]

In my opinion a 24g is too small to sustain a pod population for a dragonet. They're basically like little aquatic hummingbirds. In nature, they're continuously eating pods. You could start another tank just for cultivating pods. It doesn't have to be pretty, you could even use a rubbermaid bucket.

Or you could try and get the dragonet to eat commercial fish food of some sort. People seem to have had the best luck with cyclopleeze. If you can get your dragonet to eat that, you are golden. But it's easier said than done. They usually don't recognize it as a food source.

Ok

So ,I am ready hatching small brine shrimps, and I am thinking to start cultivating pods.
I just bought small extra tank, the guy in fish store confused me a lot , so I am not sure how to start it. He contradicted everything I read.

Anyway, this is my plan
Get pods hotel for my 24g tank and keep adding phytoplankton to feed pods in my main tank to keep them alive .

I also got 10 glons tabk to start cultivating pods so I can keep adding them to the tank.

How does it sound?

He sold me a (forgot the name) the green something that grown in sump . He said I would be better to use it to grow pods population .

Anyway I will neeed to read about it again .

 

[sixline]

That sounds good. The green stuff he was talking about was probably cheato algae. If you're doing pods, I wouldn't bother with brine shrimp. And for a dragonet, copepods are probably better than amphipods. Some of the amphipods get so big a dragonet may have trouble fitting them into their mouth.