Refugium and Amphipods

Hunter399 · Sep 28, 2017

I recently added a ball of chaeto and refugium light to my sump on my 24 gallon tank thats about two months old. The ball of Chaeto had a couple Amphipods in it that I could see and was told to leave them as they are beneficial.

Today I seeded my tank with the Algae Barn 5280 Copepods as I have read about their benefits and wanted to seed my new tank. I also Added the phytoplankton to help with the population. I added one bag of 5280 to the display tank and the other in my refugium.

I am now seeing a lot more of the bigger Amphipods in my chaeto. Is this a good thing? And Will they eat the Copepods or cause issues?

flsalty · Sep 28, 2017

Some do, some don't eat copepods. Some do and some don't cause issues. Mostly they are beneficial.

bif24701 · Sep 28, 2017

Hunter399 said:
I recently added a ball of chaeto and refugium light to my sump on my 24 gallon tank thats about two months old. The ball of Chaeto had a couple Amphipods in it that I could see and was told to leave them as they are beneficial.

Today I seeded my tank with the Algae Barn 5280 Copepods as I have read about their benefits and wanted to seed my new tank. I also Added the phytoplankton to help with the population. I added one bag of 5280 to the display tank and the other in my refugium.

I am now seeing a lot more of the bigger Amphipods in my chaeto. Is this a good thing? And Will they eat the Copepods or cause issues?

All good things, it's all good.
If you had started with actual live rock you would see all kinds of things growing and breeding and eating and everything. Biodiversity is very important to a reef tank. Sterile systems don't do well in the first year or so because there is no life or "live". I would continue to add things like chaeto from other systems for this reason. If you can get a cup of sand from a fellow Reefer's mature tank and/or a small rock that would be VERY beneficial!