Rescuing pods

lejeune981 · Jul 5, 2018

So.. I run an upflow ats in my reef... when I clean it.. there are 1000s of pods that I can see all over it... I have a scooter and 2 mandis in my reef.. so I hate killing there food sorce...
But I have yet to figure out a way to separate all the pods from the algae...
I've tried shaking it off in the tank.. some come off.. but a vast majority stay on the algae..
Anyone know a way to rescue them ?

I'm going to try and put all the algae on a screen.. and rest it just above the water surface.. in hopes that as the algae dries out.. the pods will abandon ship and jump in the water... Will they?

I just really don't like killing anything in my reef.. or in general... except aptasia lol

Ant thoughts... suggestions and ideas are greatly appreciated!!

Crabs McJones · Jul 5, 2018

If every time you clean your scrubber you have thousands of pods, it means their reproducing pretty quickly. I don't know that i'd be to concerned about it. But i'm not really sure of a way to separate them less of combing through it and picking them out. Hopefully someone will chime in with a better idea

cracker · Jul 5, 2018

Currious ,I wonder if your idea would work. I hate tossing pods also. No way I can think of chasing them out of the algae .

Sorcha2 · Jul 5, 2018

Maybe you could get an algae eater like a tang and feed it the algae so the pods end up in your tank.

lejeune981 · Jul 5, 2018

Crabs Mcjones said:
If every time you clean your scrubber you have thousands of pods, it means their reproducing pretty quickly. I don't know that i'd be to concerned about it. But i'm not really sure of a way to separate them less of combing through it and picking them out. Hopefully someone will chime in with a better idea

Your prolly right.. if there is that many in the scrubber.. there is prolly trillions through out the whole system it's self...
I just don't like killing them unless I have to.. but also wanna figure out how to transfer a bunch of them over to the new reef I'm building..

lejeune981 · Jul 5, 2018

Sorcha2 said:
Maybe you could get an algae eater like a tang and feed it the algae so the pods end up in your tank.

I've got tangs in the display.. they keep it algae free.. but the scrubber is in the fuge..
Display is a 90 reef ready with 150 lbs rock.. fuge is a 49 gallon bow front.. with 100+lbs of rock in there.. I don't think I can keep a tang in there and it be happy being so confined...

Then again.. a fish eating all the algae that grows in the scrubber.. would defeat the purpose of the scrubber for nutrient export..

Oddly enough.. my scrubber used to grow GHA like crazy... now it just grows bryopsis.. and a whole lot of it..

lejeune981 · Jul 5, 2018

cracker said:
Currious ,I wonder if your idea would work. I hate tossing pods also. No way I can think of chasing them out of the algae .

I'm hoping it will work... I was keeping all of the algae I took off the scrubber.. and putting it in a bucket with water change water and some live rock and air stone..
Just to keep the pods alive till I figured something out... it worked great till my dog peed in it lol

cracker · Jul 5, 2018

Good ole Fido ! So I wonder what one could pour over & thru the algae to chase out the pods. My prob is getting tiny bits of algae also.

User · Jul 5, 2018

Make a little chaeto pod condo out of a milk jug, with a lot of small holes in it to let the pods out. Fill with chaeto and pods and put in one end of a 10 gallon tank with water with the room lights out but a small light source at the other end . Under cover of darkness, remove the milk jug without turning in the room lights. 10 gallon tank full of pods.

They migrate out at night to feed, then are attracted to the small light. Bright lights will send them back into the safety of the chaeto.

Not saying you’ll recover even close to half, but with the amount you have and the reproduction rate under good tank conditions, they are essentially innumerable and it’ll be very inefficient of your effort to try to save them all

lejeune981 · Jul 6, 2018

neilp2006 said:
Make a little chaeto pod condo out of a milk jug, with a lot of small holes in it to let the pods out. Fill with chaeto and pods and put in one end of a 10 gallon tank with water with the room lights out but a small light source at the other end . Under cover of darkness, remove the milk jug without turning in the room lights. 10 gallon tank full of pods.

They migrate out at night to feed, then are attracted to the small light. Bright lights will send them back into the safety of the chaeto.

Not saying you’ll recover even close to half, but with the amount you have and the reproduction rate under good tank conditions, they are essentially innumerable and it’ll be very inefficient of your effort to try to save them all

That's an awesome idea!!
I'm gonna give that a shot
Thank you !!

cracker · Jul 6, 2018

Very good idea @neilp1006 !
What am I doing wrong to use the @ thing ?

BluewaterLa · Aug 4, 2018

I was thinking before you scrape the algae off the mat screen you could use some old tank water from a water change and a bucket along with a power head with hose on it to flush the pods out the algae into a waiting fine mesh net.
The net would keep most of the pods from getting into the running pump, Larger net better of course.
Never tried this but may work and worth a try.

The idea above posted by @neilp2006 seems promising too