Starting to culture pods from first principles

[lmfbs]

Pods aren't available to purchase where I live. If I wanted to start culturing pods, could I just put some rock rubble or chaeto in my sump, shake it out into a sieve after a week or so, then start culturing from there? Any better way to do this?

 

[PotatoPig]

If you know there’s pods in your system then pulling some rock rubble or chaeto and culturing it should be able to start a culture.

I did this once to see how it’d work - just took a small stone from the sump (I keep rubble in there) and added it to a clean culture vessel. Next day a flashlight showed a bunch of pods swimming around, so must have been carried in on the stone. Figured as the culture was already “contaminated” may as well leave the piece in there to help with ammonia control. Culture is going well.

One reason not to do this is that it risks contamination of the culture with other life from the tank that may take over or cause problems, but at the DIY level I’m not sure that’s really as big an issue as it would be if you were doing this commercially

 

[lmfbs]

If you know there’s pods in your system then pulling some rock rubble or chaeto and culturing it should be able to start a culture.

I did this once to see how it’d work - just took a small stone from the sump (I keep rubble in there) and added it to a clean culture vessel. Next day a flashlight showed a bunch of pods swimming around, so must have been carried in on the stone. Figured as the culture was already “contaminated” may as well leave the piece in there to help with ammonia control. Culture is going well.

One reason not to do this is that it risks contamination of the culture with other life from the tank that may take over or cause problems, but at the DIY level I’m not sure that’s really as big an issue as it would be if you were doing this commercially

Thanks, this is super helpful. I might give it a go, I really want some supplementary food to be able to feed my eventual mandarin

 

[nothing_fancy]

I did an experiment like this once with a "pod hotel" which is basically just some corregated fiber board in an acrylic cube. I left it in my sump for a month or so and transferred it to a jar. It was not a clean culture, there were detritus worms and other things in there. You really need to keep the culture pure to get a lot of pods otherwise things will out compete each other. If you do try this experiment make sure you have a lot of phyto on hand to feed the culture. I use about a liter of phyto for 3.5 liters of saltwater to culture pods. You may try your method to get pods, filter out anything else that also cultures and then try again with just the pods although there may be more than one species of pod. If you do that a few times you could eventually get a clean culture. Putting a sponge of some sort into the jar when you culture is also a good idea, and each attempt you should swap out the sponge until you get a clean culture. Good luck!