A MASSIVE pod tank endeavor...
- Thread starter gREEF stricken
- Start date
Use the whole 75g as a phyto culture. Lots of light, only air bubbles for water movement, and nutrients. The trouble with phytoplankton is that it looks like there is more of it than there really is because the cells are so small they have a large surface area relative to volume.
Wally.B
Active member
I failed 3 times trying to start a Tigger pod farm. Many reasons.
Goal was to have live food for my Mandarin goby.
I finally now have a successful farm few months old.
It started with a 10gallon tank half full of salt water and one bottle of Tigger pods.
I had a small heater which may have helped start it but then after advice that one is not needed since Tigger pod are temp hardy I have been breeding without one.
Tank has two air stones running at either end for airation and circulation.
I threw in some clean egg crate pieces for pod crawling areas. No live rock since I think one of my first failures was contamination from whatever was in rocks.
The tank has acrylic lid to prevent evaporation and contamination. Its important not to contaminate the farm by not dipping tools between farm and your tank. I once had a baby brine shrimp get in from my brine shrimp farm and he grew massive in a few days since he was eating the baby pods like crazy. I caught him and saved my pod farm.
I feed DT phytoplankton or phytofeast a few drops every few days. I know when it is time to feed when water goes clear. Feed enough for water to have color. Light green or yellow. If you over feed it just takes longer to clear up (assuming you have a good established population). You will need to add more as population increases. They eat more.
I haven't done water changes but I do top up with fresh salt water after I see eventual evaporation.
I harvest pods from the farm with a baby brine shrimp net or a sith. Harvesting is to feed mandarin in one tank and for other tank just to seed it in general.
Key for success was not to harvest too much. Let the adult population stay high. Allow enough time for next generation of pods to mature. Roughly 3 weeks.
You know when farm population is multiplying since there will be a sediment build up on bottom. In the sediment are the baby pods "napuli" . too small to be seen by human eye.
Also. Don't expect to see red Tiggers as your next generation, like I first expected. They will be clear. Rumour is reef nutrition dye or feed something to get their tiggers red. Look better for sales.
I can post a pic of this simple farm with water color, sediment and tigger pod density if anyone is interested.
Goal was to have live food for my Mandarin goby.
I finally now have a successful farm few months old.
It started with a 10gallon tank half full of salt water and one bottle of Tigger pods.
I had a small heater which may have helped start it but then after advice that one is not needed since Tigger pod are temp hardy I have been breeding without one.
Tank has two air stones running at either end for airation and circulation.
I threw in some clean egg crate pieces for pod crawling areas. No live rock since I think one of my first failures was contamination from whatever was in rocks.
The tank has acrylic lid to prevent evaporation and contamination. Its important not to contaminate the farm by not dipping tools between farm and your tank. I once had a baby brine shrimp get in from my brine shrimp farm and he grew massive in a few days since he was eating the baby pods like crazy. I caught him and saved my pod farm.
I feed DT phytoplankton or phytofeast a few drops every few days. I know when it is time to feed when water goes clear. Feed enough for water to have color. Light green or yellow. If you over feed it just takes longer to clear up (assuming you have a good established population). You will need to add more as population increases. They eat more.
I haven't done water changes but I do top up with fresh salt water after I see eventual evaporation.
I harvest pods from the farm with a baby brine shrimp net or a sith. Harvesting is to feed mandarin in one tank and for other tank just to seed it in general.
Key for success was not to harvest too much. Let the adult population stay high. Allow enough time for next generation of pods to mature. Roughly 3 weeks.
You know when farm population is multiplying since there will be a sediment build up on bottom. In the sediment are the baby pods "napuli" . too small to be seen by human eye.
Also. Don't expect to see red Tiggers as your next generation, like I first expected. They will be clear. Rumour is reef nutrition dye or feed something to get their tiggers red. Look better for sales.
I can post a pic of this simple farm with water color, sediment and tigger pod density if anyone is interested.
Last edited:
Wally.B
Active member
I can assure you we do not dye our Tigger-Pods and what we feed them is algae, the same algae in our Phyto-Feast.
They area always red in the wild, if you can't trust mother nature, who can you trust?Algae!
My apology for the bad rumour. I didn't mean specifically dye, like dip them in color. Meant feed something extra red to get their clear bellies looking red.
So what's the secret to get them red like they were in the original bottle?
I'm on my 3rd bottle of Phyto-Feast. I tried DT only once, but since then have been feeding them strictly Phyto-Feast, since I love the quality of the product.
I have hundreds if not thousands of at least 3th generation adult tiggers that were solely raised on Phyto-Feast.
Could it be they don't look red in the green Phyto-Feast mix tank? If I capture a few, and put back in the original clear bottle, with clear salt water, will they look more red? Or is there just less red algae content in the Phyto-Feast mix for well balance and nutritious mix?
I suspect it has to do with amount of feed, and how we culture them. You hit the nail on the head when you said the comment about sediment build up.
The red is the entire body, not just the stomach. Other copepods the color does come from the oil "ballast" but not these guys.
There's no red phytoplanktons in Phyto-Feast.
The red is the entire body, not just the stomach. Other copepods the color does come from the oil "ballast" but not these guys.
There's no red phytoplanktons in Phyto-Feast.
rt67ghy
Member
I started a similar project last month with a 20 gallon tank. which is 42"x 10"x 12"(lL x W x H). I used tank water which was rich with nutrients and seeded it with pods from another tank. I have 3 x 24W CFL lights hanging 6" above acrylic lid which I keep on for 17 hrs-a-day. The light has allowed a lot of algae and cyano bacteria to grow. Pods love cyano and can be seen on the glass near patches of it. I also threw in some chaeto so I can harvest the pods easily for my mandarin goby. After just5 days I could see small pods on the sand and now 1 month down the road I can see larger pods on the glass walls. I don't feed the tank. The algae/cyano is providing all the food necessary. I'm using a power filter (880litres/hr). If the algae/chaeto starts disappearing all I'll need to do is replace the water with some "dirty' tank water. I also have 6 pod homes in the pod tank which I can use when I have millions of pods everywhere. The main thing is giving sufficient light for algal growth. I don't think the powerhead is an issue since I found that most of the pods I saw in my sump initially were on the powerfilter sending water to my chiller.
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