Building Pod Population

[Clowny88]

Goal for 2016... Add a mandarin.

There are a lot of great ideas out there on maintaining a high pod population and creating pod condos for that time. But my question is more how to jump start that population.

I just added a fuge for the first time. I have a 75g DT that overflows into a 55g sump, about 25g of which is fuge. Fuge has approximately 50 pounds of live rock (about 2/3 full) and two small baseball size clumps of chaeto. DT has about 75 pounds rock.

I'm thinking far ahead obviously. But what's the best thing to "seed" the fuge?
-Add more love rock?
-Add pods to the fuge?
-Add pods to the DT?
-More chaeto needed?
-Cultivate outside the system? (Not really a preference if possible)

 

[Sk8r]

Get some live rock rubble. If your lfs doesn't have any, buy some dead coral from the conditioned rock tank, etc, and break it into bits. Pile this in a corner of your fuge. Any time you get a chance, pile such things in your fuge. Pods breed in such spaces. You can also do them up in bundles, in bridal net, tied with string, and use a measuring cup (collected below water surface) to transfer the bundle to the dt as a temporary pod source.

 

[Clowny88]

Get some live rock rubble. If your lfs doesn't have any, buy some dead coral from the conditioned rock tank, etc, and break it into bits. Pile this in a corner of your fuge. Any time you get a chance, pile such things in your fuge. Pods breed in such spaces. You can also do them up in bundles, in bridal net, tied with string, and use a measuring cup (collected below water surface) to transfer the bundle to the dt as a temporary pod source.

Thanks! I've actually got 3 of these set up... Picked up on another thread.

I assume this means don't worry about adding a population to start, just let the exisiting live rock population go to work over time?

 

[NMSREEFER]

You could definitely jump start it by ordering a few thousand from reefs2go and more chaeto.

 

[Clowny88]

You could definitely jump start it by ordering a few thousand from reefs2go and more chaeto.

Perfect. Actually they even say on there 500 per 25 gal as a rule of thumb. 1000 BOGO should do the trick.

 

[runjmc2]

Key is to have the right setup to sustain them….adding is easy. You should be in good shape. Had a mandarin for around 7 years… Just lost it, likely old age. Once you have the right balance you should not need to add or mess with it

 

[Clowny88]

Key is to have the right setup to sustain them"¦.adding is easy. You should be in good shape. Had a mandarin for around 7 years"¦ Just lost it, likely old age. Once you have the right balance you should not need to add or mess with it

Yeah I had one in an established 35 about 15-20 years ago... He was around for 6 months or so and disappeared.

Of course back then we didn't have refugiums and clearly didn't know as much about their diet. Im guessing he starved and horseshoe crab picked off the remains. At the time, I thought something ate him.

I would love to have a system that will sustain him long term, thanks for the feedback.

 

[SilverOne]

Yes, get some pods. I prefer Tisbe. The are a warm water species that will reproduce well in refugia. Tigriopus are alright, but the population will slowly decrease since they are not a tropical species... like colder waters. Zoo2 Tisbe.

You can get a small bottle of each and use some phyto2 to feed them. They will reproduce fast off the phytoplankton along with the pods that are living in your tank already.

 

[Canaryman]

Cool idea placing rubble in netting that you can move from fuge to DT and back. What about introducing eggs to a fuge? Such as Brine shrimp? Would that help??

 

[NMSREEFER]

Building Pod Population

In a setup your size, you could add 1000 to the fuge and 1000 to the tank. You could then add the mandarin soon if not immediately. Assuming you feed enough the pods will multiply quickly. They can go from larva to reproducing in less than a month. With chaeto and detritus in the tank you shouldn't have to feed them. The pump will move them from the fuge to the dt if they are connected. You can build rubble piles about the size of a baseball in the dt so they can breed there. They can hide in rubble piles and the Mandarin cannot get them until the babies come swimming out.

 

[davocean]

Normally rubble and chaeto are all you need, chaeto usually will already have them.
as long as you have a fuge free of any predation, food(chaeto) and a place to breed that really should be all you need.

 

[hotelbravo]

im using rubble in my fuge with some macro. (caulerpa brachypus, dragons breath, and some locally collected macro i havent bothered trying to identify).
ive been debating trying to add some chaeto in there also because im not sure how the copepods are liking the current macro

 

[CStrickland]

I had a lot more before I got my parameters under control. I think they like dirtier water. If you aren't keeping picky corals, maybe let your levels come up a bit?

 

[laga77]

In the past I tried to raise pods in a seperate tank or bucket to supplement my Mandys. I had little success until I switched to cheato in the tank. Now I am pulling thousands of pods out of the tank. Stay away from from Reefs2go, you will get very few pods in bad shape. There are better alternatives. http://www.amazon.com/Poseidons-Fea...=UTF8&qid=1430837465&sr=8-1&keywords=copepods

 

[davocean]

I had a lot more before I got my parameters under control. I think they like dirtier water. If you aren't keeping picky corals, maybe let your levels come up a bit?

This is not necessary.

 

[imjedi76]

In the past I tried to raise pods in a seperate tank or bucket to supplement my Mandys. I had little success until I switched to cheato in the tank. Now I am pulling thousands of pods out of the tank. Stay away from from Reefs2go, you will get very few pods in bad shape. There are better alternatives. http://www.amazon.com/Poseidons-Fea...=UTF8&qid=1430837465&sr=8-1&keywords=copepods

I concur, don't get it from reefs2go.. in fact don't get anything from reefs2go. Their customer service is decent, but its hit and miss when it comes to what you get. They advertise copepods and amphipods but the orders that I received were all amphipods and the water was pretty dirty. Poseidon's feast from algaebarn you just pour the whole bag in and it was all tisbe/tigris pods

 

[Clowny88]

I concur, don't get it from reefs2go.. in fact don't get anything from reefs2go. Their customer service is decent, but its hit and miss when it comes to what you get. They advertise copepods and amphipods but the orders that I received were all amphipods and the water was pretty dirty. Poseidon's feast from algaebarn you just pour the whole bag in and it was all tisbe/tigris pods

Wow.... More bang, less buck too. That's interesting.

I'm going to give them a test drive.

 

[NMSREEFER]

Building Pod Population

I've ordered from reefs 2 go several times. All amphipods and not as many as ordered. They have lived and multiplied in my fuge though.

The good thing about amphipods is Mandy's go after the smaller ones allowing the big ones to reproduce. I'm seeing lots of baby's now

 

[Clowny88]

I'm also trying a new rubble setup. Ideally... I wish I could find those little mesh bags that filter media comes in.

Instead, I'm going to set up rubble piles in 3 mason jars. This way I can pull the jars out to direct feed phyto without dilluting. And I can then either dump the jars into the return chamber or into the DT whenever needed.

We shall see how it turns out. Algaebarn's pods on their way.

 

[NMSREEFER]

Don't get a bag so fine they can't get out once they've grown. Just fine enough to hold the rubble together.