Clowns and pods

[rachelcb80]

Quick background story; I tore my 125 gallon tank down and kept my Mandarin to put in my 20 gallon. Got a pod culture up and going and have been adding pods several times a week to keep the Mandarin fed. He's still not getting enough though and looks to be losing weight so he's going to move on to a more suitable home. That leaves me with a thriving pod culture.

Each time I add pods to the display tank, my clowns gobble them down as fast as they can (probably part of the reason my Mandarin isn't getting enough). I like the idea of feeding live food and keeping the nutrient level down in my tank as much as possible. My question is, how nutritious are pods for Clowns? I'm assuming they're a good food source for Clowns since they are for Mandarins and Wrasses, but you know what assuming does so I figured I'd ask. I'm looking at replacing 3 or 4 feedings a week with pods if they are in fact a nutritious food source. (My pods are grown with Phyto-Feast so they aren't fed just a single algae type)

I'd love to get whatever input anyone has on this!

 

[romsoccer12]

Feed your clowns more food like mysis so they wont keep going after the pods your mandarin wants.

 

[rachelcb80]

It doesn't matter how much you feed, the Clowns go after whatever is floating in the water column. That being said though, I'm trying to keep the feeding of frozen and flake food to a minimum to keep the nutrient levels low in my tank. I'm avoiding over feeding from the start with this tank.

 

[tufacody]

If you are avoiding frozen and flake, what are you feeding? Just pods?

 

[romsoccer12]

get live brine than..

 

[rachelcb80]

I'm not avoiding frozen and flake food all together, just trying to keep it to a minimum. I feed frozen mysis, cyclopeeze, flake food and Reed Maricultured's Arctic Pods. At this point the copepods have just been extra for the clowns. My original question was how nutritious are copepods when it comes to clowns? I'd like to replace several feedings during the week with pods if their nutritional value is good.

 

[tufacody]

i've always understood pods to be about as good as it gets nutritionally, but i'd be surprised if anything other than juvenile clowns can get enough of them.

 

[Toddrtrex]

I have never added bottled ones, but my tanks are full of them. In my 33 cube they are even out during the day, and have never seen my perc pair go after then.

I personally think that yours are going after then because they are being added, and they go after them as food. I don't think it would work as a replacement food -- too expensive and don't see them going after ones that are on the rocks/sandbed.