Copepod Question

[CrabDiver]

I didnt know where to ask this question, but since I plan to get pipefish and seahorses, I thought I could get help here.

I have a 65 gallon tank, cycled for about two months. It is seagrass and macroalgae dominated with about 10 pounds or so of LR.

I have a mandarin who is getting thinner by the day. I tried pellets, live brine, homemade frozen, fozen myosid, and yes, even caviar, to no avail. He is not eating.

Today my LFS finally got live baby copepods.

I bought a little plastic reptile container, drilled a bunch of holes all over, and placed it into my sump with a handful of chaemo algae, before pouring in the baby copepods. I have a small table lamp on 24/7 illuminating the sump.

My question(s):

1.Will the copepods manage to stay in the container in the sump and mature a little before getting sucked into the pump?

2. Will the pump (a Little Giant pump) rotator drill them to pieces, as the fish guy at the store told me it wouldn't?

3. If they can mature, and survive the pump into my main tank, won't they simply be sucked right back into the outflow and end up in my wet-dry filters and have a miserable little ending?

What do you think? (Im a newbie) I really want to start a copepod cultivation, since I want to introduce searhorses and pipefish later on.

 

[aquasena1]

I usually pour my copepods directly into the main tank -- down behind the live rock -- after the lights have gone out for the night. I don't know if the could survive a trip thru my pump.

I have a continous supply of fresh pods harvested from the filter sock on the overflow tube from our fish only with live rock tank.

Recently, I started a pods culture in a plastic container sitting on the counter. I added cheato and liquid phytoplankton, have 16 hours/day lighting and a light stream of air bubbling in the container. Every other day I pull the cheato and shake it in my baby seahorse grow-out tank and pods scurry out. There are always pods left in the plastic container to keep the culture going.

I'd suggest you try filter socks on all your tanks to see if you can catch pods before they hit your sump. I've also heard of people culturing pods in filter socks in their sump, but I would add liquid phytoplankton to help speed up copepod growth.

 

[CrabDiver]

Thanks for the info Aquasena. That sounds like a good idea. I was keeping adult brine in a medium-sized jar container with an air pump and made the mistake of introducing some egg yolk as a food source. The brine all died overnight in a massive egg-induced bubble holocaust.

So how many times do you change the water?

Also, what is a "filter sock"?

My present system, of keeping the pods in a little container in the sump, is great if the pods can actually go through the pump. I searched online but couldn't find out how the rotor works.

Does anybody have any experience with little pods going from the sump to the main tank through a Little Giant pump?

Yesterday I was shining a light over the container but couldn't see any pods. I hope they are all still there just too small to be seen.

Aquasena do you think if I get another baby pod source and dump it into the seagrass/algae bed behind the LR they could grow enough before being eaten by the mandarin?

 

[ReidiLoverLinds]

Dont change the water. In field tests pods grow alot better the cruddier the culture is. If you try to change the water your culture will probably crash.

 

[NapoliNewJersey]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11684160#post11684160 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by CrabDiver
Thanks for the info Aquasena. That sounds like a good idea. I was keeping adult brine in a medium-sized jar container with an air pump and made the mistake of introducing some egg yolk as a food source. The brine all died overnight in a massive egg-induced bubble holocaust.

So how many times do you change the water?

Also, what is a "filter sock"?

My present system, of keeping the pods in a little container in the sump, is great if the pods can actually go through the pump. I searched online but couldn't find out how the rotor works.

Does anybody have any experience with little pods going from the sump to the main tank through a Little Giant pump?

Yesterday I was shining a light over the container but couldn't see any pods. I hope they are all still there just too small to be seen.

Aquasena do you think if I get another baby pod source and dump it into the seagrass/algae bed behind the LR they could grow enough before being eaten by the mandarin?

Do you have a refugium in your tank?

A filter sock is just that, it's a sock that you put over the end of the drains going into the sump and it removes larger particles that are in the water.

I have a quiet one pump and the flow through just fine. These guys are very small and you don't need to worry about them gettn chopped up.

You can try putting sponge in the sump. They will live and it will become a copepod hotel. Works great.

 

[ReidiLoverLinds]

Actually the best thing to do now that i think about it is too add a cup or two of water to the tank now and then and use an ammonia binder like amquel +

 

[Animal Mother]

Hope it works out.

Sadly a lot of mandarins do die of starvation. They honestly need lots of live rock to provide them with the amount of food they require, and a mature established tank... not trying to discourage you... but... yeah. Adding a refugium in addition to or into the sump would be a good idea so that you always have a breeding area where there are no predators. It was the best move we ever made on our tanks.

Hopefully at some point it will accept some prepared frozen mysis.