corals eating pods?

[Sk8r]

I have a 54 g with lps coral---a LOT of lps coral. The whole tank is packed with it, it's growing, has maxed out the tank and doubled in size this year: I keep fragging it, until I am beginning to wonder if my lps hates to see me coming with buckets. [Regimen: feeding ground krill, dripping kalk: gallon + a day evaporation.]
But in spite of my very healthy 20g fuge, I'm not getting the pods I used to get. I can no longer keep mandarins, notably, and am beginning to wonder if the lps that so happily scarfs up ground krill and fish poo from ground krill doesn't also do a number on the pod and mysis population, which has just (pardon me) tanked.
Any thoughts on this?

 

[Acrophiliac]

Lps can and do eat any pods that they can catch in there feeders, I dont know why you wouldnt still have a healthy population of pods in the fuge though?

 

[SushiGirl]

Our pod population in the fuge dropped dramatically in July and August, not sure why. It's starting to rebound now. Also noticed rather than seeing amphipods in the DT we're seeing tons of isopods and very few amphipods. Maybe just some natural cycle.

 

[spieszak]

Could the LPS be eating up their food source? Maybe try a little phyto? I've been looking at culturing pods, and the amount of phyto they take from the water is pretty fascinating... I've also read that breeding is the first thing they stop doing when not well fed. As I said, i'm looking at culturing, meaning no meaningful experience, just research... but a small amount of phyto shouldn't be enough excess to tank your tank...

 

[Sk8r]

I just had a revelatory moment while answering somebody's question about film algae.
I run a gfo, and I also have strombus grazer snails. This combo has nearly blitzed the film algae on my glass, so I have clear glass without having to scrape it, and now I'm supplementing my poor starry blenny who got too thin before I realized he had no film algae. I'm going to unplug the gfo and see if that will help the blenny.

I think more than the lps, the gfo and those snails are doing it in.

 

[GreshamH]

I suspect your right (less food = smaller population)

 

[NinjaBum]

In my macro tank I had an explosion of film algae, so much so that my water is cloudy. my pods are plastering my glass and if you look at the sandbed it looks like a beehive. My mandarin can't even keep up. She doesn't even have to move spots, she just sits in the corner pecking the same piece of glass over and over. Pods also love ulva from what I can tell, so the addition of that could help. I expect my pod population to fall back in line when I add a UV sterilizer. Planktonic blooms of algae definitely drive their population.