Dinoflagellates.

yup, after reading some articles online it appears that tisbe are in fact benthic while tigriopus are palegic...tigger pods are the ones you see at most stores from reef nutrition...they are a colder water species and will not last long in our tanks not to mention they are free swimming and will just get caught in your filter sock or skimmer...buy some tisbe, dump it in your refugium or your display when the lights are out, pumps off...i usually buy tisbe from a local guy and keep bottles in my fridge to recharge the refugium every now and then because i have a mandarin

word of caution to those of you that are in the US - although the prices are attractive do NOT buy from reefs2go...they have very poor practices in shipping livestock with barely any water and most if not your entire order will arrive doa...their customer service is horrid as well...don't just take my word for it, look them up at the better business bureau before you decide to order from them, you'll be glad you did...i know it seems their buy one get one free copepod/amphipod mixture is a great deal but i did buy some and all they send you is a bag with a moist filter pad and a handful of amphipods...no copepods found
 
I agree that their service and shipping is awful!
Amphipods can handle being out of water for a while though. They're pretty tough. I usually get their bogo 500 with free shipping and then add another bogo 1000. That way, there's no shipping and I get about 3000.

I would not buy anything you wouldn't be willing to lose. I don't but fish or coral, or even most crabs and shrimp. But the pods seem ok.
 
After 4 months almost gone in 3.5 days ImageUploadedByTapatalk1443179039.635098.jpg
 
I don't know. Zero new growth. I've also added siphoning every day. Keeping the same tank water. First time I see it staying back.

But I am finally seeing green algae growing. So I'm 90% sure I've won the battle.
 
I don't have any test kits worth testing for. But I have 0 algae apart from dinos. Reduced feedings so phosphates should be low.

I have anemones, montis, frogspawn, hammer, torch, and zoas.
Two clown fish, bicolor blenny, six line wrasse, blood shrimp, ND pistol shrimp.

This is a 40gallon tank? You're in the US?

Sounds like you were trying the clean method. Have you tried the dirty? You actually want your phosphates to be measurable, not crazy, but like .03. Nitrate too, 2-3ppm. I would actually increase feeding. I raised nitrate in my tank artificially, and got green algae within 3 days. Shut off your skimmer, pull antiphosphate media. Give it a week and see how you go.

Cheapest way to get pods is to hit your local classifieds and see who has Chaeto algae.. it has to be harvested so people sell/give it away. It comes with a massive load of various pods. Before I knew I had dinos I gave baseball chunks of it away every month. (Interestingly, none of the recipients got dinos)

hth
ivy
 
So do you see this as a viable export method??

After 3 days of trying it, no. It *does* remove an unholy amount of dinos. Many times more than just running the cloth at night, without the light. The cheesecloth is visibly gross and slimy.

What I don't like is that it also removes almost all the pods out of the water column. They're attracted to the light as well. I've been experimenting with shutting the light off before removing the cloth, which does reduce pod capture, but I'm still pulling way more of the little guys out than I want.

ivy
 
Hmmm... How about a pod grow out 10gal with a live rock, some chaeto and no additional feeding.

They can develop their dino eating habits more in a closed environment. Make them super bugs.
 
Before I scrap the tank... I am thinking about doing one more thing...

Removing fish and dosing phyto and copepods.

If nothing eats the copepods, they will reproduce like crazy no? And eat all the dinos.

I feel like it's hard to get a good population of pods if you have fish like wrasses that eat them like no tomorrow
 
Before I scrap the tank... I am thinking about doing one more thing...

Removing fish and dosing phyto and copepods.

If nothing eats the copepods, they will reproduce like crazy no? And eat all the dinos.

I feel like it's hard to get a good population of pods if you have fish like wrasses that eat them like no tomorrow

Start your own culture of benthic copepods, and begin dosing at night, powerheads off. You probably won't need to dose pyhto until dinos are no longer visible to the naked eye.


I'd imagine if you could get a culture going with 2-3 species it'd work best.
 
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