Using refugium as a zooplankton producer?

[Sparkss]

I agree with psyrie.. there have been cases where small snails and stomatella have made it past the pumps and into the main tank, intact and alive. If they can traverse the impellor safely, then a pod should have no trouble at all.

 

[graveyardworm]

Dont know if I posted this already but I had an amiricle skimmer run off a Rio 600 with a special cover for venturi setup, and I had a peppermint go through the pump and survive he was really beat up but went on to live many months later ( may still be alive just lost track of which one it was).

 

[Psyire]

Things I've had pass through my External GenX PCX55HP pump:

(Perhaps not in adult form, but definately in some form because they've multiplied in my main tank)

Coralline Algae
Green Algae
Red Algae
Aptasia
Isopods
Copepods
Amphipods
Unknown Sand burrowing pods
Bristleworms
Vermetid Snails
Hydriod Jellyfish
Flatworms (good kind)
Feather Dusters
Pineapple Sponges
Chitons

 

[Fredfish]

OK graveyard, you win the grand prize. I don't think I have heard of anyone else squeezing something that big through an aquarium pump.

The conclusion here is that most small things survive quite nicely going through pumps.

Fred

 

[Redstratplayer]

Old thred but......

Do you guys think clowns would eat baby mollies?

 

[Redstratplayer]

Old thred but......

Do you guys think clowns would eat baby mollies?

 

[Fredfish]

Don't know off hand, but with all the foods prepared specifically for marine fish, why would you try?

Fred

 

[Sparkss]

Fred
not to overstate the obvious, but he is asking because that is the topic of this thread, if you hadn't noticed

Redstratplayer
I have seen clowns eat other small foods that are animal based in nature, no reason to think that planktonic food comprised of baby mollies would be any different. There are a couple of good threads about using mollies, both in a refugium, and also in the main tanks, for producing a relative constant supply of live planktonic food. Plus if used in the display tank they have the added benefit of eating several kinds of algae IIRC.

 

[Fredfish]

Not so obvious to me I guess. I never thought of molly fry as plankton.

Fred

 

[Sparkss]

There are a couple of good threads about using them as "plankton generators" in reef tanks, since mollies can live in fresh, brackish or salt water and breed several times per month. When you think about it, most spawn events in a reef tank never make it because the fry get eaten up by every other fish in the tank (unless they are netted out soon after they are born and moved to an appropriate, separate, tank setup). The mollie fry are not really that much different, outisde of our purposefully using them for live food

 

[garbled]

An airlift is a vertical pipe with a powerful air pump feeding it on the side. The large volume of bubbles causes the waterlevel to rise in the pipe, giving you lift. It works basically the same as a skimmer, except you want big bubbles, not small. You can get a ton of flow out of them, but its very difficult to lift the water very high.