Would like to pick your brains about fuge, pod cultures and pod tanks
- Thread starter HiFidelity
- Start date
HiFidelity
Member
Hi, glad to see this thread still going 
I took down my "experimental" pod system because it wasn't producing much pods after the first culture I introduced. I haven't gotten much past that because it's been getting very warm in my garage and as of now I don't have another place for cultures therefore this whole project is on hold. Few days ago as I was staring at my tank and doing maintenance I figured I might as well just focus on growing pods in my system (I run 2 separate refugiums).
So next item on the agenda for me is to start phyto cultures, once I get that going I'll start dosing them into my refugiums and see what kind of pod population I get.
If this works I will be able to cut down on extra work involved in culturing pods and I'm not worried about my mandarin since I'm buying pods 4x a year to repopulate my refugiums (he's very happy & fat looking at the moment).
I took down my "experimental" pod system because it wasn't producing much pods after the first culture I introduced. I haven't gotten much past that because it's been getting very warm in my garage and as of now I don't have another place for cultures therefore this whole project is on hold. Few days ago as I was staring at my tank and doing maintenance I figured I might as well just focus on growing pods in my system (I run 2 separate refugiums).
So next item on the agenda for me is to start phyto cultures, once I get that going I'll start dosing them into my refugiums and see what kind of pod population I get.
If this works I will be able to cut down on extra work involved in culturing pods and I'm not worried about my mandarin since I'm buying pods 4x a year to repopulate my refugiums (he's very happy & fat looking at the moment).
HiFidelity
Member
yes it's great to be able to have the time/space to grow your own culture, at this rate my Mandarin is costing me $120 a year to keep healthy & happy haha
rt67ghy
Member
I don't need to culture pods separately; they're just growing in my sump, refugium and DT. I have a mandarin and don't need to feed him anything since I have a self-sustaining system. I see large pods on some of my corals and smaller ones all over my sand. After I got my mandarin about 8 months ago I did worry that he'd finish all the pods and I set up a 20 g pod tank with sand, 13 pod homes containing approx 11 kg rubble and water from my tank. I keep lights on for algae growth and I have micro algae everywhere which is food for the pods. In 8 months I have never once fed the pod tank but if I take the trouble of taking out a pod home and placing it in a white container I see large pods draining out with the water. Now I don't bother harvesting them since there are way more pods in my DT/sump/fuge than I see in my pod tank.
HiFidelity
Member
this is true yet sometimes it isn't just mandarins that are picking at the pod population. I have a flameback angel and a yellow coris, both of which along with the Mandarin are constantly hunting live food. Before adding these fish my DT had pods EVERYWHERE, literally. Now they are never seen in DT but only in my remote fuge.
Not to say that culturing pods is the only solution but a large enough separate environment for the pods can work, this is exactly why I'm keeping my remote fuge and focusing my efforts on maximizing pod growth in it
Not to say that culturing pods is the only solution but a large enough separate environment for the pods can work, this is exactly why I'm keeping my remote fuge and focusing my efforts on maximizing pod growth in it
Mr. Wiggles
Member
Here is what I was using to grow my phyto:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2453032
I found that dosing the fertilizer out initially and then giving the culture another shot about a week or two later provided much darker and dense phyto cultures. I would let these settle and decant the culture water, or use a centrifuge if you have access to one. Store the concentrated phyto in the fridge and it only takes a few mL to get a nice green color to the pod tank.
For the pods:
I had a 5g tank with a chunk of live rock and maintained the color with the home grown phyto. I kept a slow bubble stream in the pod tank. After a couple weeks the walls of the 5g were literally crawling. I sucked some out and filtered through a coffee filter and then fed my tank the pods.
For bigger things like amiphipods:
Also you might think about some sort of kreisel tank if you want to grow some thing bigger. It will keep the big guys in an allow you to grow the pods and phyto outside. Here is a link to the one I built:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2469088
Easy peasy.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2453032
I found that dosing the fertilizer out initially and then giving the culture another shot about a week or two later provided much darker and dense phyto cultures. I would let these settle and decant the culture water, or use a centrifuge if you have access to one. Store the concentrated phyto in the fridge and it only takes a few mL to get a nice green color to the pod tank.
For the pods:
I had a 5g tank with a chunk of live rock and maintained the color with the home grown phyto. I kept a slow bubble stream in the pod tank. After a couple weeks the walls of the 5g were literally crawling. I sucked some out and filtered through a coffee filter and then fed my tank the pods.
For bigger things like amiphipods:
Also you might think about some sort of kreisel tank if you want to grow some thing bigger. It will keep the big guys in an allow you to grow the pods and phyto outside. Here is a link to the one I built:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2469088
Easy peasy.
rt67ghy
Member
Yes, I've also seen my algae blenny cleaning my back glass of pod. I have a maroon clown in my fuge and he doesn't show much interest at feeding time. I believe he gets the majority of his nutrition from pods which I see there. So I've realized that having enough pods just for the mandarin won't be enough; you have to take into account all the other fish in your tank that also eat them. This is the only reason I'm not getting lyretail anthias which I'd love to get.
My nephew's lionfish (p. volitans) even used to eat large pods he found in his tank which you have to see to believe.
Planning for Pods
Planning for Pods
What if? I am planning a pod breeding tank. Already set up 10 gallon pod breeding tank, gravity fed to 140 gallon display tank w/30 gallon sump. Setting up a timed sump pump to overflow breeding tank into display daily. Has lights, bubbler and chedo. Will add purchased Phyto to light green as needed. Any serious concerns?
Planning for Pods
What if? I am planning a pod breeding tank. Already set up 10 gallon pod breeding tank, gravity fed to 140 gallon display tank w/30 gallon sump. Setting up a timed sump pump to overflow breeding tank into display daily. Has lights, bubbler and chedo. Will add purchased Phyto to light green as needed. Any serious concerns?
laga77
New member
The water in my pod tank is not the greatest quality. I would not pump water from the pod tank into the DD. You need to filter out the pods, then rinse and add.
HiFidelity
Member
Hi I'm back 
UPDATE:
Still buying Phyto, not enough free time to add more projects on top of my struggling husbandry schedule haha.
I did this though; took an old acrylic 5g ATO container and filled it 3/4 of the way with old tank water, hooked up an air pump, dropped a heater and set it to 71 degrees, threw some rocks in the bottom, placed a 6w led bulb (6000k is my guess) and finally grabbed a chunk of chaeto out of my fuge and threw it in there.
Waited 2 weeks and ever since I'm seeing more & more squirmy little specs crawling around against the inside of the little tank, I add a squirt of phyto once or twice a week, I threw some flake food in as well and now the chaeto is growing out of control (faster than my fuge)
PLANS: test the limits of this pod culture, see how badly I can soil the water before the culture crashes, also see how it can do in soiled water without regular phyto dosing and try to get an idea what regiment is easiest & least time consuming yet still grows the most pods.
I'm happy that a haphazard setup like this can grow pods so easily (easier than culturing phyto apparently) I might just keep buying phyto since it's cheaper than pods. I don't plan on using a sieve when I feed my tank pods from the culture, I'll only do a cup at a time siphoning pods off the acrylic surfaces, between my fuges, oversized sump and GFO I'm not too concerned w/ a single cup of dirty water. Don't worry I test my parameters regularly, not going to wreck my tank
My other idea to transport pods from culture to DT is to slightly alter my chaeto harvesting routine, every time I toss chaeto from fuges I'll move a small clump from the culture into the fuge since this chaeto will be fortified with pods as opposed to the fuge which visibly shows a much smaller pod population. trial & error will tell I guess...
What I can say is that now I can genuinely suggest this sloppy/dirty/lazy fill it & forget it pod culture method that I've setup so if any of you are curious and don't want to do too much work get yourself a small container, put old tank water in it and add pods, don't do water changes and be sure to add phyto and/or whatever fish food you have here & there, should be hard to mess up
UPDATE:
Still buying Phyto, not enough free time to add more projects on top of my struggling husbandry schedule haha.
I did this though; took an old acrylic 5g ATO container and filled it 3/4 of the way with old tank water, hooked up an air pump, dropped a heater and set it to 71 degrees, threw some rocks in the bottom, placed a 6w led bulb (6000k is my guess) and finally grabbed a chunk of chaeto out of my fuge and threw it in there.
Waited 2 weeks and ever since I'm seeing more & more squirmy little specs crawling around against the inside of the little tank, I add a squirt of phyto once or twice a week, I threw some flake food in as well and now the chaeto is growing out of control (faster than my fuge)
PLANS: test the limits of this pod culture, see how badly I can soil the water before the culture crashes, also see how it can do in soiled water without regular phyto dosing and try to get an idea what regiment is easiest & least time consuming yet still grows the most pods.
I'm happy that a haphazard setup like this can grow pods so easily (easier than culturing phyto apparently) I might just keep buying phyto since it's cheaper than pods. I don't plan on using a sieve when I feed my tank pods from the culture, I'll only do a cup at a time siphoning pods off the acrylic surfaces, between my fuges, oversized sump and GFO I'm not too concerned w/ a single cup of dirty water. Don't worry I test my parameters regularly, not going to wreck my tank
My other idea to transport pods from culture to DT is to slightly alter my chaeto harvesting routine, every time I toss chaeto from fuges I'll move a small clump from the culture into the fuge since this chaeto will be fortified with pods as opposed to the fuge which visibly shows a much smaller pod population. trial & error will tell I guess...
What I can say is that now I can genuinely suggest this sloppy/dirty/lazy fill it & forget it pod culture method that I've setup so if any of you are curious and don't want to do too much work get yourself a small container, put old tank water in it and add pods, don't do water changes and be sure to add phyto and/or whatever fish food you have here & there, should be hard to mess up
Last edited:
Mr. Wiggles
Member
I see you are in MA, I just moved from there in the spring. I could have given you the darn thing before I moved. Either way it is wicked easy to make.
I think that coffee filter might work. I know I have used spare paper coffee filters before to filter pods out.
karimwassef
Active member
I have pods in my DT and refugium sump. The only variable is adding enough phyto for the babies to cross the larval stage.
My coris, mandarin, six line and melanarus keep the DT cleaned out by day, but by night, the pods crawl all over.
My coris, mandarin, six line and melanarus keep the DT cleaned out by day, but by night, the pods crawl all over.
