peristaltic pod transport
 

has anyone used a peristaltic pump to move pods and other critters from a refugium?

or will the peristaltic pump chop the critters into little bits too

How on earth would you get the pods into the tubing? You'd have to have an insanely dense concentration of them lol. The device probably can't run 24-7 which would be your only hope of actually getting many to take the ride =)

Besides that the devices work with rollers that pinch the tube. It's practically designed to crush pods!

is there ANY pumps that can lift the little critters without chopping them to bits?

Probably need an air lift type setup...

Yes. An airlift or an Archimedes screw type pump would have the least shearing effect.

That said ... copepods aren't realy going to be chopped into little bits by pumps and powerheads. Our perspectives on this are skewed a little. If I take my finger and jam it into the impeller of a running pump I can expect it to hurt because, comparatively, my finger is this big immobile object that is going to be hit repeatedly by the blades of the turning impeller.

A copepod on the other hand is tiny. The body will get sucked in and immediately shot out by the centrifugal forces and probably doesn't even ride through the impeller blades for a a complete turn of the impeller. Likely there will be the occasional unlucky one but most of the times they just get shot out a litte dazed and or dizzy but not really dead.

I imagine allot of them find themselves taking a ride through the return pump ending up in the DT, I know from time to time I've found them in my skimmer cup when I'm dumping the content into the sink and rinsing it down the drain...

damn this internet machine, it read articles claiming that 80% of pods passing through return pump impellers get killed, i'll take your guy's words over the random reef article anyday

lol 80% - ask that fool to show his manual count of the pods. Fish dont care if the pods are whole or halfed.

Pods = yummy in any form.

Bacon of the sea :)

I would have to agree here with Tony, I had zero pods in my DT and lots in my sump. Then I started noticing them every where in my DT. So that would tall me they made it threw the return pump and are now a nice little snack for my Manderin.

is it ever necessary to go out and buy pods or is it pretty well standard to just let em come in with live rock and multiply on their own