Dosing PODS?
 

So, wondering. Does anyone regularly add PODS to their tanks... or live planktons?

Wondering if they just become food or if they will actually become a breeding population.

I have a small refugium, and have considered adding a Bag of live pods here and there, but don't want it to be a single feeding for my fish.

I've added Copepods to my tank on a number of occasions. My Mandarin is by far the most expensive fish that I have ever owned. Although he is fat now and its been six months since the last time I added any.

Tiggerpods will amount to a single feeding. I personally wouldnt waste my money here. You need to find a good source for the right type of pods. You'll need to do some research to avoid wasting money.

- Brad

I think you can just buy a live rock from some one who has lots of pods and put it in your refugium. Feed them and they will grow fast.

no need to buy copepods. For a mandarin, fish roe (masago) and live white worms are doing wonders. Mine eats fish roe, Hikari frozen bloodworms and live white worms. They are fat as can be.

I do have PODs in my system... but I want to ensure always a healthy level. What/how do you feed PODs specifically?


I do not have a Mandarin. I may get one in the future. Just, as mentioned above, want to ensure I maintain a healthy population.

I have added live cultures to the tank before, really no noticeable effects. Personally I think you get a much better variety of pods & plankton from liverock and new coral purchases. It's a shame that a quick Iodine bath kills most of this life but it's usually for the best.

My trick has always been to make a rubble pile somewhere in my tank where detritus naturally builds up and where my fish can't get at my pods. My rubble pile is actually underneath all of my rock in the very back of the tank where it is almost impossible to see. I seeded the tank with some pod-heavy rocks and fed some food to the rubble pile for the first couple of weeks but now just let the detritus do the work for me. It is a POD FACTORY. My mandarin has learned to hang out at the pile at certain times of the day when there is an apparent changing of the guards to to speak... it's like the pods work shifts. Weird.

I also use a CPR bakpak skimmer with the biobale removed. The skimmer acts both like a skimmer and a refugium there is always a ton of pods running around inside of there.

When hanging out with the head of research at the Vancouver Aquarium a couple months ago I brought up the discussion of pods. He said that most pods that you buy won't actually form breeding populations as they eventually just die. Surprisingly a number of the pod species sold in stores aren't native to tropical saltwater conditions are are not raised in those conditions and so die fairly quick in our tanks. Not all, but most. His opinion also was that trigger pods are the devil as they are a predatory pod that can take down other smaller pods and fauna and even kill and eat fish fry (if you ever try to breed fish that is).

Scubasteve-- Did he mention which brands or species do survive?

Not Me... With the amount of live rock in my DT and Sump/Refuge, pods have never been an issue. My mandarin sure loves the ample supply.

I know for having try them that that large tiger pods don,t survive. I think they live in much colder water and only live a few hours to a few days in my tank. They also are mostly free swimming so they get grabbed by the corals and fish in no time.

I have never added pods to my tank. A year and a half old now and I still pull the odd pod out of my sock. My mandarin and pipefish only eat pods so there seems to be a self sustaining population.

A cheaper way of adding planktonic life to your tank is to buy a bunch of shrimp. I have 4 skunk cleaners, two fire shrimp, 3 peppermints, 4 sexy shrimp and 3 pom pomp crabs. All of them reproduce on a regular basis and pollute my tank with yummy larvae.

Tigger-Pods will NOT grow well in your main display tank. They are too large to hide so they get eaten quickly, and they starve because there is not enough microalgae for them to feed on.

They are NOT cold water species. We've been culturing them at 75-90 F for many years.

They are absolutely NOT carnivorous - they feed on microalgae, 1-20 microns in size. When you do the math it's obvious they can't feed on other copepods:

1) Tigger-Pods do not have teeth so they must consume their food whole.
2) The smallest copepod I know is about 90 microns, about 1/10 the size of a Tigger-Pod.
3) That would be the equivalent to a 150 lbs person trying to swallow whole something that weighs 15 lbs.

.....

Tigriopus californicus don't live in the ocean - they live in the warm splash zone pools up above the ocean. These pools are shallow and get quite warm during the day, some much warmer than reef systems. The following published scientific study shows that they live in temperatures ranging from 42 to 92 F:
(http://journals.cambridge.org/action...line&aid=70713).

In the tide pools where Tigger-Pods live there are no predators so they don't have the instincts to hide in the rocks when fish come by. Since they don't hide they get eaten pretty quickly in display tanks. We recommend they be cultured in a sump or refugium where there are no predators. They can also be easily cultured in a separate system like a 9x13 cake pan.

The population of copepods in a reef system is often food limited by the amount of natural microalgae that the reef system produces each day. If you supplement with microalgae you increase the amount of available food, and hence the population that can be supported. When additional pods are added the amount of food required immediately goes up, especially when feeding very large copepods like Tigger-Pods. Unfortunately many people don't add additional microalgae so both the Tigger-Pods and the existing copepod population end up with a food shortage and quickly starve.

So your recommendation?

Paddyob,

That's Randy Reed setting the record straight. His company owns the tigger-pod trade mark. Take a look at his signatue.

We've had this debate before. For what it's worth, I think his summary is spot on.

Take a look here:

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=60578

- Brad

Your refugium should have a slow flow which you can accomplish by having a turned down valve bypass from the outlet from your sump to your main tank,
The outlet from the refugium to your tank should be near the water line. What this means is that the pods and other live goodies are not flowing immediately into the tank. Some of the pods will make it to the main tank and to avoid them being eaten immediately run an ABS pipe right down to the bottom of your tank. Saw some slits in the pipe near the bottom to decrease the flow further and put rock around it. That way when the pods exit the refugium they find protection and a home to breed in the main tank.
Keep an ordinary light on over the refugium at all times. Overfeed the refugium phytoplankton to keep them healthy and multiplying.
Hope this helps.

Ha ok, I thought they were colder water pods because the need to keep the bottle in the fridg.

How do you "overfeed" the refugium with phytoplankton without it all leaking into the main tank? Also I have notice that a lot of my copepods go on the glass when there is a coat of green algae, I guess they eat that too?

What I did is shut off the partially opened valve to the refugium. This allows the phyto to sink down to the bottom and be eaten by all the little inverts including pods. Yes, they love being in the green algae and for that reason the walls of the refugium are left natural
unless the refugium is in the living room and you have a non-reefer spouse/partner.

If you add a centrifuge harvested microalgae to your system you can add large quantities to both your refugium and main tank without any negative affective. Centrifuge harvesting removes all the nitrates and phosphates from the growing media, so you don't run into a problem of adding nutrients and creating an algae bloom in your system. The amounts of nitrates and phosphates in the actual microalgae are negligable.

The more free floating microalgae you add to your system, the more copepods and other zooplankton you will end up with in your system. Its the bottom of the marine food chain, feeding everything else up the chain.