Live pods in cowtown

[digital-audiophile]

Do any of the LFS in town carry those bottles of live pods? I picked up a mandarin and even though I have a decent pod population in my tank.. with a sixline and now a mandarin I am sure it is going to take a hit and I wouldn't mind bolstering the population.

[Pan]

Ocean Aquatics sells them, or direct from reed-mariculture. I've not found a reliable (any) supply in canada yet, aside from oceans, but they run out I have not found them in calgary, but i have not looked lately as the big tank is waiting on me building a stand to get it up. I always ordered direct from reed mariculture.

[digital-audiophile]

Colby told me yesterday that he was going to start bringing in live food

I'm just not sure if anyone else has started. You would think there is a big enough demand in Calgary for them.

[albert_dao]

No offense, but from what I've read and have been told by people who have used this product (I considered bringing them in), they're the biggest rip-off in the hobby. There's like a handful of pods in a huge bottle.

I'm stating this strictly from an assumed point of view, though, no direct experience with the product. So YMMV.

[michika]

You can culture them, if that interests you.

Have you done anything like creating "pod piles" to help ensure your tank's population doesn't become decimated?

[andresont]

I second that and think that “pod towers/piles” would be way better long term solution compare to live pods fro OA. I tried them two times now in both of my tanks (Nano tank has no fish no predators, just coral) and never seen a single tiger pod again in ether of the tanks..
First time I followed the recommended acclimatization process second time I thought that I need to acclimatize for longer because they store these pods in the fridge so I acclimatized for 3(!) days, and still no pods.
However, having said that; there are people on this forum that had better luck with tiger pods in their refugiums

What I do when I can, I go to the ocean tidal zone and pick 20-30 local pods they only live one day under water, but a real treat for the fish . If there is lots I can gather I freeze them and feed later, anemones love them !