Pods

[mikerobart]

Thought I would post this here rather than on my build thread! Anyone culturing copepods for use as live food / seed cultures for refugiums ?

I did see some pods on some of my LR as I transferred it from my old tank to the new one, and I am sure with a good amount of rock I will get plenty in time. I have about 1/3 of my fairly small (36" long, baffles ~12" high ) sump dedicated to a refugium.

In my case, I simply have no room to attach a larger refugium to the system, so I really need to get good productivity out of my small space, or potentially have a dedicated separate culturing system, if I am to sustain a pod population for a *fingers crossed* mandarin dragonet.

I don't want to be the next guy on the list to take one of these home and kill it, nor do I want to wait a year until all the rock is teeming with pods.

Right now I have ~30lb of more mature rock  (mostly out of very establish tanks), and 84lb of newer rock in the 90 gallon tank. I will try to add more mature rock as I go.

I have read some simple ways to culture pods, and I think I will consider rigging something up with either a spare 10g tank I have lying around, or a 5g water jug, or a 5g pail.

I plan to also have a shrimp goby, which would also be a pod consumer. Does anyone think my tiny fuge could keep up with they goby/mandarin ? I plan to supplement with purchased pods as necessary but would like it not be as infrequent as possible.

[Vincenzo.]

^wait a month..they will be booming with pods.
fyi my pistol/goby live fine off feeding time. it's the mandarin or dragonet you will need lotta pods. but you have a large tank plus fuge..so i think you will be fine