Great Idea for Breeding and Moving Pods

[maveri9720]

I saw this on another forum and really liked the idea and simplicity of it and thought it would be of great benefit here too.

Makes moving and breeding of pods very simple and easy. Especially for people with Mandarins or tanks with high pod consumption rates.

Enjoy:

 

[showtime305]

That seems like a good idea but for some reason I don't think it would be very effective. Seems like very little pods will stay in that rock pile.

 

[jefft]

Okay newby question. What is a pod? I probably have them, but I'm not sure.

 

[tsciarini]

 

[maveri9720]

Showtime305;31384 wrote: That seems like a good idea but for some reason I don't think it would be very effective. Seems like very little pods will stay in that rock pile.

Really? I don't have alot of experience with pods, but from everything that I have read, to maintain and boost pod populations, you build yourself a little rubble rock pile in your tank, so they have a safe place to reproduce, w/o the fear of being preyed upon by other fish. Therefore, their numbers take off and you just increased your population in your tank.

This is the same thing, only in a portable format. So you can put this in your fuge, or someone else's, wait a week or two, remove it and put it into someone else's tank or your own.

jefftullius;31388 wrote: Okay newby question. What is a pod? I probably have them, but I'm not sure.

If you don't know what one is, how do you know you probably have them???? :tongue:

Copepods/Amphipods are little tiny crustaceans that make up the majority of marine plankton. Little tiny buggers that swim around your sand and rockwork and basically are food for other animals in your tank. When you have a high consumption rate of these pods, you need ways to replenish them. Whether you use a remote refugium or these little pod "condos", they need a safe place to reproduce, free from the fear of being eaten, at least for the time being. Then they get transferred to the main tank, either by pumps and plumbing or manually, by transferring live rock or sand or algae to the main tank. This then becomes the food source for some fish.

Here's a quick breakdown of them:
http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/crust/copbiol.html">http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/crust/copbiol.html</a>

More in-depth:
[IMG]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copepods">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copepods</a>

Hope this helps.

 

[jefft]

I don't know what the bacteria in my septic tank is, but I probably have some in there. Well I hope so or I'm going to have one h*** of a plumbing bill in the near future. lol

 

[showtime305]

Maveri9720;31392 wrote: Really? I don't have alot of experience with pods, but from everything that I have read, to maintain and boost pod populations, you build yourself a little rubble rock pile in your tank, so they have a safe place to reproduce, w/o the fear of being preyed upon by other fish. Therefore, their numbers take off and you just increased your population in your tank.

This is the same thing, only in a portable format. So you can put this in your fuge, or someone else's, wait a week or two, remove it and put it into someone else's tank or your own.

<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">The reason I said it doesn't seem like it would work is because of the container size. I do agree that a rock pile provides a safe haven for pods to thrive however it just doesn't seem like a container this size it would play a huge role in maintaining the population in a tank with a dragonet or other pod predators. It would be great for sharing/seeding a tank with pods from another system though.</span></span></span>

 

[george]

Well, if you have a fuge, seems that there's no better breeding ground for pods than cheato.

Of course, this solution doesn't litter little green bits everywhere it goes ...

 

[kappaknight]

You can also do it with those strawberry baskets.

 

[schwaggs]

Showtime305;31384 wrote: Seems like very little pods will stay in that rock pile.

One would think that and I would agree, how many pods would live in there until... the other day I bought a frag from a local reef store. It came on the typical aragonite reef plug in the shape of a T. I mixed up some Interceptor (to kill any possible Little Red Bugs) and dropped the small frag and plug in the cup of tank water and Interceptor. 30 minutes later I removed the frag and found 4 pods and a small worm of some sort dead in the bottom of the cup, none of which was noticable.

The point is, in a mature system, they are there even if you can't see them...

 

[showtime305]

Schwaggs;31481 wrote: One would think that and I would agree, how many pods would live in there until... the other day I bought a frag from a local reef store. It came on the typical aragonite reef plug in the shape of a T. I mixed up some Interceptor (to kill any possible Little Red Bugs) and dropped the small frag and plug in the cup of tank water and Interceptor. 30 minutes later I removed the frag and found 4 pods and a small worm of some sort dead in the bottom of the cup, none of which was noticable.

The point is, in a mature system, they are there even if you can't see them...

You are correct. My 10 gallon frag tank only has about 6lbs of rock but every crack is swarming with pods. They are all over the plugs also. I just don't think this device as a safe haven would keep the population at normal levels (if needed to keep a dragonet or pod eating wrasse), large amounts of live rock and a fuge would do wonders beyond the support this device provides. It still is a good transportation device to seed a tank though.

 

[kappaknight]

Actually, I have a softball sized ball of chaeto in the main system (and some more in the fuge). I stuffed the chaeto under rocks away from light so it won't grow out. Anyway, I think there's probably more pods in there in the spaces between the chaeto than there could be in the pile of rocks.

Also, what material was used to net the rock rubble together? Would it rust if it's metal?

 

[george]

Could just take some of that netting used with the rocks, ball it up, wrap it in another couple pieces (like a stingray or shark egg sack) and stuff it away somewhere for the same effect as cheato without the growth in your tank.

 

[showtime305]

kappaknight;31491 wrote: Actually, I have a softball sized ball of chaeto in the main system (and some more in the fuge). I stuffed the chaeto under rocks away from light so it won't grow out. Anyway, I think there's probably more pods in there in the spaces between the chaeto than there could be in the pile of rocks.

Also, what material was used to net the rock rubble together? Would it rust if it's metal?

I do agree that Chaeto houses tons of pods, I will even say it does a better job than a small rock pile.

 

[maveri9720]

The gutter guard is black plastic, so no metal and no chance of rusting or contaminating a tank, as would might happen with a brass fitting of some sort, lol.

This idea isn't to be used to maintain proper levels of pods in tank to be consumed by fish, only a means to provide them a safe place to reproduce and also an easy means of transportation between fuges, other people's tanks, etc.

It's very convenient, easy to move around, easy to clean, which makes it a great idea, as compared to the older ways of just building a rubble pile in your tank, or adding algae from your fuge and having it go everywhere.

It's not a pod factory, but it will help increase your levels and gives you the ability to move them around easily.

 

[cameron]

This should be in the wiki!

 

[kwl1763]

My favortie paragraph from the wiki:

"Copepods are sometimes found in the public mains water supply, especially systems where the water is not filtered, such as New York City and Boston, Massachusetts. This is not usually a problem in treated water supplies. In some tropical countries, such as Peru and Bangladesh, a correlation has been found between copepods and cholera in untreated water, because the cholera bacteria attach to the surfaces of planktonic animals. The risk of cholera from infected water can be reduced by filtering out the copepods (and other matter), for example with a cloth filter."

Who knew Boston and New York water was unfiltered???