Copepod question

[memorysan]

Hey, I was looking into information about copepods as I want to have a Manderin fish some day. I know this fish needs an established aquarium with lots of copepods, so I don't plan on adding one soon....just learning about copepods early because I'm still waiting for my supplies to get here.

Anyway, I have a few newbie questions:

I am going to have a 75 gallon aquarium with about 100lbs of rock and a 25 gallon sump/refugium. Will this be a big enough set up to have enough copepods once well established?

Do copepods naturally appear in a FOWLR aquarium or do they need to be introduced?

Would it be better to buy a bunch of them and keep them in the refugium once the tank has cycled to reproduce early so there would be a metric butt load of them when I do get the Manderin Fish somewhere down the line?

I know that the refugium would be a safe place for them to repoduce, with no predators. Do I just put them in there, let them reproduce and they will be sucked into the show tank by means of the pump or do I need to bring them into the show tank manually?

Are they good for cleaning up detrius before they are eaten?

Do I need to worry about feeding them, or should there naturally be enough food for them in the aquarium?

How long do they live? Will keeping a colony of them in the aquarium not being eaten cause a large ammonia spike due to them dying from a short life span?

[bertoni]

I probably would invest in a starter culture, but that might be redundant. Give them some time and some food, and the tank will have plenty of them. Many will eat detritus, as an added benefit. They won't cause any ammonia spike problems.

[cutegecko3]

Tigriopus or tigger pods would be a much better choice.They are benthic(substrate dwelling)and wont be filtered out of the water colum like the little swimming type.Another good choice would be stocking amphiopods as well.I would put half of them in the display tank and half in the fuge.

[ttomkat1]

I think your proposed setup should be just fine. You will want to keep your tank and fuge going for at least 6 months before getting a Mandarin. This will allow plenty of time for bio-diversity to take place before adding a major predator.

[memorysan]

So, I should get a starter culture of them, put the bottle half in the aquarium and half in the display tank, and let them reproduce and be happy for about 6 months. Then the water should be stable enough and there should be enough copepods to make a Manderin one happy camper.

Right?

[bertoni]

That sounds fine. I like the OceanPods product, personally, but I also got a nice starter kit from InlandAquatics.com.