Copepod Breeding Box?

[Danley]

Hello, I was brainstorming today and I had an idea. I don't want to go through the process of buying a sump and lighting to breed copepods for my tank. Would this work? I was thinking about making a sealed box with a hinged clipable lid. I wanted to makerhe box relatively small but also enough to throw a few prices of rock in. I wa thinking of then drilling several holes although small enough for fish to not get through but allow a bit of current through. Would it be possible to then stock the little box with copepods and have them breed in there. It would be hidden behind te rocks in my display tank and it would get fed phytoplankton every day to every other day. What are your thought on this?

[lucidheights]

i tried this before, it ends up accumulating a lot of detritus.

[dwd5813]

for an in tank application i would think a pile of rubble would be the easiest solution but detritus accumulation is a concern. a while back i was researching and came upon a good site that described keeping phyto and pod cultures. i'll see if i can find it again.

[Constantne]

Interesting concept

[ChadTheSpike]

Accumulating detritus is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if your intent is growing pods... they would eat the detritus (btw, pods dont need to feed phyto. They will eat it, but, in general, pods are detrivores and will eat whatever is available).

I think the concept would work (so long as there is enough food available in the system to allow the pods to propogate), periodic cleaning and restarting of the box would probably be necessary to keep things going well and biodiversity higher.

[Danley]

Hmm, well here's a question for you. I really would like to install a refugium soon but here's the questions I have. Would this heat my tank up any more, my tank is stable around 81.1 to 82.9. I don't wanna bump my tank any warmer and if I do a refugium I would like to also do a few mangroves. I don't understand how the water will go to and from the system if anyone can explain. I don't know if their is anything special but I have a red sea max 250. I don't want to add any het to my tank, and I was thinking that more surface area would allow for a bit of cooling especially is I had the water drop a few inches before actually entering the sump, almost like dripping but with more force. I was thinking this would allow more oxygen to enter the system while also cooling the water. But if you need water to come in and go back up into the system ecause the refugium would be user my display which is 65 gallons, I would think you would née a pretty large pump which heats up thus heating up the water. Also lighting would be their to heating up the water more. The refugium would also be in a closed cabinet and I could put a few fans in to cool it down a bit more. The back of the cabinet is practically open but theirs only about an inch or two of space between the cabinet and wall. So I guess what I'm really asking is these things: I need someone to explain what a refugium needs and explain how everything works and what I'll need. Basically all the mechanical aspects please keep it simple because I'm 16 and far from a plumber but I dk know the basics hehe. Then would this add or take heat from the display. The refugium will be 10-20 gallons due to not having lots of room to work this. So I'll probably just have one mangrove and a few pieces of live rock for my copepod breeding grounds. If you could PLEASE take the time and explain all of this to me I would be greatly appreciative!

[Danley]

Sorry for all the bad spelling, I promise I know how to spell just a bit difficult in scho and on an iPhone