Copepods 101???

[sn4265]

I'm thinking that here in a few months we are going to be looking at getting a Mandarin. Hopefully we will be able to find one that eats frozen foods, but I'm not going to count on that so I would like to learn more about copepods. I've been reading numerous threads on the forums and I seem to be coming up with as many questions as I've found answers...

How much copepod population do I need to support each Mandarin? Which kind of copepods are best for Mandarins? I've seen a LOT of these threads referencing Phyto, what is this? Is phyto needed in a fuge to ensure healthy copepod reproduction? Does light effect copepods and/or their reproduction?

This is really just the tip of the iceberg it seems. What I think I'm really after is a full blown document on copepods and Mandarins. I'm sure that I'm missing plenty of questions here. Does anyone have a link to some good information? Any books that have a good chapter or two about copepods and Mandarins?

Thanks in advance.

[BIG_KAHUNA]

I'm no pro but here's what I did to support my mandarin and long nose hawkfish. I do dose phyto as this is the bottom of the food chain in our tanks. phyto is food for rotifers which also feed copepods, etc. The key is having an area in the system that will allow a population to continue to expand without the fish demolishing it. So a refugium help in this sense but I had a hard time getting the pods back into the DT w/o them being all chopped up and dead floating around. This was ok for the hawk fish but the mandarin is always looking down ya know? so you gatta have live copepods in the DT for him/her to hunt. (They have INCREDIBLE eyesight btw) SO I made a copepod pile in the back of the DT behind the main reef wall. Check out my 57g thread for pictures on the second page. It basically a pile of LR rubble packed tight enough that the fish cant get between them but the pods can repopulate and wonder out alive and healthy. lol hope that helps?