pod piles

[philosophile]

So I've been thinking of building some pod piles in my tank, just for supplemental copepod growth.... I'd like to get a mandarin in the future (far future when I get a bigger tank) and I wanted to experiment making some good pod piles in existing system so I can get an idea of what I'll need to do in my larger system. (I'll have a refugium too, but IMO you can't have too many pods)


So, I was wondering what kind rubble/rock you use to make pod piles with. "coral bone"? crushed coral? large hunks of rubble rock? all of the above?

[Cheebs]

I've done it with moderate success with small hidden piles of small bits of live rock. My best success has been with a decent wad of cheato shoved somewhere that I trim every once and awhile. Nothing else really gets in there

[Paul B]

Pods will live on, in or under anything but the object should be matured, or have been in the water for a while. The pods will eat the bacteria or bacterial slime growing there. You should not have to actually build anything as long as you have rocks. The more porous, the better.
Then you can order a truckfull from here

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh270/urchsearch/moving1.jpg

[jc-reef]

^^^^ Couldn't resist could you....:lolspin:

[Paul B]

Not really, but I tried hard :smokin:

[milesofreefs]

why not just do small piles of rocks and shells. i did that in my 29 right against the glass and i could see thousands of little pods hanging out in the pile. i did it for my scooter blenny and he would just hangout on the rock pile all day and eat.

[Cheebs]

I think the one advantage of having the piles is so that other creatures that may fancy them don't clean too many of them out before fish like mandarins can get to them. I had that problem, so I added some cheato and a little "pod ofrt" and my mandarin would hand around there and pick at them.

[Raggamuffin]

I used to use 1" pvc cut into 2 or 3 inch sections, plastic screening on the ends and a couple daps of glue. Had 15 or 20ish in my 75g tank and you could shine a light through one and it was amazing how packed in there the buggers got.

[Psirex]

will give this a shot as well...

[philosophile]

Hmm... That sounds interesting. (the PVC thing) I was actually throwing around an idea that instead of using just rock that I would stick soda straws in there, cut short, bunched up, and weighted down with some LR... Because it sounds like there needs to be lots of surface area, and protection, which the straws would do...

[snorvich]

A pile of live rock rubble works great. Or you can do mail order as Paul said.