Question about copapods-Cheeto feeding

[Cstone123]

I recently stocked my 29 gal refugium center bay with sand bed, broken live rock, Cheeto & Algie barn 5280 copapods. My question, how much and how often do I feed Phyto to the pods. Do I put it in tank or sump. Also while I’ve got yah, how often and how much would you feed zoo plankton. 90 gal lps tank. Standard stuff, few fish, good clean up crew few cucumbers , hermits, snails, emerald crabs, etc. my feeding routine is this. Pellets in am for fish, 1/4 cube of frozen brine shrimp in afternoon, small squirt of Phyto in sump after lights out and 2 times a week a few teaspoons of zooplankton after dark. A few times a week I will hand feed my anemone but rarely hand feed coral. Had this tank running for a yr now. Doing good but I’m not seeing a lot of growth. Except fish. Double size. Any feedback?

[ramseynb]

LPS can be slow growing depending on the LPS. I have some zooplankton (frozen pods, etc) mixed in with my fish food mixture that I made and I feed two small cubes (about 1/4 or 1/3 the size of a packaged cube) of that a day. I'll spot feed my LPS once a week or two with some reef frenzy pellets and/or mysis. I also dose amino acids. I have good coloration on my LPS and good growth from most of them (chalices, acans, etc). Currently, I just have the bottom and part of the middle of the tank with LPS as I'm giving it more time to mature before stocking SPS. I do have some SPS on a frag rack, including two acros that I got as freebies (was going to wait to add any acros) and they're doing well so far.

With phyto, if you're going to feed your pods, I'd turn off your return pump and let the phyto sit in your fuge for a while. Broadcast feeding it won't hurt anything and other filter feeders will like it but you are adding nutrients to your tank. I don't bother with pods and just let them self regulate. Of course, I have a small wrasse so I don't see many of them. Unless you have a fish that needs a constant supply, like a mandarin, it's probably more trouble than it's worth to feed phyto. It'll definitely keep your pod supply up, but buying phyto to feed pods is probably more expensive than just buying fish/coral foods.

[Subsea]

Your feeding schedule is good. Your refugium will become a zooplankton generator of live food as the copepods recycle nutrients into live food for filter feeders, which includes corals. Live copepods are much more nutritious than anything you can squirt from a bottle.

If you read up on the three species of copepods which you seeded you will find that they are both herbivore and detrivore at differrent life stages.

Feed heavy. No filter sock on raw water into refugium, because detritus is food for detrivores which includes pods. You should put some bristles worms as the produce larvae as live food.

IMO, if you feed heavy, you will not need to add phytoplankton as your tank will be producing it already.

[Cstone123]

Man, my sump is super loud without the 2 - 7” sock filters in it. I get your point though. Not much sense in setting up copes if your going to filter what they eat before it gets to them. Kind of sucks to have to shut the tank down every day for half hour to feed Phyto into sump so it doesn’t just go through the system.

[Subsea]

I don’t feed phytoplankton as marine systems produces it in the tank.

http://www.fondriest.com/environmental-measurements/parameters/water-quality/algae-phytoplankton-chlorophyll/#algae2

On my 25 year old 75G Juaubert Plenum display, I have a 30G EcoSystem mud/macro refugium. The first compartment with bioballs would break up detritus but most importantly provide good gas exchange as water tumbled over rubble.

[sde1500]

I never bother to turn off pumps to feed the tank phyto. I've tapered off the last couple weeks, but at one point was feeding a gallon a week. Just broadcast it. Those pods won't just live in your fuge, so no point trying to keep the phyto just in the fuge either.

[Cstone123]

I know the pods will migrate throughout my tank. My ourpose in planting them was to create a safe place for them to reproduce (sump) and allow the overflow of pods help feed the tank on a fairly consistent basis. Just another layer of palpable ecosystem to help the stock.

[sde1500]

Of course, I absolutely understand why you seeded them in the fuge. I was strictly speaking about feeding them. They are everywhere, feed the whole tank.

[Cstone123]

Thanks babe, will do. I agree.