copepods for reef tank?

[69camaro540]

i was going to seed my tank with copepods. would that be benefical to the system?

[bigfruits]

yes. food supply and cleaning crew

[rustybucket145]

Probably one of the most beneficial things could do for your corals and fish. Be sure to turn off your skimmer for an hour or so after you introduce the copepods. This gives them time to find nice hiding spots.

[REEFUR]

does anyone have a good source for these kitte buggers?

[69camaro540]

thanks.

[bllfish]

www.sharkysreef.com

[bertoni]

I've bought from InlandAquatics.com and OceanPods.com, and liked the products.

[fightingobblers]

You'll get a lot more out of a pound of live rock then you will in a bottle of pods, and for much less.

[bllfish]

I don't think so. 500+ - $20

[fightingobblers]

Do you even realize the number of pods that are in live rock?
Why do you think there are some many posts about "Little white bugs"


Go ahead and order some, I did, and will never do it again. Maybe 10 to 20 pods that were visible with the nake eye. I'm not doubting that there are 500+ in the bottle, but not of the size you would be expecting for the price.

[jasno999]

huh?

[mpomfret]

I started my tank 5 days ago with water, sand and LR. I posted my "little white bug" question last night. There are 100's of the little guys in there from 30lb of LR.

[bllfish]

Put a Tiger Wrasse and a Mandarin in your tank and see how long all those "Little White Bugs" last. The more live rock you keep adding to your tank, the more chance you have of introducing anemones, mantis shrimnp, red bugs, crabs etc that are a threat to your corals and fish. Hope the rock you get is fully cured. Where do you add rock after your tank has been established for years and loaded with livestock? Should I keep moving my corals around so I can squeeze another piece of rock into my tank? I think you can see the advantage of buying pods.

[fightingobblers]

I'm merely trying to point out that you aren't getting much for your money.

Yeah, if you want to culture your own pods then go ahead, but certainly don't expect 500 +/- to last any period of time either.

Typically you're not going to introduce species that need to survive on them until well after your system can sustain itself.

[mikeatjac]

I agree that LR is the best source for PODs. I have bought bottled pods but nothing can compare to the life that live rock introduces.

[bllfish]

Can your tank ever sustain itself? I agree live rock is the best source but there comes a time when you either do not have the room because by removing rock for new you are also removing a lot of established life and the risk far outweighs the benefit. I believe it is best to avoid touching/rearranging my corals to get some rock to replace. I have had my 72 up for three years and before that a 29 whose rock I used in the 72 for 4 years. I introduced the Mandarin about 6 months ago and the wrasse about 3 weeks ago. My pod population has been drastically reduced and I am waiting for my fuge to arrive to cultivate the pods. I am just saying that I do not believe buying pods is a waste of money.

[fightingobblers]

That's fine, but those fish can wipe out 500 pods in no time. $20 plus shipping for 500 pods is a little pricey.

I added a small 6-line to my mother-in-law's 29 which was covered with pods, within 2 days you had to look hard to find any. If the fish can find them, they're going to eat them, so 500 is not a large number.

Again, if you want to take those 500 pods and culture them separately, and sustain your display population from that, no problem, go ahead.

Once you get your fuge set up, you will be in much better shape, and the pods will actually have place where they can flourish.

As I said earlier, I did buy into the hype and ordered some pods early on, but will never do it again. If there were 500 in my bottle you'd need some significant magnification to find 490 of them.

[fightingobblers]

Just as an aside, and I am actually a little curious. Has anyone ever tested the water that the pods come in? Theoretically it should be clean, but in reality you are actually adding water from someone elses system.

[bllfish]

Good Point. I did not even think about that. I just placed my first order and they will arrive on Tuesday. I will test the water.

[tag]

just curious, how does sharkreef legally claim 500 pods will be in their bottle? It seems impratical that they have somebody counting each pod in there? Maybe there is 1000 in there maybe there is 63.

But I'm in agreeance, get some established live rock from fellow reefers in your area. The best way i've found is to buy frags from them that are attached to LR.

[bigfruits]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6878175#post6878175 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by fightingobblers
Has anyone ever tested the water that the pods come in? Theoretically it should be clean, but in reality you are actually adding water from someone elses system.

im pretty sure that the water the in bottle comes from a separate breeding/culture tank that has never seen any kind of fish or coral. probably just algae and phytoplankton so disease shouldnt be a problem. wouldnt be a bad idea to call and make sure.

if youre still not comfortable about adding the water you can get a very fine sifter and pour them into that and then into your fuge. not a pasta strainer but one made for this type of thing. the pic of the pods in sharky's bottle are huge and should be easy to catch this way.

the best bet if ordering 500 pods in a bottle is not to add them to the main tank but to add them to a refugium with a food supply and shelter so that they can multipy.

if you dont have any visible pod predators in your main tank, i dont see why it wouldnt jump start your pod population. especially if you have a new system without live sand and cooked rock.

id probably pass on ordering the pods unless you plan to keep a mandarin or another big pod predator and have a refugium or some type of shelter for reproduction. if you already own a mandarin and you plan on dumping the pods into your main tank, they probably wont last long enough for any noticeable population increase.

[fightingobblers]

I don't think there is any real way to gaurantee that there are 500, the majority of them a very tiny, so you wouldn't really be able to count.

Will definitely agree that they should be added to the fuge, but if you don't have a fuge, then it's likely that you won't be able to sustain a mandarin, and I wouldn't want to support one by adding 500 pods at $20 a bottle as often as would be necessary.

[Hooligomy]

The copepods we sell are from Reef-Nutrition. We are just a distrib.

The information on that product can be found here: http://www.copepod.com/

I will try to get someone from Reef-Nutrition to post about their process since I have no knowledge on this process.

[Hooligomy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6876806#post6876806 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by fightingobblers

Go ahead and order some, I did, and will never do it again. Maybe 10 to 20 pods that were visible with the nake eye. I'm not doubting that there are 500+ in the bottle, but not of the size you would be expecting for the price.

FightingGobblers - Did you order the Tigger Pods from us? If you did and you were unhappy with the purchase please let us know.

[smcnally]

Guys, these bottles of Pods aren't meant to pour into your tank for your fish to just gobble up at dinner time. You should build a rubble pile in your sump or a less busya area of your tank and then empty the bottle into it. The will seed that area. 500 pods may not be a lot, but that is 500 pods mating and reproducing.

[BLANKENSHIP76]

Or you can just get your mandarin to eat mysis, mine does?????

[seafarm]

There are a couple of reasons to buy pods - to restart your culture from a "clean" source, and/or to introduce copepods with specific attributes to your system. Otherwise live rock is a pretty good option.

The unique attributes of our Tigger-Pods (Tigriopus californicus) is that they are HUGE. Typically the pods that come in wild are in the 200-500 micron range, just at the range the human eye can see. Adult Tiggers are around 2,000 microns and very easy to see (about the size of juvenile brine shrimp).

We make our own water, and that's what the Tiggers are shipped it. Our fresh water comes from an on-site well from about 600' down. We run about 1,000,000 of salt water for our microalgae business so we bring in flat bed trucks of salt, all kiln-baked for sterilization. After the salt is mixed with the water it is heat pasteurized for 20 minutes at 160 F (this happens to all of our water every 3-4 days).

There are typically 500-700 adults in each bottle and hundreds of babies that you can't see (these critters are constantly reproducing).

I'll be happy to answer any other questions about our products :)

[fightingobblers]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6880122#post6880122 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SharkysReef
FightingGobblers - Did you order the Tigger Pods from us? If you did and you were unhappy with the purchase please let us know.

I didn't order from you, but they're all basically the same thing

[bllfish]

What an optimistic attitude. Hope you never get some bad live rock, fish or corals.

[fightingobblers]

It's not like I ordered from some off the wall place. I ordered from oceanpods,

SharkysReef has tigerpods, whereas you're supposidly getting a variety of species from oceanpods. Either way, they are basically the same thing, as I "optimisticly" stated.:D

[bllfish]

:wavehand:

[seafarm]

There are 14,000 species of copepods and they are all pretty much the same, just like dolphins and whales are the same. The differences are subtle :)