? About pod/phyto cultures

[YankeeTankee]

Will/how long will living phyto survive after being added to a typical reef tank? Is this just dependent how how many fish there are to consume it? OR does it not grow/reproduce well in DTs?

 

[lavoisier]

I'm certainly not an expert but my experience suggests the need for a separate culture in order to keep up the quantities to feed a reef system long term.

 

[Jeeperz]

Ok, I've got 4 buckets of pods going for over a month. How do I harvest them without getting all the gunk off the bottom? They seem to be only moving around on the bottom of the bucket with few swimming.

 

[reef lover]

Fine micron sieve.

 

[lapin]

search amazon
Rotifer Copepod Sieve

 

[Jeeperz]

I have 53, 150, 250, 475, and 1000 micron screens but how do I get the pods that are mostly on the bottom with the debris without sucking up all the debris? I see very few swimming pods but probably thousands on the bottom.

 

[HTXReefer]

Ok, I've got 4 buckets of pods going for over a month. How do I harvest them without getting all the gunk off the bottom? They seem to be only moving around on the bottom of the bucket with few swimming.

Do you have a light source over your pods. I run a 10 gallon tank with about 3-4 gallons of saltwater in it. I also use two separate air lines to the pod culture. lThis is on a work bench with a LED strip light and a lot of the pods seem to swim up to the light and I use a fine mesh to scoop them out. I can pull hundreds out a day and not kill the population.

 

[Jeeperz]

No light over pods but they are under a large south facing picture window in my basement office so they get quite a bit of natural light. When I hold a bright light above them they don't swim towards it but continue moving around in the debris on the bottom. The blue buckets do have a large population of swimming pods. These were started with algae barn 5280 and Eco pods and reef nutrition Tigger pods

 

[HTXReefer]

I feed my pod culture pure spirolina powder from a vitamin shop. While I have a ton on the bottom of the tank the water column is almost infested with swimming pods