While I wait for my current batch of fish to finish treatment in my Hospital tank I'm getting bored. I was sitting here looking at the QT that I only use as an emergency/observation tank before transferring fish to another tank for treatment wondering what I can do with it since I keep it running 24/7/365 just in case. It's as basic as you can get, a 10gal tank ($1 per gal Petco tank sale) a Fluval 30 HOB filter, a small 100w preset heater and some PVC fittings.
I started looking around online to see if anyone has been successful breeding Amphipods and was disappointed in the few articles I found of people trying it without any updates on how it turned out. I will make every attempt to not let this be one of those trials.
Heres what I think I know:
Pods prefer relatively low flow areas (which is why they don't typically do well in high flow sump refugiums).
Pods tend to hide under rocks, in cracks and crevices where flow in minimal and food settles.
Pods will reproduce readily and are fairly hardy and can do well in less than ideal parameters.
Pods are quite nutritious and awesome for live fish food.
I saw some cool ideas that I'm going to try out. I like the idea of the mesh shower pouf as a sort of artificial Chaeto as well as the (possibly patented) "Pod trailer park" made out of plastic sign board that I may or may not have over designed. My plan is to get a starter culture and get them going. I'll wait about 45-60 days before harvesting any for the DT or Fuge. There are 2 reasons for this. One, I've read that pods need time to settle before readily breeding (unsure if this is fact). Two, because I QT everything that goes into my tank I want to be sure the water that the pods arrive in is free from common disease by being fallow for 6ish weeks. I also feel that if I'm culturing food for my fish that I will not cheap out on the food I feed the Pods. I bought some Cobalt Marine flakes a while back that my fish don't care for so I will use that for feeding not so finicky Amphipods every couple days.
I will get some pictures up shortly and update every couple weeks and I see any progression.
I started looking around online to see if anyone has been successful breeding Amphipods and was disappointed in the few articles I found of people trying it without any updates on how it turned out. I will make every attempt to not let this be one of those trials.
Heres what I think I know:
Pods prefer relatively low flow areas (which is why they don't typically do well in high flow sump refugiums).
Pods tend to hide under rocks, in cracks and crevices where flow in minimal and food settles.
Pods will reproduce readily and are fairly hardy and can do well in less than ideal parameters.
Pods are quite nutritious and awesome for live fish food.
I saw some cool ideas that I'm going to try out. I like the idea of the mesh shower pouf as a sort of artificial Chaeto as well as the (possibly patented) "Pod trailer park" made out of plastic sign board that I may or may not have over designed. My plan is to get a starter culture and get them going. I'll wait about 45-60 days before harvesting any for the DT or Fuge. There are 2 reasons for this. One, I've read that pods need time to settle before readily breeding (unsure if this is fact). Two, because I QT everything that goes into my tank I want to be sure the water that the pods arrive in is free from common disease by being fallow for 6ish weeks. I also feel that if I'm culturing food for my fish that I will not cheap out on the food I feed the Pods. I bought some Cobalt Marine flakes a while back that my fish don't care for so I will use that for feeding not so finicky Amphipods every couple days.
I will get some pictures up shortly and update every couple weeks and I see any progression.
