Can a Brine Shrimp hatchery be repurposed for Copepods?

[Starganderfish]

I'm looking into starting to culture some live foods for my two small (4 gal and 20 gal) tanks.
I like the idea of the small hanging "brine shrimp hatcheries" as flat bench /table space is at a premium.
Would it be feasible to use (or even DIY) two of these hatcheries, one for brine and use the second for copepods?
1) The Brine Shrimp hatchery seems self-explanatory - add decapsulated eggs, circulate air, after hatching let the shrimp mature and add a little "Phytopaste" to enrich them, then siphon off the shrimp and feed to tanks. When harvesting, live brine head for the light at the bottom and can be siphoned out, sieved with a filter and added to tank while fresh water and new eggs are added to the hatchery. A new culture every 36-48 hours seems like the rough time frame?
2) Is there any reason this equip wouldn't also work for the copepods? Fill hatchery with SW, add Copepods culture, connect air-hose, add some Phyto paste and let Copepods breed. Periodically either siphon some pods out from the bottom or scoop some out from the top, add more Phyto and water as needed. Hanging would save bench space, and the ability to easily siphon some water out of the bottom would allow for easier water changes and maintenance. The blackout on the container looks like a vinyl sticker which could hopefully be peeled off to allow more visibility into the Copepod hatchery, but otherwise, it should be pretty much plug-and-play?
(Worth noting that I'm in Aust so having to source local equivalents of stuff.)
Is this feasible, and practical, or am I missing something obvious here?

 

[Coralsdaily]

I’d imagine yes, assuming you are also culturing phytoplankton separately?

 

[Starganderfish]

I’d imagine yes, assuming you are also culturing phytoplankton separately?

Thinking to use concentrated phyto paste from a local supplier. Its a bit pricey, 100g for about $40, but it contains 4 separate species. Dried Spirulina is a much cheaper option of course but this seems more nutritious and given the small culture size and my small tank sizes, one tube should last me for months.

I will squeeze it out into some of the empty plastic trays from frozen fish foods and freeze it, so I can defrost a single cube at a time.

Some of each cube will go to feed the pod culture, some will go to enrich the brine shrimp and some will be diluted and added to the tank as a general food for corals, inverts and the tank microfauna. I don't think I need the phyto to be fresh/viable if it's being used primarily as food?
I figure this setup should give me plenty of live food for my livestock and enable me to keep up with the dietary needs of the mandarin in my tank.

 

[Jay'sReefBugs]

I mean you can try it but I think it's just to small in my opinion. Ammonia build up would happen incredibly fast

 

[Starganderfish]

I mean you can try it but I think it's just to small in my opinion. Ammonia build up would happen incredibly fast

Interesting thought.
I'm only running small tanks (20 gal and 4 gal) so I don't need to culture huge quantities. I'd be hoping to establish some level of pod culture in the tanks themselves and the external culture is to top up this population or boost levels in-tank to compensate for consumption.
The hatchery holds a litre and I see plenty of folks culturing pods in mason jar's and empty water bottles.
Would adding some live rock and/or maybe chaeto to the hatchery help by providing some bacteria to cycle the ammonia and some algae to consume the nitrates? The regular addition of phyto would also help some with waste. Maybe add a mesh bag with some bio-media like Seachem Matrix to the pod hatchery...

My thought is that I'd be regularly harvesting pods to feed the tanks by draining water, sieving out the pods and topping the hatchery up with fresh water. This would result in regular water changes to the system. If things started to get too rank, it seems easy enough to drain the hatchery through a sieve so live pods are harvested, put those pods in a temporary container of clean saltwater while the hatchery is cleaned and then the pods would be returned to the clean hatchery with clean water. So I might be doing the equivalent of a 10% water change or more, once or twice a week and I could do a 100% water change and quick rinse of the hatchery once a month. Rinse it and the bag of media out with saltwater and it should retain live bacteria pop'n, as long as I'm reasonably prompt in the cleaning.
Or is the ammonia build-up likely to be significantly higher than I'm thinking?

 

[plankton]

Try your ideas out and you will learn very quickly what works and what doesn’t. Pay attention to cross contamination!

 

[DopamineKata]

If you want to grow pods get yourself one of the kits from Poseidon Reefs

 

[Starganderfish]

If you want to grow pods get yourself one of the kits from Poseidon Reefs

Interesting,
I'm in Aus so I don't think that kit is available here.
There's local equivalents but they're a lot of money and complexity for stuff I don't really need. I don't intend to culture my own Phyto - for the small volumes I'm working with, frozen Phyto paste sourced locally is easier and worth the price.
All the disposable tubes and culture bags in POseidons setup seem like a good way to get tied to a supplier for regular parts, when I could just as easily use standard equipment that performs the same function and just ensure I'm cleaning and maintaining properly.
By skipping the Phyto growing side of the equation, a lot of the equipment in those pre-built kits becomes unnecessary. I will take a closer look at the design and contents to see if there are any cool ideas there I can steal for my own unit though. Cheers

Try your ideas out and you will learn very quickly what works and what doesn’t. Pay attention to cross contamination!

Thanks, I'm a big fan of mucking about and trying to make stuff up for myself. Doesn't always work and often-times I end up realising that a purpose-built solution is easier to use. but it's a lot fun and I always learn a lot. There's something about the idea of the hatchery that makes me think it will be easier to maintain (easy to drain and refill for water changes, suitable to hang from the wall to keep it out of the way etc.) The small volume is probably the biggest concern for sutainability.
Can you explain what you mean by cross-contamination? My plan is to drain the hatchery through the lower airlock tube, filtering through a sieve to catch the pods. The waste water will be disposed of, the pods will be rinsed in clean saltwater and then added to my aquarium. I will not be dipping the sieve or any of the hatchery equipment in the aquarium, now transferring anything from the aquarium back into the copepod hatchery. I will only be topping up with fresh RO/DI water or doing water changes with clean saltwater. Is there another source of contamination I have to be conscious of? Appreciate any advice