Can amphipods and copepods be raised together? Starting a pod farm for my mandarin

[Duane Clark]

I have a pod farm set up and ready to go. I have not found anything that specifically states I cant breed both copepods and amphipods in the same container. I will be feeding the culture phyto and can add spurilina for the amphipods. My question is, will the amphipods prey on the copepods thus negating any progress I will make? Container is a little over 5 gallons.

 

[Big G]

Great question. Following

 

[Daniel@R2R]

@reefsquad Anybody got experience breeding both of these together?

 

[Reef Nutrition]

If well-fed, and adequate habitat is provided, they can co-exist. With that being said, I've seen systems where both animals were added, and weeks later, all that was left was amphipods. Here is a paper on an amphipod that eats copepods:http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/93/m093p205.pdf

 

[Duane Clark]

I have decided to try it. worst that can happen is I have to start over. I will report back in a few weeks.

Thanks for the article. cant wait to read it.

 

[Finhead]

I have a pod farm set up and ready to go. I have not found anything that specifically states I cant breed both copepods and amphipods in the same container. I will be feeding the culture phyto and can add spurilina for the amphipods. My question is, will the amphipods prey on the copepods thus negating any progress I will make? Container is a little over 5 gallons.

I have no help for you , but would be interested in hearing about your setup and or seeing pics.

 

[3mm3]

I have a pod farm set up and ready to go. I have not found anything that specifically states I cant breed both copepods and amphipods in the same container. I will be feeding the culture phyto and can add spurilina for the amphipods. My question is, will the amphipods prey on the copepods thus negating any progress I will make? Container is a little over 5 gallons.

Definitely food for thought!
I was just admiring my algae reactor yesterday and I can tell you it's teaming with both.

 

[mmw64]

I have a pod farm set up and ready to go. I have not found anything that specifically states I cant breed both copepods and amphipods in the same container. I will be feeding the culture phyto and can add spurilina for the amphipods. My question is, will the amphipods prey on the copepods thus negating any progress I will make? Container is a little over 5 gallons.

Would love more info on how you are setting this "farm" up.

 

[Duane Clark]

Well it's a work in progress at the moment. The build is really simple. Maybe too simple but the container is a clear plastic storage container from Walmart that I drilled holes into the top so I could keep it covered but still allow for gas exchange. I have 5 gallons of water with about 2 inches left at the top. I purchased a small five gallon air pump and hooked it up to an airstone zip tied to a piece of dry rock. I have introduced half a 16 oz of Tisbee pods from algae barn (about 3000 pods) as well as 100 amphipods from another ebay vendor. I poured 8 oz of phyto into the container and half a teaspoon of powdered spirulina. salinity is 1.025 and temp is 78 degrees. Now I am just waiting. I will have to thin my chaeto reactor in about a week so I will put some of the chaeto in the farm as well. I plan on adding more phyto for the Tisbees and some fish food for the amphipods as the water clears (its a fluorescent green at the moment). I will harvest the pods by draining a gallon of water out every week or two into a 200 micron sock. Then add more fresh saltwater (that way I accomplish a water change at the same time). If anyone has any suggestions or corrections to my plan...please let me know. I'm kind of winging it.

 

[Forsaken77]

I have a pod farm set up and ready to go. I have not found anything that specifically states I cant breed both copepods and amphipods in the same container. I will be feeding the culture phyto and can add spurilina for the amphipods. My question is, will the amphipods prey on the copepods thus negating any progress I will make? Container is a little over 5 gallons.

I know I have read that amphipods will eat copepods. I just don't recall if it was a certain species of either, or in general.

 

[kdc]

I’m interested in how this works out too, please keep us updated.

 

[Forsaken77]

Well it's a work in progress at the moment. The build is really simple. Maybe too simple but the container is a clear plastic storage container from Walmart that I drilled holes into the top so I could keep it covered but still allow for gas exchange. I have 5 gallons of water with about 2 inches left at the top. I purchased a small five gallon air pump and hooked it up to an airstone zip tied to a piece of dry rock. I have introduced half a 16 oz of Tisbee pods from algae barn (about 3000 pods) as well as 100 amphipods from another ebay vendor. I poured 8 oz of phyto into the container and half a teaspoon of powdered spirulina. salinity is 1.025 and temp is 78 degrees. Now I am just waiting. I will have to thin my chaeto reactor in about a week so I will put some of the chaeto in the farm as well. I plan on adding more phyto for the Tisbees and some fish food for the amphipods as the water clears (its a fluorescent green at the moment). I will harvest the pods by draining a gallon of water out every week or two into a 200 micron sock. Then add more fresh saltwater (that way I accomplish a water change at the same time). If anyone has any suggestions or corrections to my plan...please let me know. I'm kind of winging it.

Don't forget to put a check valve on that airline . I also read about breeding pods, because I was going to at one point, and it said to have larger air bubbles (like just the end of the air hose without a stone on it), and have them come out very slowly. I believe it said to use one of those adjustable air flow valves to have just around 5 bubbles per minute. This didn't include any info about breeding amphipods, but I figured I'll just throw it out there about what I learned.

 

[Duane Clark]

Don't forget to put a check valve on that airline . I also read about breeding pods, because I was going to at one point, and it said to have larger air bubbles (like just the end of the air hose without a stone on it), and have them come out very slowly. I believe it said to use one of those adjustable air flow valves to have just around 5 bubbles per minute. This didn't include any info about breeding amphipods, but I figured I'll just throw it out there about what I learned.

Good points. I am actually planning on picking up a flow valve today to turn the flow down a bit. I will keep the airstone but turn the flow way down. kind of a funny story...when I first added the spirulina powder the airstone acted like a skimmer and foamed the entire container . I had to remove the skimmate before it overflowed the container.

 

[klp]

Has anyone ever used only amphipods for Mandarins? The amphipods get fairly large compared to copepods and I wondered what size would be too big.

 

[Duane Clark]

Has anyone ever used only amphipods for Mandarins? The amphipods get fairly large compared to copepods and I wondered what size would be too big.

This is anecdotal but I had a healthy amphipod pop in my tank before I added my mandarin. they were crawling all over the rocks but in two days they were gone. I suppose it could have also been my fire fish goby but who knows?

 

[sfin52]

Paul b has diy mandarin feeders. I believe he used baby brine shrimp.