pepper89
Community Member
I am planning on setting up a copepod/phytoplankton setup with my refugium to sort of keep all my tanks (display/refugium/quarantine for now) seeded nicely since I do plan on having a dragonette. What I plan on having is 2 ongoing setups for both phyto and copepods, and just regularly harvesting every other one at a time. Though, I guess my question is, how much of each should I be doing? Plus, what sort of schedule should I be looking at? I think I have an understanding, but I haven't ever done a saltwater tank, def my first time doing things like pods, so just sort of need someone to tell me if I have it right, or where I go off the rails LOL.
I have 4 containers right now that hold 16 cups (1 gallon or 4.26 liters), but not sure if I should be doing more or less of the phyto compared to the copepods since I will have to harvest it more often. If what I was reading was correct, I should be harvesting my phyto every week to ten days, whereas copepods could take up to a month. I was planning on offsetting these, so one phyto I would harvest on Saturday, and the other phyto I was going to harvest on Wedsdays type pattern, taking about 2/3s each time. Then every 3rd or 4th harvest I was going to alternate between completely draining the containers and using about 1/3 of the other to seed it. (so about once a month for each container). Doing something similar with the copepods, but more every other week harvesting them, and every two or three months they would be fully cleaned and seeded. I would just basically wipe them out, and then dip them in some 90-proof rubbing alcohol and let them dry fully before refilling, just to keep any bacteria out and get the waste out of the small corners.
Though, would I end up with way too much phyto this way? At first, I bought about half this size of container for the phyto specifically, thinking that I would need smaller cultures of those since I was harvesting more often, though, the more videos I see, the more people seem to be using larger containers for the phyto or seem to have a lot of cultures going in comparison to their copepods. So then I wasn't sure and ended up buying more of the larger ones.
I have 4 containers right now that hold 16 cups (1 gallon or 4.26 liters), but not sure if I should be doing more or less of the phyto compared to the copepods since I will have to harvest it more often. If what I was reading was correct, I should be harvesting my phyto every week to ten days, whereas copepods could take up to a month. I was planning on offsetting these, so one phyto I would harvest on Saturday, and the other phyto I was going to harvest on Wedsdays type pattern, taking about 2/3s each time. Then every 3rd or 4th harvest I was going to alternate between completely draining the containers and using about 1/3 of the other to seed it. (so about once a month for each container). Doing something similar with the copepods, but more every other week harvesting them, and every two or three months they would be fully cleaned and seeded. I would just basically wipe them out, and then dip them in some 90-proof rubbing alcohol and let them dry fully before refilling, just to keep any bacteria out and get the waste out of the small corners.
Though, would I end up with way too much phyto this way? At first, I bought about half this size of container for the phyto specifically, thinking that I would need smaller cultures of those since I was harvesting more often, though, the more videos I see, the more people seem to be using larger containers for the phyto or seem to have a lot of cultures going in comparison to their copepods. So then I wasn't sure and ended up buying more of the larger ones.
