Copepod question

[Drewpy]

I have a 10 gal waterbox. It has an all-in-one back with 3 compartments. One houses my filter floss and purigen. The next chamber is my protein skimmer. The last one has my return pump and heater. I just ordered 3,000 live copepods. I’m wondering which compartment would be the best to house my copepod colony. I want them to be self sustaining and I’m worried that if I put them in the main system, they’ll be eaten before they can established. The tank is lightly stocked but I’m hoping to add a Mandarin soon. There’s 12 pounds of live rock, will it provide enough shelter for the little guys to get going or do I need to think of a new strategy?

Acclimating blue light picture included.

 

[theMeat]

Hey
Would put them directly in tank when the lights on and filter off. After a half hour or so put pump back on.

 

[Fishy212]

I usually always time my additions to the tank. I turn off all the lights and power heads to allow them to get to their hiding spots. Also the fish won’t destroy them. You will probably have better luck transforming one of your chambers into a refugium with chateo to give them a place to live and populate. I’ve heard of people using a loofa and let them populate in it and periodically release them into the display. Hope this helps! Good luck!

 

[theMeat]

I usually always time my additions to the tank. I turn off all the lights and power heads to allow them to get to their hiding spots. Also the fish won’t destroy them. You will probably have better luck transforming one of your chambers into a refugium with chateo to give them a place to live and populate. I’ve heard of people using a loofa and let them populate in it and periodically release them into the display. Hope this helps! Good luck!

Lights off can work too. Just figure with lights on they will seek shelter faster. Pods will live and breed wherever. Rock work in tank is paradise. Having a fuge gets them away from feeding mouths is all. So depends on what/how many you have that eat them.
Would also think you’d want to introduce new pods every year or two to introduce new dna and keep reproduction up. With same pods from same place and no new dna breeding will suffer

 

[Drewpy]

Lights off can work too. Just figure with lights on they will seek shelter faster. Pods will live and breed wherever. Rock work in tank is paradise. Having a fuge gets them away from feeding mouths is all. So depends on what/how many you have that eat them.
Would also think you’d want to introduce new pods every year or two to introduce new dna and keep reproduction up. With same pods from same place and no new dna breeding will suffer

I’ve never thought about the genetics of the population before. I suppose it makes sense that they’d run into a bottle neck scenario without new individuals added. I’ll be sure to do that. Thanks for the answer!

 

[Terry Mattson]

I have a 93 gallon system set up as a reef. Lots of rock, refugium etc. I have a mandarin and the fish decimated a tank full of pods. So I grow my own pods and place in tank every 10 days. If you are going to keep a mandarin you will likely need to add pods quite often. There are mandarins that are tank bread and will eat prepared fish food. If I had a small tank would look into that.

 

[theMeat]

I have a 93 gallon system set up as a reef. Lots of rock, refugium etc. I have a mandarin and the fish decimated a tank full of pods. So I grow my own pods and place in tank every 10 days. If you are going to keep a mandarin you will likely need to add pods quite often. There are mandarins that are tank bread and will eat prepared fish food. If I had a small tank would look into that.

Would think you need 100g per mandarin, or 50g with a 10g low flow fuge per

 

[HTXReefer]

I agree you should put the pods directly in the DT. However adding a mandarin to the system would wipe out any pod population relatively quickly. With only 12 pounds of rock I don’t think you could keep a pod population large enough for a mandarin. I would think you would need to add pods to the tank every couple of weeks to sustain the mandarin or try to train it to eat other food sources

 

[Reefasaurus X]

I agree you should put the pods directly in the DT. However adding a mandarin to the system would wipe out any pod population relatively quickly. With only 12 pounds of rock I don’t think you could keep a pod population large enough for a mandarin. I would think you would need to add pods to the tank every couple of weeks to sustain the mandarin or try to train it to eat other food sources

I’ve had a Mandarin for about five years in my 80 gallon tank with a 20 gallon sump. Early on I trained him to eat frozen brine shrimp. But if I don’t feed a lot and make sure and find him and shower him with frozen Brine, he gets pretty skinny. So I add copepods n amphipods to my small chaeto refugium once a month to keep the population up. He eats the frozen stuff but is slow at it, so the other fish beat him to most of it.

 

[Terry Mattson]

Good excuse to get bigger tank, sump and set up refugium.

 

[Terry Mattson]

I grow pods and phytoplankton using the Poseidon reef system. In saves money. Buying pods over and over is costly.

 

[Eleni18]

Ten gallons is no way enough for a mandarin

 

[Terry Mattson]

I do agree with Elini18. Mandarins are somewhat an expert fish to keep. They need pods and a lot of rock to graze on. The one I have is captured. So I am religiously providing pods. The tank is 73 gallion. Sump 19 gallons. Have a refugium. Likely 75 to 90 pounds of live rock. Corals. It is doing great. Was small and now grown up. But, my next one will likely be from a tank bred supplier that feeds on pods and prepared foods. With that said, research keeping mandarins, and tank bred ones. I live my mandarin. One of 9 fish in my reef tank. My tank was literally wall to glass in pods. At night it was amazing. He ate most of them. Even the refugium population does not keep up. So I grow my own pods.