Culturing Copepod/Phyto overkill?

dwair

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So I'm nearly ready to start up my next tank, been out for over a year. Financials during covid hurt, so I had to tear down my tank. Been in reefing for about 10 years now off and on. Wanted to do something different this time around, so I'm going with less mechanical filtration and doing a fuge/biospheres, filter sock, and maybe carbon(chemi pure) if I need it. Otherwise thats it. The fuge will be miracle mud in the bottom with some rock (will be dry rock to begin with) and chaeto with a Tunze Chic Fuge Light. I'm wanting a mandarian, had one in the past but didn't have the copepods to sustain it. The coral will be mixed reef (mostly softies LPS, zoas)

So I've thought about doing something that always interested me but never actually done it and thats to culture my own phyto and then in turn culture copepods to feed the tank. I'm doing alot of research and it seems fairly straightforward. I'm retired, so keeping up with this will actually keep me somewhat busy and out of the DT (I have a problem, I like to mess with my tank all the time, usually isn't an issue).

My question is, is this overkill for 1 mandarian? Its a Cade 600 S2 tank so 24" cube basically with a little 13.5g sump. I know the phyto will be beneficial for the tank overall and help the chaeto, so not worried really about it. But am I going to be culturing to many pods that my tank won't consume?

My other livestock list will be a carpenter's wrasse, a helfriichi firefish(or exquisite, depends on pricing). Green Mandrian. And possibly a school (6) chromis, or 3 barlett's anthias. Haven't decided on that yet as I think the tank is possibly to small for the anthias, but the chromis would work fine.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance.
 

G Santana

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I currently have a phyto culture and a tigger pod culture and it's not as difficult as I thought it would be. I also have a brineshrimp hatchery to supplement my mandarin.
This is also my first shot at this endeavor and as long as you sterilize everything that comes in contact with your cultures you should be fine.
Good luck!!!
 
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dwair

dwair

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I currently have a phyto culture and a tigger pod culture and it's not as difficult as I thought it would be. I also have a brineshrimp hatchery to supplement my mandarin.
This is also my first shot at this endeavor and as long as you sterilize everything that comes in contact with your cultures you should be fine.
Good luck!!!
Yea I plan on doing that. I'm excited as its an area of the hobby I haven't done yet.
 

Jay'sReefBugs

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Your retired so you got time . It's simple to start out with basically just feeding phyto to copepods. Then you can move to the advanced stages feeding copepods more meaty type foods . Start with a 1 gallon culture and see how you like . Invest in a micro scope as well it's crazy how much life we can't see with the naked eye
 

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