Culturing pods

Brandon42 · Mar 29, 2017

so iv recently created a sorta mini fish room out of a walk in closet in my house (finally got the okay from my wife lol). Iv got a tank that will soon be my new qt tank and have been really interested in culturing pods in the fish room as well. Iv got a pretty good idea of how to do this after some research but am looking for other people's experiences with doing this. Is it worth it? My tank is a a little over a year old, 125 gallon mixed reef with a decent amount of coral and fish including a mandrain. Is there such a thing as too much pods? What benefits are there to doing this? I know I want a diverse species and if I'm dumping loads in the tank is this enough to support fish and drastically cut down feeding of flake and pellet food? Any input is appreciated my plan is to culture phytoplankton in gallon glass jars and the pods in a 5 gallon water jug for easy pouring into a filter sock. Could possible drill a spout or something at the bottom if this is something that would work?

nervousmonkey · Mar 29, 2017

I culture pods for my mandarins and it's definitely worth it. No, way more than just definite, I don't know what I did before this...

Equipment Step 1: Buy this plankton reactor from Aqua Medic through BRS, linked here:
Equipment Step 2: Buy an air pump capable of pumping against a little pressure; Aqua Medic recommends their pump, linked here:

Setup Steps 1-3:
1. Mix up fresh saltwater, make sure it's well mixed (I let it mix with a pump for about 12 hours minimum)
2. Buy a bag of freshly hatched copepods from nauplii to full grown from Algae Barn, linked here (buy one get one free for new customer email address)
3. Buy some Reef Nutrition Phyto Feast live phytoplankton that is concentrated, linked here, or you can buy live phyto from Algae Barn as well and get free shipping, linked here.

Instructions for culturing:
1. Mount the phytoplankton reactor-turned-copepod-reactor vertically on a wall, or some surface; the reactor comes with all mounting tools needed, screws, brackets, etc.
2. Attach the air pump to the side of the air injection port of the line. The other side is the check valve you'll open to get your pods out.
3. Fill the reactor about 1/2 to 2/3 full of room temperature fresh mixed saltwater. No warmer than room temp though, so just let the saltwater sit in a bucket in the same room you will be culturing pods in for 12 hours at most.
4. Turn on the air pump, doesn't need a lot of air, so don't blast it, it's mostly to keep the pods suspended and for circulation.
5. Pour your pods in the top of the reactor
6. Add the rest of your saltwater to the top, but leave about 2" so you can add the live phyto
At this point, you should have a clear mixture of water and pods that you may see some of, but the nauplii will be hard to see. They are there though.
7. Now add the live phytoplankton since that's what the pods eat, making sure not to add so much that the pods can't consume all of it and it starts to go bad. The way I tell is if I can shine a flashlight through the reactor and see pods in the water.
8. Wait a week, 3 days, 2 weeks, however long you want, the longer you wait the more pods you'll have. If you left them there long enough, the pods would eat all the phytoplankton and you'd have clear liquid again, but with millions (literally) of pods.

Once you decide you want to add some pods to the tank, get a cup, put it under the check valve, open it slowly and fill the cup about half full and close the valve. You don't need to worry about turning off the air pump; Aqua Medic designed it on purpose to help mix and push the fluid from the reactor into the cup or container you are using.

Now the awesome part starts! Take a look inside your cup and you will see thousands of pods swimming around. No kidding. I was shocked when I looked the first time. Pour in your tank and just keep going. Only thing you need to buy is live phytoplankton and you'll be set for life literally, unless your culture goes bad. Endless supply of thousands of pods every time you open that check valve. If you wanted, you could buy a phytoplankton reactor and culture phyto, then all you'd need is something like sugar for the phyto.

This will be one of the coolest things you will do for your tank, and your mandarin will go from dragonet to dragon in no time. :D:D:D

PM me if you want more details, I am super happy to share how to set this up. I've literally never had as fat and healthy mandarins and ruby reds and scooters, clean rocks from pods eating algae off, etc.

Good luck with whatever you decide @Brandon42 !!! I highly recommend doing this, it is incredibly worth every penny.

Cheers!

Lloyd

Brandon42 · Mar 29, 2017

nervousmonkey said:
I culture pods for my mandarins and it's definitely worth it. No, way more than just definite, I don't know what I did before this...

Equipment Step 1: Buy this plankton reactor from Aqua Medic through BRS, linked here:
Equipment Step 2: Buy an air pump capable of pumping against a little pressure; Aqua Medic recommends their pump, linked here:

Setup Steps 1-3:
1. Mix up fresh saltwater, make sure it's well mixed (I let it mix with a pump for about 12 hours minimum)
2. Buy a bag of freshly hatched copepods from nauplii to full grown from Algae Barn, linked here (buy one get one free for new customer email address)
3. Buy some Reef Nutrition Phyto Feast live phytoplankton that is concentrated, linked here, or you can buy live phyto from Algae Barn as well and get free shipping, linked here.

Instructions for culturing:
1. Mount the phytoplankton reactor-turned-copepod-reactor vertically on a wall, or some surface; the reactor comes with all mounting tools needed, screws, brackets, etc.
2. Attach the air pump to the side of the air injection port of the line. The other side is the check valve you'll open to get your pods out.
3. Fill the reactor about 1/2 to 2/3 full of room temperature fresh mixed saltwater. No warmer than room temp though, so just let the saltwater sit in a bucket in the same room you will be culturing pods in for 12 hours at most.
4. Turn on the air pump, doesn't need a lot of air, so don't blast it, it's mostly to keep the pods suspended and for circulation.
5. Pour your pods in the top of the reactor
6. Add the rest of your saltwater to the top, but leave about 2" so you can add the live phyto
At this point, you should have a clear mixture of water and pods that you may see some of, but the nauplii will be hard to see. They are there though.
7. Now add the live phytoplankton since that's what the pods eat, making sure not to add so much that the pods can't consume all of it and it starts to go bad. The way I tell is if I can shine a flashlight through the reactor and see pods in the water.
8. Wait a week, 3 days, 2 weeks, however long you want, the longer you wait the more pods you'll have. If you left them there long enough, the pods would eat all the phytoplankton and you'd have clear liquid again, but with millions (literally) of pods.

Once you decide you want to add some pods to the tank, get a cup, put it under the check valve, open it slowly and fill the cup about half full and close the valve. You don't need to worry about turning off the air pump; Aqua Medic designed it on purpose to help mix and push the fluid from the reactor into the cup or container you are using.

Now the awesome part starts! Take a look inside your cup and you will see thousands of pods swimming around. No kidding. I was shocked when I looked the first time. Pour in your tank and just keep going. Only thing you need to buy is live phytoplankton and you'll be set for life literally, unless your culture goes bad. Endless supply of thousands of pods every time you open that check valve. If you wanted, you could buy a phytoplankton reactor and culture phyto, then all you'd need is something like sugar for the phyto.

This will be one of the coolest things you will do for your tank, and your mandarin will go from dragonet to dragon in no time. :D:D:D

PM me if you want more details, I am super happy to share how to set this up. I've literally never had as fat and healthy mandarins and ruby reds and scooters, clean rocks from pods eating algae off, etc.

Good luck with whatever you decide @Brandon42 !!! I highly recommend doing this, it is incredibly worth every penny.

Cheers!

Lloyd

This is awesome! Thank you! And with that reactor it will keep my very small fish room stay spacious lol!! I was already planning on getting both the pods and phyto through algae barn, iv heard a lot of good things about them. The ocean magic phyto comes with the combo I was looking at, I believe this is live. The plan is to culture that as well. And hopefully keep the population booming. Iv had my mandarin for about 6-8 months, she's healthy but by far my favorite fish so important to keep her happy! I'll fill you in when I start setting this up! Thanks again!

nervousmonkey · Mar 29, 2017

Yeah, the special they have running is 5280 pods and ocean magic phyto as a package, and they give the second one for free. You won't see the free discounted part until checkout so don't be worried, it won't cost as much as you think. :eek: And yep, both are live. If I did it over again, I would add more of the free package of pods to the culture and not to my DT, but that's just me....

Please keep us all posted Brandon! You will have a lot of fun doing this as well as simply growing your own pods. It's super cool, never thought I would be able to culture copepods until I tried with the phyto reactor and it worked. Still can't believe it. as a matter of fact, I think it's feeding time. :p

Brandon42 · Apr 13, 2017

nervousmonkey said:
Yeah, the special they have running is 5280 pods and ocean magic phyto as a package, and they give the second one for free. You won't see the free discounted part until checkout so don't be worried, it won't cost as much as you think. :eek: And yep, both are live. If I did it over again, I would add more of the free package of pods to the culture and not to my DT, but that's just me....

Please keep us all posted Brandon! You will have a lot of fun doing this as well as simply growing your own pods. It's super cool, never thought I would be able to culture copepods until I tried with the phyto reactor and it worked. Still can't believe it. as a matter of fact, I think it's feeding time. :p

So it took a little longer than expected to get everything set up and I went with a diy version rather than buying the ones off brs. Ordered pods and ocean magik phyto from @AlgaeBarn, they should be here tomorrow. Here's a pic of my set up so far.