Growing copopods in a Media reactor?

[nooks]

Hi this my first time trying I am trying to to get a massive population of copopods in my 75 gallon for a future Mandarin Dragonnet the tank is 2 months old and so far just has a pair of clownfish in it. My sump is only a 2 compartment and didn't have room for a refugium so I went and bought two little fishies phosban reactor 150 add some small pieces of rock that were from the main display. So far I have added Tisbe and Tigger pods it's been maybe 5 days and whenever I look at reactor I see maybe 1 or 2 pods not to sure if they just all in the rocks or sponges. My questions first is a small reactor enough as a safe haven to grow enough pods. Secondly I have a good population already of amphipods at night and one got into the reactor from rocks I'm guessing will it impact the population. Lastly the sponges they come with can they hinder copopods movement the reactor came with 2 installed at the bottom, the sponges dont look fine enough to stop movement I have photos of them for reference.

 

[Nor'easter Reefer]

Interesting... following

 

[nooks]

Bump

 

[Tamberav]

Pod numbers will always stabilize to the food that is available to them regardless of how many you add.

A cheato reactor may work better instead of rubble.

Macro algae in the display works very well too but limits you on certain herbavior fish or urchins etc.

 

[nooks]

Pod numbers will always stabilize to the food that is available to them regardless of how many you add.

A cheato reactor may work better instead of rubble.

Macro algae in the display works very well too but limits you on certain herbavior fish or urchins etc.

I could do cheato only thing I was worried about is light spilling into the sump causing unwanted growth. If I were to add cheato I would wrap the reactor in led strip and just zip tie them. So you think it would be fine just like this and no worry about light spilling ?

 

[Tamberav]

I could do cheato only thing I was worried about is light spilling into the sump causing unwanted growth. If I were to add cheato I would wrap the reactor in led strip and just zip tie them. So you think it would be fine just like this and no worry about light spilling ?

It may spill some, not sure if you have room to put something between it and the sump.

 

[PotatoPig]

My comments from the peanut gallery:

1. There’s a very low chance tigger pods will colonize your tank. They just don’t do well in reef tanks for a myriad reasons - mostly temperatures are too high for them and they get heavily predated on. Also, because they swim in the water column rather than hang out on rocks your mandarin won’t come across them much. View them as live food for your clowns.

2. Tisbe will colonize, but you will never see them just casually looking. You’ll need to turn power heads down, room lights off, then wait a while, then light up a pane of glass from the side with a flashlight and then look at that pane from the front, and then in various locations you’ll see tiny critters. Also expect them to take a few weeks/months to take off once your tank has matured some.

3. As you add snails, crabs, corals, etc you’ll get random wild pods. Many of these will colonize.

4. I second @Tamberav that a chaeto reactor will be a better option. Or just a pile of rubble in a sump compartment. Or just a decent amount of rockwork in the DT - don’t go for a “negative space” scape.

5. I personally wouldn’t worry about light spillage in the sump. Worst case is you get some algae down there, where nobody can see it. Add some snails and call it a day. :)

/I have a mandarin in a 75g, once your tank is a bit more mature and you have life on all your rockwork it’ll probably be fine.

 

[nooks]

Okay I'll look to add some cheato to it. I also read people say tisbe over Tigger. Last are apocyclops pods good to add I want as much diversity as possible. Do they also have higher chance in populating like the tisbe. Or is it just going to end up with one dominant species most likely tisbe at the end