Is there a limit to copepod per tank?

[dandoozled]

I would like to house a mandarin in my 13.5g tank one day, I’ve seena thread somewhere that a guy successfully kept one in a 10g for over a decade! I know for a fact I won’t be able to just naturally produce a good amount of copepods to sustain one. I noticed a few weeks back (my tank is only 2 months old) that I have a lot more pods on the tank’s glass, so I added a pack of tisbe pods to the system, which the LFS told me should take around 2 weeks for them to start reproducing. If I add like 10 of these pod packages, and then continuously add one per month or something like that... would I be able to have enough pods for a mandarin to live? And is there a maximum limit to how many pods my tank can produce? I have over 15-20lb of live rock, and am also using live sand. This just had me thinking, because it’s definitely a fish I’d love to have in my reef some day.

 

[dandoozled]

so nobody knows?.. lol

 

[dbjonesjr]

The answer to your question is that there isn’t a set rule of thumb. There are people who can keep them successfully in 10 gallon tanks, and some who can’t keep them in 180 gallon tanks even with supplementary pod populations. You really can’t tell if it’s enough until you surpass the six month mark and is also fish dependent. To answer your other question, there is a limit as to what your tank can sustain in regards to pod population. Pod population is mainly dependent on nutrients in your tank that grow food sources for pods to feed on). However, there is a careful balance between nutrient import and export, and you certainly don’t want a large algae bloom due to over feeding.

 

[Billldg]

If in fact you want to keep a mandarin in a 13.5 gal tank then I would suggest getting a monthly subscription to a pod dealer, that way they r always coming in. My pink streaked wrasse constantly destroys my pod population, thankfully I have 10000 pods shipped every 2 months automatically.